Here's something for paddlers to be thankful for.Officials in Basalt, Colo. have earmarked $100,000 for a new, "moderately difficult" kayak park in the Roaring Fork River, south of Aspen.
The expenditure still needs to be approved by Pitkin County Board of Commissioners, but if they give it the green light, the park will include a kayak wave, trails along the river and a small launching area.
Perhaps best of all, the course will be designed so that a wave will form with as little as 200 cfs of water, making it a viable paddling option during Colorado's rain-starved summers. Read more about it here.
While the Basal park will be relatively small, it's the latest example of how municipalities across the country are putting money into whitewater parks, and reaping benefits from these expenditures.
The reasons why are easy to understand: whitewater parks take an existing resource, and usually with minor modifications, create a place for residents to recreate and a draw for spectators who can look on from the banks or bridges, and hopefully leave a little money behind at local businesses as they do.
"I walk into my office, look at all the other issues on my desk, and say 'Where is that kayak park proposal?'" Pitkin County Attorney John Ely, who's been spearheading the park, told the Aspen Daily News.
Take Reno, Nev. While Las Vegas is known as America's Playground, the Biggest Little City in the World has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, centered in part around the Truckee River Whitewater Park at Wingfield.
The course, which opened in the fall of 2003, comprises a tastefully modified section of the Truckee that blends in natural river rocks with man-made features. Since then, it has put a new swagger into Reno's psyche, and is the site of the annual Reno River Festival, which draws as many as 40,000 people each year.
At a cost of $1.5 million, the course rejuvenated a section of downtown that was a refuge for brown-bagging miscreants, and a riverbed that had all the allure of a sewage storm drain.
"It's amazing," says Charles Albright, a U.S. National Kayak Team member and president of the Sierra Nevada Whitewater Club who lobbied for the park's creation for years. "We told the city they'd be amazed at what would happen, and that's exactly what has happened: they can't believe it."
The same story can be told at dozens of other cities across the country.
In Golden, Colo., the Clear Creek Whitewater Course has refocused the town's attention on the river that runs through it.
"It has spurred a change in the way the buildings are oriented," says Jerry Hodgden, chairman of parks and recreation board for the City of Golden. "The businesses along the creek are putting patios for dining so you can watch kayaking as you eat."
In Vail, Colo., the Gore Creek Whitewater Course has become the centerpiece of the Teva Mountain Games, an event that boasted a total purse of over $100,000 last year, and brings millions of dollars into the Rocky Mountain hamlet annually in a matter of days.
And a small dam refurbishing project on the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas. that turned three potential hazards into play holes proved so successful city organizers have put themselves whole-heartedly behind it.
"When you look at the economic development model, people start to see that if we build it, we're going to draw," says Randle Harwood, Fort Worth's assistant director for parks and community services who gleefully notes that North Texas topography is "flat as a pancake." "They're coming from hundreds of miles away," Harwood says. "We're beginning to see how religious these kayaking folks are about their recreation."
Take Nate Brown, of Boulder, Colo.. He's spent cockpit time in parks in Boulder, Salida, Gunnison and on the St. Vrain in Lyons, Colo.
"Parks are great because they maximize the potential of the low water. Otherwise, at some point, we wouldn't have anything to paddle," says Brown. "It's kind of like how bouldering came to climbing. You can work on a single move that you wouldn't do in harder water. The risks are minimized, and plus, you don't have to deal with shuttle."
Courses have sprung up all over the Mountain West and beyond. Colorado boasts more than a dozen whitewater parks in recreation hotspots other than Vail and Golden, such as Breckenridge, Boulder, Gunnison and Steamboat Springs. Auburn, Calif., recently transformed an old proposed dam site into a whitewater park, and Charlotte, N. C. is the site of the $38 million, U.S. National Whitewater Center on the Catawba River, home to the U.S. National Team.
But some more unlikely locales across the country have also made the plunge into the whitewater park craze. Southbend, Ind., is home to the East Race Whitewater Course while Green River, Wyoming offers a course just minutes from Interstate 80, giving road-weary paddling trippers an opportunity to recharge between river destinations.
"It's beginning to become clear that when you have recreation attracting people to your town, it becomes an economic benefit," says Hodgden, from Golden's Parks and Rec Board. "We've always had an aggressive parks department, and we're always looking for unique things. I suspect we're not much different from boards in other towns."
Now, it looks like Basalt is one of those towns, too.
