{"id":23130,"date":"2020-06-24T22:00:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=23130"},"modified":"2020-06-25T08:48:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T15:48:13","slug":"pizza-and-play-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2020\/06\/24\/pizza-and-play-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Pizza and Play Waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

I paddled Colorado\u2019s Clear Creek<\/a> for the first time in 2013, in the middle of a three-night run of Widespread Panic shows at Red Rocks. A Denver-based friend and I drove a few miles out of Golden (of Coors fame) to a put-in. I remember the river feeling natural at first with a seemingly seasonable flow. After forty minutes or so, we came around a corner and the corridor suddenly opened up to an urban park scene, a far cry from the faintly bucolic river we were floating on moments before.<\/p>\n

We had arrived at Clear Creek Whitewater Park<\/a>, a quarter-mile stretch of manmade hydraulic features, spectator-friendly boulder bleachers, and sun-soaked summertime revelers. It was the first time I\u2019d seen an engineered whitewater park and it was, I thought, completely surreal.<\/p>\n

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Throughout the West, river towns are designing whitewater parks and artificial play waves with several motivating factors in mind. In Colorado, the state with the most whitewater parks in the country, wave construction is most often a means of guaranteeing that enough river water reaches the community to facilitate the \u201cbeneficial use\u201d of in-stream recreation. In Idaho and Nevada, whitewater parks have been developed to improve severely degraded urban sections of river. Artificial waves often replace defunct dams, irrigation diversions, or other unsightly, dangerous, or outdated in-stream installations.<\/p>\n

Waves and play parks may be owned by the municipality or by the state. Non-profit organizations, private donors, or voter-approved bond packages may fund their construction and maintenance. And urban redevelopment groups or paddlesports clubs may initiate their development, or they may be part of a larger plan for ecological restoration in altered river systems.<\/p>\n