Mora River Full

All the video I had of what we believe to be the 4th ever descent of this fun river in NM. Correction to the below description: apparently there is a way to get to the dilapidated bridge about 25 miles into the river, turning it into an ~35 mile long day run. This would be, by far, the preferred option. Here is some of my beta: But first, check out Luke's beta + trip report: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vRD87AZuqOYd0X62JNjcvGD8x8NeSWsx3gd_4O4NfwFjjopGEJ-ayK4TJIvTURW2_w5iIcVdYHKvNk4/pub?pli=1 The river is 64 miles (including 12 on the Canadian), if you put in at Shoemaker, NM, but the putin options here are "stealth" and "questionable". If you don't have a shuttle driver, I'd recommend finding a more legit putin in Wartous, where the river will be about 70 miles, with a low head dam below town to portage; though, more flat water isn't what this river needs. We took off at the 419 bridge over the Canadian river, and my car was happy sitting there for two days, it's no problem. Overnight is mandatory. We had what felt to be about 1600 cfs, the Mora at Golondrinas USGS gauge was ~600cfs the first day and fell to ~400cfs the second day. The Sapello river joins the Mora in Watrous, it's gauge only reads ft, but it was between 7 and 8 ft. Finally, the Coyote Creek USGS gauge was showing ~500 cfs. This felt like a medium high level, there were a few sneaky big holes, but mostly was just fun. The river was bank full at Shoemaker, and in some places the canal was overflowing an inch of water onto the road, so don't be scared of a full looking river at the putin. A bit more water would be fine, substantially more water would get big fast, and less would be fine, though some rapids which spread out may feel low, and some rock jumbles would have to be portaged. I'd call the river a genuine IV+, with say 4ish class V rapids thrown in. Anybody putting on this river should be well versed at read and run, but it won't feel difficult for a class V boater, and might be intimidating for a class IV boater. For scale, we scouted only three times. The river starts out with about 20 miles of moving flatwater, no fences to worry about, though we did appear to float over about 6, so at lower water beware. Miles 20-30 had some class III and IV rapids, but were sparse. We camped at miles 32. Campsites were plentiful, and we never went more than a few bends in the river without seeing at least one option. The canyon starts small and got bigger and bigger. On day two there were full blown big sandstone and lava walls. The scenery is good! Day two has the best whitewater, solid pool drop class IV miles 30-40, and miles 40-50 were quite a bit more continuous. This would be a sad place to swim. The last few miles had several rapids spread out through the trees, and while we always found a route, solid read and run and safety skills were necessary. The rapids are of a fun "desert" style, more river running than creeking. Class V boaters arn't missing out on some hidden gem of massive stouts, but we were smiling the whole time. This would blow the mind of a class IV+ boater in a very good way, just be sure to have excellent read and run skills. Still, this is a run you go to more for that adventure and consider the whitewater just a fun bonus! The paddle out on the Canadian is about 12 miles, had one class III+/IV- near the confluence with the Mora, and sparse surf waves after that. Nothing too exciting, but the canyon is still nice.