A wave of whitewater parks continues to roll into river towns like swells undulating toward a shoreline, ushering in a new era of recreation for inland communities. Like their waves, these parks come in all shapes and sizes — from big-dollar recirculating parks like RiverSports Rapids in downtown Oklahoma City and Montgomery Whitewater park in Alabama to simple, one-wave structures on downtown riverbeds. But no matter their scope, they’re revitalizing and re-energizing riverfronts into revenue-generating, recreational hotbeds.
Head downtown during runoff season in any community embracing this recreational wave and you’ll find a transformed waterfront, with surfers, kayakers, rafters and more frolicking on waves while spectators take it all in from shore. Even the fish benefit, with many parks improving riparian habitat via bank stabilization, fish passages and more.
“They’re popping up in towns with rivers all over the country,” says Mike Harvey of Recreation Engineering & Planning (REP), one of the country’s leading river park designers which just finished the new “Scout” wave in downtown Salida, Colo., which is drawing board surfers in droves. “Towns are realizing their rivers can be great for driving both recreation and revenue, and a lot of times eliminating and repurposing dangerous lowhead dams int he process.”
“These parks are really becoming the focal point of their communities,” adds Scott Shipley, a three-time slalom kayak Olympian whose firm, S2O Design and Engineering, which recently merged with Calibre Engineering of Denver, has completed park projects across the country—including recirculating parks in Oklahoma City, which will host the 2028 Olympics, and Montgomery, Ala. “They turn often otherwise seldom-used stretches of river into true recreational amenities that are fun for the whole family. And they pay for themselves through increased visitor revenue.”
While the trend is nothing new — Golden, Colorado, developed one of the first “recreation-oriented” parks in 1996 on Clear Creek of Coors beer fame — their design has improved dramatically over the years, with cutting-edge engineering and modeling creating waves normally reserved for Laguna Beach. Many parks even boast adjustable waves, letting their features be fine-tuned for everything from slalom paddling to surfing. A new park in Boise, Idaho, can be dialed-in to create waves for shortboard surfing one day and kayaking the next, with certain days reserved for each.
“It’s pretty awesome,” says Boise local Joe Carberry, an editor for surf website The Inertia. “I can go down one day on my surfboard, staying on the wave for 10 minutes at a time, and the next in my kayak, all just minutes from my home.”
River parks are also growing paddling and surfing participation in these towns, making recreational and competitive paddling both accessible and inclusive. Vail’s annual GoPro Mountain Games centers its paddlesports events entirely around a manmade feature in the village center.
“Building the river park here was the crux move in creating the Mountain Games,” says organizer Tom Boyd, whose event draws in more than 83,000 spectators and 3,000 athletes every year. “It’s the cornerstone of all the freestyle whitewater events — we couldn’t host the Games without it — and it helped everyone in town realize how important the river is here.”
Over in Buena Vista, Colorado, former pro kayaker and real estate developer Jed Selby opened his 24-room Surf Hotel a few years ago right on the banks of the Arkansas River, right at the edge of its heralded Buena Vista Whitewater Park. “The park has been a huge driver for the community,” he says. “It’s transformed the entire downtown into a pretty vibrant scene. People are coming here specifically for the river park.” And it’s only going to get better. Harvey’s REP firm is planning to upgrade a similar feature in the Buena Vista park and turn it into a board surfing wave as well.
Colorado leading the charge
Like a surfer in the key drop-in position on a wave, Colorado is at the front of the line-up in this park-building craze, with both REP and S20 calling the state home. New parks have recently opened in Eagle, Fort Collins, and Cañon City, joining a slew of existing parks in Durango, Lyons, Golden, Buena Vista, Vail, Steamboat Springs, Montrose, and more. The river park on the Arkansas River in Salida cornerstones the town’s annual FIBArk Festival, which draws thousands of visitors to town. Head to Glenwood Springs on a big water year and you’ll see more board surfers on its Colorado River wave than you will kayakers. (Pro surfer Ben Gravy even shredded it recently, en route to his record of surfing a wave in every state.) And for commercial rafters, the wave has become one of the most fun parts of the trip.
Built for $7 million in tax proceeds, matching grants and private donors like Bonfire Brewing, the four-feature Eagle River Park, along Interstate-70 in the town of Eagle, has been touted as a win-win, improving fish migration and riparian habitat while also creating a whitewater venue. It also includes an amphitheater for concerts and events, a pathway and a riverside park. “It’s the first time we’ve used our adjustable RapidBloc technology in an instream park, which lets us fine-tune the features however we need to,” says Shipley.
“It’s going to make a huge, positive impact on the town as well as neighboring communities,” adds former pro paddler Ken Hoeve, adding it’s also perfect for competitions and festivals.
Farther south, Cañon City added its own park on the Arkansas River, which offers reliable flows year-round — enough that the new park is already slated as a training venue for the Canadian National Slalom Team. “It’s going to be the catalyst for us becoming another great river town,” says project committee member Warren Hart. And this, adds town officials, betters the city’s bottom line. “Historically, this part of the river just saw industrial use, so it’s great to restore it for broader community value,” says city economic development director Ryan Stevens. “From an economic development perspective, it’s a great asset for our outdoor economy.”
And up north in Ft. Collins, another park on the Poudre River in Old Town boasts a series of waves for rafters, kayakers and stand-up paddleboarders as well as a wading area for families. The $11.5 million project also served another purpose: It converted the dangerous Coy Diversion Dam, which was a barrier to fish passage, into a usable park area encouraging fish migration.
Adjustable technology: One wave to rule them all
Already close to some of the best whitewater in the country, Boise, Idaho, is now on paddlers and surfers’ radars for another reason: the completion of Phase II of the Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation Boise Whitewater Park, which include an adjustable wave for surfers and kayakers.
Spaced 25 to 50 yards apart, the new waves let users put in at the existing park and circle back through Esther Simplot Park ponds and into Quinn’s Pond, back near the start.
“It’s kind of two parks in one,” says Boise Parks and Recreation Director Doug Holloway, adding the “aquatic complex” includes spectator seating and Greenbelt paths along both sides of the river. He adds the park provides tubers, paddlers, and surfers of all levels an environment conducive to recreation and competition.
Employing S20 Design’s adjustable RapidBloc technology, one feature — tested via a 1:4.5 Froude-scaled model constructed in a flume at the University of Idaho —can transform from a wave to a hole, for surfers and kayakers. “The model let us create a hydraulic similarity between simulated flows and those in the proposed channel,” says Shipley, who is also a three-time World Cup slalom kayak champion. “It’s a perfect river and location for this type of park, and should become a great focal point for the town.”
Riding the wave
Call it three wins in one. Such purpose-built river parks are driving paddlesports participation, helping communities connect with their rivers and boosting local economies.
According to the Outdoor Industry Foundation, more than 17.8 million Americans currently participate in paddlesports. Nationally, it is estimated that there are over 1,000 rivers suitable for whitewater paddling. Merge these two and there’s a growing trend to keep developing river parks throughout the country. This has spawned a smattering of companies designing them, including Recreation Engineering & Planning, River Restoration, McLaughlin Water Engineers and S20, all of which are based in Colorado.
These parks also improve locals’ quality of life and allow their communities to brand themselves as destinations for outdoor recreation. All this strengthens and diversifies local economies.
While a park’s economic contribution depends on its scale and market size, some parks attract over 100,000 user-days a year. This resultant incremental spending can range from a few million dollars a year for parks in places like Eagle, up to economic contributions topping $19 million annually for places like the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C. The four-day-long GoPro Mountain Games alone, says Boyd, has an estimated $7.3 million annual impact on the town — a significant contribution to a community otherwise relying on winter tourism.
And the craze isn’t about to dry up anytime soon. It’s spreading from the mountains to the Midwest and beyond. At last count, estimates list more than 70 such purpose-built whitewater parks in the U.S., with 10 more in progress, ranging from projects replacing dangerous low-head dams and converting them into recreational amenities — as with a recent park in San Marcos, Texas — to multi-featured parks like the one in downtown Reno, Nevada, in the heart of its casino district, enticing visitors to surf instead of hitting the slot machines. The parks even help regions devastated by natural disasters, as evidenced by the new Lyon’s Whitewater Park in Lyons, Colo., which restored a reach of river after the Front Range floods of 2013.
Recirculating Whitewater Park Roundup
Kelly Slater isn’t the only one bringing surf to the people. While his manmade Surf Ranch joins six other such “surfing” parks in the U.S., wave tech has also come to the paddling world, with a new breed of recirculating river park making waves around the country. The latest example of “urbanizing” recreation: pump-driven Montgomery Whitewater, a river park opening in 2023 in Montgomery, Ala., bringing splashes to the heart of the South. The Montgomery venue is the country’s fourth such recirculating whitewater park, joining McHenry, Md.’s Wisp Whitewater, Oklahoma City’s Riversports Rapids and Charlotte, N.C.’s US National Whitewater Center in the U.S., as well as a host of similar courses built worldwide for Olympic competitions, from London and Sydney to China and Brazil. Following is a roundup of the recirculating whitewater parks in the U.S.
Montgomery Whitewater: Montgomery, AL
Holding its grand opening in July 2023 in downtown Montgomery, Ala., Montgomery Whitewater is the nation’s newest recirculating whitewater park, bringing a series of pool-drop rapids to the heart of Dixie. Designed to revitalize and re-energize the downtown riverfront of the Alabama River along the I-65 corridor, the park “is the best whitewater park in the world,” says designer Shipley of S2O Designs. He credits this to its massive campus, lessons learned from the country’s earlier whitewater parks, and an array of such other outdoor activities as climbing areas, ziplines, ropes courses, and trails for hiking and biking. The park’s recirculating whitewater course also flows among restaurants, shops, a beer garden, a concert venue, hotel and conference center and more. Anchoring the 120-acre park is its state-of-the-art, Olympic-rated whitewater course, with everything from an easy, rec-friendly channel for unguided rafting and tubing to a freestyle feature, splash-filled commercial rafting channel and higher-level competition venue. “We took the best parts from all the other parks and put them into this one,” says Shipley. “It’s bringing a new vibrancy and economic development to Montgomery County and is a venue truly changing the area’s quality of life, both for local residents and visitors and even companies looking to move there.” https://montgomerywhitewater.com
U.S. National Whitewater Center: Charlotte, NC
Billed as the world’s largest and most profitable whitewater park, with over 1 million visitors per year, the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., is a nonprofit committed to facilitating access to the outdoors. As well as harboring a world-class whitewater course, it’s an outdoor activity and event center offering more than 30 different recreational activities housed within its 1,300 acres of protected land—including 50 miles of trails and access to the Catawba River. Opening in November 2006 as the first such park in the country, its crown jewel is its whitewater park, with its various channel systems totaling 4,570 feet in length. The water comes from a 12-million-gallon reservoir and seven massive pumps, each one capable of filling up an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 12 seconds. The “river” serves up four distinct sections of whitewater, including channels for instruction, freestyle, wilderness, and competition, all comprised of Class II-IV whitewater. Its “wilderness” section—which features standing waves, holes and eddy lines before splitting into instructional and freestyle channels—is by far its most popular, drawing more than 250,000 commercial rafters per year. “Rafting is definitely the facility’s number one activity as far as guest engagement,” says brand director Jesse Hyde, adding its annual Tuck Fest draws thousands of attendees and includes seven different paddling events. The center’s 984-foot competition channel has hosted World Cup slalom races and is vying to host the Olympic Team Trials next year. “Instead of making it an Olympic-level park that caters to rafters, it’s rafting park that also caters to Olympic-level competition,” says course designer Shipley. “It’s a true outdoor adventure center right in the center of town.”
Riversports Rapids: Oklahoma City, OK
Opening in 2016, the $45 million Oklahoma Whitewater Center, known as Riversport Rapids, brings rollicking whitewater to downtown Oklahoma City. Located adjacent to the Oklahoma River, which offers competitive and recreational flatwater activities, the 11-acre course features the world’s highest-volume, pumped channel in the world, running at 1,200 to 1,400 cubic feet per second at full capacity. “It builds off of the lessons we learned from the earlier U.S. National Whitewater Center,” says park designer Shipley. “We tried to include something for everyone, with kids play areas, a concert stage, a paddle-in movie theater, an Olympic-standard course, a recreational course and a game-changing freestyle feature.”
Six pumps—which together could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in 80 seconds—recirculate 8 million gallons of treated water through two channels to create Class II-IV rapids, with flows adjustable to offer various experiences on a venue designed to provide Olympic-standard whitewater but also a place for everyone to enjoy, beginner to expert. Built in the city’s Boathouse District as part of a one-cent sales tax initiative to enhance the local quality of life, the park offers commercial and private rafting, tubing and kayaking, as well as flatwater paddling and rowing on the adjacent Oklahoma River. Other activities include surfing, adventure courses, zip lines, high speed slides, extreme jumping, climbing walls, sailing, a bike park and skills trail, nature center, and, new in 2001, an indoor alpine skiing venue. Open daily throughout summer and on weekends in spring and fall, it hosts festivals, race events and even summer camps for kids. The venue is also the official U.S. Olympic Committee Training Site for paddlesports, with a world-championship caliber sprint kayak and rowing course, Olympic-level whitewater slalom course, and high-performance elite athlete training center. www.riversportokc.org
Wisp Resort Whitewater Course, McHenry, MD
Opening in 2007 and designed by McLaughlin Whitewater—architects of Tennessee’s Ocoee Whitewater Center, host of the whitewater events for the 1996 Summer Olympics—the Wisp Resort Whitewater Course is an Olympic-standard whitewater center located on the mountaintop above the Wisp Ski Resort at Deep Creek Lake in McHenry, Md. Since the ski operation already had a mountaintop reservoir for its snowmaking machines, it sited the course next to it to make use of its water in the summer. Its four electric pumps can pump 650 cubic feet per second down a 1,900-foot-long, wave-filled gauntlet of whitewater serving everything from Class II-III to surging Class IV. While the first 100 yards are the steepest and narrowest, the last 300 yards follow more of a pool-drop format, complete with a practice area with an easy put-in and take-out on either shore. Inflatable bladders called “wave shapers” can also reconfigure certain waves so they’re better for kayak slalom training and events or rafting operations. It’s the latter that’s most popular, drawing splashhounds region-wide throughout the summer. “Our rafting operations are extremely popular with beginner rafters and families,” says Wisp’s Lori Zaloga, adding their guided raft trips let you fit in as many laps in a self-bailing, six-person raft as you can in 90 minutes. “The course is also ideal for spectating so mom, dad and the grandparents can watch from the riverside.” Hint: Since the water comes from Deep Creek Lake—the same source feeding the nearby Upper Youghiogheny River—it can be refreshingly cold; wear appropriate attire for the splashes. www.wispresort.com