Fiddlehead Camp
A bench camp below the Big Drops — the last night in the canyon before the final push to the take-out.
Fiddlehead Camp sits below the Big Drops at mile 198.3, in the transition stretch of Cataract Canyon where the river loses its whitewater character and begins the slow approach toward Lake Powell. The canyon walls are still high here — Cedar Mesa Sandstone on both sides — but the river has widened and slowed compared to the constricted corridor above the rapids. This is typically the final night camp on a standard 4-day Cataract trip, before the push downstream to Gypsum Rapid and the take-out. The camp is smaller than Spanish Bottoms but is in better condition in terms of native vegetation — the tamarisk pressure is lower at this mile. Named for a landform above camp that resembles a fiddlehead fern in silhouette.