Canyon City is next to the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River, which has a class five rapid for the adventurous. Or - you can watch it from 1,053 feet above from the Royal Gorge Bridge, a suspension bridge above the River.

In 2011, the landscape artist Christo, plans to <a href='http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/otr2.html'>install steel wire cables to serve as the attachments for 962 fabric panels</a> above the floor of the river canyon. The fabric will cover almost 7 miles of the 40.7-mile stretch of river from Canon City to Salida. This would be a pretty big disruption to the local communities and environment there. Here is a page describing <a href='http://www.roarcolorado.org/involved.html'>pretty the negative impact and cost of this project.</a>