<\/p>\n
The 2026 Royal Gorge Whitewater Festival has officially been cancelled.<\/p>\n
The Daily Record reached out to organizers this morning, who verified that the decision was made just hours ago because of the evacuations announced for southern Fremont County on Sunday night in relation to the Aspen Acres fire.<\/p>\n
The fire, which began on June 29, has since devoured more than 91,000 acres in Custer, Pueblo, Huerfano and Fremont counties and displaced more than 11,000 residents.<\/p>\n
At approximately 8:15 p.m. Sunday, the Fremont County Sheriff\u2019s Office issued a mandatory evacuation order for neighborhoods along Colo. 67, including Fremont County Roads 15, 103 and 100, Newlin Ridge Road, the Los Pinos subdivision and Lock Mountain Estates, and the towns of Coal Creek, Rockvale, and Williamsburg.<\/p>\n
At this time, authorities have noted that more than 180 structures have been destroyed, including 55 homes in Custer County.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy decision,\u201d said land and whitewater events coordinator and Royal Gorge RIO member Chris Moffett. \u201cBut we decided that our resources will be better used for our neighbors and friends at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fremont Community Foundation board president Dawn Schmittel went on to note that the festival relies on 250 volunteers every year \u2014 many of whom have been affected by the current evacuations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis festival can\u2019t be done without the community, and this year, we\u2019ve decided to cancel it for our community,\u201d she said. \u201cThis year, our community needs us in a different way, and it doesn\u2019t make sense to have a party in the middle of a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been one of the hardest decisions I\u2019ve ever had to make during my time on the Whitewater board,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Moffet noted that, currently, organizers are working quickly to dissolve the entirety of the festival, which was slated for July 17-18, including vendors, bands, and the large group of volunteers who were slated to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re doing what\u2019s right for our community,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the people that are affected by this are our neighbors and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Moffet and Schimttel noted that, though the 2026 festival has officially met its end, the community can and should look forward to the 2027 Whitewater Festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because this year had to be cancelled doesn\u2019t mean we won\u2019t be back next year,\u201d Schmittel said.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post on Monday afternoon, organizers encouraged those with questions to reach out to the board at\u00a0info@fcfco.org.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.canoncitydailyrecord.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2026 Royal Gorge Whitewater Festival has officially been cancelled. The Daily Record reached out to organizers this morning, who verified that the decision was made just hours ago because of the evacuations announced for southern Fremont County on Sunday night in relation to the Aspen Acres fire. The fire, which began on June 29, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2490870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[465667,23803,465668,308544,22764,21738,428668],"class_list":["post-2490869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-cau00f1on-city","tag-colorado","tag-fremont-county","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-southeast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/BREAKING-NEWS-2026-Royal-Gorge-Whitewater-Festival-cancelled-\u2013-Canon.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2490871,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490869\/revisions\/2490871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2490870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}