Each year, roughly 22,000 people spend between a few days and three weeks running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The hard part is choosing your craft—rubber paddle rafts, oar-powered wooden dories, and luxury motorized rafts all ply the storied waters. The fun part? Endless rapids through endless beauty.

BE A PADDLER
The most exciting way to run the canyon's legendary big drops, rapids, riffles, and whirlpools is on a 14-day trip in an 18-foot (5.5-meter) rubber paddle raft. Before launching from the Lees Ferry put-in at river mile zero, your paddle captain will instruct your six-person crew in the fundamentals of safety, paddling, white-water swimming, and self-rescue. After your day-two plunge through a ten-mile stretch of Marble Canyon rapids known as the Roaring Twenties, you'll be ready to navigate your first big drop: river mile 77's Hance Rapid, at Upper Granite Gorge. Nothing, however, will prepare you for the stomach-churning view of Crystal Rapid at river mile 98. Created in 1966, when biblical rains and flash floods lashed the North Rim with 14 inches (36 centimeters) of rain and deposited car-size boulders in the main stem of the Colorado River, Crystal Rapid is perhaps the most thrilling falls of the trip.

The rival candidate: Lava Falls, the canyon's biggest, located 81 miles (130 kilometers) farther downstream. Lava Falls pours over an infamous boat-eating ledge-hole, dropping 13 feet (33 centimeters) and creating a maelstrom of ten-foot waves. It's the last big drop before the Diamond Creek take-out at river mile 225.

Book a trip with Arizona Raft Adventures (800 786 7238, U.S. and Canada only; www.azraft.com) or contact the river permit office for a complete list of outfitters (800 959 9164; www.nps.gov/grca/river).

BE A PASSENGER
To run the river with less physical exertion (and on a tighter schedule), sign up for a six-day trip on a 37-foot (11-meter), 20-passenger motorized J-Rig. Or choose the slower but more thrilling option, a 19-day trip on a guide-powered wooden dory.

Contact Western River Expeditions (800 453 7450, U.S. and Canada only; www.westernriver.com) or Grand Canyon Dories (800 877 3679, U.S. and Canada only; www.oars.com).

BE PATIENT
Very, very patient—to secure a permit to paddle the river on your own. As of December, the park put a hold on adding new names to its 8,000-person noncommercial permit waiting list while options for improving the system are considered. (The average captain who launches in 2004 will have been on the waiting list for 12 years.)

To monitor developments, visit www.nps.gov/grca/crmp.

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From the print edition, March 2004

The Grand Canyon Tool Kit: Essential strategies for doing the canyon right
Hiking the Grand Canyon: Three ways to hoof the hole
Rafting the Grand Canyon: The best way to run the Colorado
Canyon Legends: Three unsolved mysteries
High Holy Days: Cleansing your karma on Tibet's Mount Kailas
The Adventures of Tim Cahill: Why a little bird is picking on a whale
Special Report: Wreck diving's deep frontier, on the S.S. Aleutian