I live on the Colorado Front Range in Longmont and have recently gotten into canoeing. I just purchased a Bell canoe which seems like a really nice all around canoe. My wife, 5 year old son and I have been paddling around a few lakes near our home and in the mountains. This has been great but I've been wanting to start putting the canoe in rivers and doing day trips with them that are pretty chill. Ideally we'd like avoid any kind of rapids or any other situation where a capsize could be an issue. Any thoughts out there.

I spent three weeks in Longmont on a business trip and got in some great hiking on the weekends. Beautiful part of the planet. I’m jealous.

My limited experience canoeing on rivers in the Midwest is that all of the adults in the canoe need to be able to handle front position, stern, paddling solo. People do fall out of a canoe and they usually want you to be able to retrieve them. 🙃