Riveraholic Hand Paddles

12/18/2021

♥️

09/29/2020

This just in from North Carolina… 🗞 📰 New Gage Installed On Wilson Creek! American Whitewater is pleased to announce the installation of a new USGS stream gage on Wilson Creek, one of North Carolina's five federally-designated Wild and Scenic Rivers. The new stream gage is the result of a partnership between American Whitewater, Duke Energy and the USGS.

Wilson Creek is a spectacular large stream with crystal clear water and smooth bedrock pools and rapids. As a free-flowing river, stream flows change dramatically in response to rainfall and its changing water levels can significantly change the recreation experience. At lower flows, Wilson Creek is a favorite picnic and swimming destination for diverse families and anglers. Higher flows turn Wilson Creek into a classic advanced whitewater run that attracts paddlers from around the region. The new gage will help visitors plan their trips for times when flows are appropriate for their activity. Very high flows can overtop the road that parallels the river, cutting off access for residents of small communities higher up in the watershed. The new stream gage will provide timely information to residents, emergency management services personnel, and other governmental officials during times of extreme high water.

The gage is an outcome of the Catawba-Wateree Hydroelectric Project relicensing process, which created a suite of recreational enhancements throughout the watershed over several decades. AW, Duke Energy and the USGS entered into a partnership agreement to install, fund and maintain the gage for a five-year period, after which additional partnership efforts will be required to continue operating the gage. This project has been underway for over 15 years. The gage will measure stage (river height) but will not include stream flow (cfs). 📷 Dennis Huntley

07/26/2020

A little inside baseball from the Hill, in honor of opening weekend. THE big news out of Congress last week was the Great American Outdoors Act, passing out of the House and moving to the President's desk to permanently fully-fund the LWCF and to provide long overdue funding for our federal public land and rivers management agencies. But here's some other big news for the whitewater community that didn't make headlines – over 1200 miles of new Wild and Scenic Rivers designations, including Wild Olympics and dozens of streams across California, was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday and passed out of the House.

This legislation had already passed in the House, as the Protecting America's Wilderness Act, however a path to bringing the bill to a vote in the Senate had not been clear before American Whitewater staff, along with a number of partners, pushed to make passage of the NDAA out of the House (a must pass piece of legislation) contingent on the bulk of the Protecting America's Wilderness Act being added to it as amendments. This maneuvering, that AW (credit: ), and also hundreds of members of our community played a critical role in making a reality, has set up a public lands package containing not only 1200 miles of new Wild and Scenic Rivers, but also over 2 million acres of public lands protections (including for the Dolores River, CO and other important watersheds across the West) with the very real potential of becoming law during this session of Congress.

Crucial to this play was the over 700 letters the whitewater community sent to their reps last week encouraging them to not only pass the GAOA but also to add these Wild and Scenic designations to the NDAA. Per usual, we could not have done this without YOU! There's more work to be done, as the Senate will likely pass its own version of the NDAA and the two bills will have to be reconciled, where a new fight to keep the amendments in the legislation will ensue, but this a huge step towards protecting a ton of high quality whitewater rivers and once again shows the incredible importance of our public lands and rivers to the people of this country.
===> Sitkum Creek on the Olympic Peninsula, hopefully soon to be Wild and Scenic! | 📷 Nate Wilson

05/22/2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a new dimension of risk to our community. In response, a multi-faceted team of ACA members, medical professionals and others have developed a set of guidelines to help instructors, event organizers, and individual paddlers adapt their usual practices to the changing circumstances and elevated level of risk caused by COVID-19: https://www.americancanoe.org/COVID19Guidelines

05/15/2020

05/06/2020

American Whitewater is the primary advocate for the preservation and protection of whitewater rivers throughout the United States and connects the interests of human-powered recreational river users with ecological and science-based data to achieve goals within our mission.

04/02/2020

In these times of physical and social distancing, let's remember we are one giant
Send us your workout routines for isolation or memories of your favourite rafting trip

Федерация Рафтинга России / Russian Rafting Federation Raft Team AKV Germany Correntinas Chile Antu Peñi Pucon

12/11/2019

Namaste
~(gail)~

10/17/2019

We may never see the garden
resulting from our kind acts,
but we can be sure it makes the
world a more beautiful place.

09/28/2019

~(gail)~

09/13/2019

Happy Friday Hippies!
We made it to the weekend (I don't know why that makes me happy... I've been retired for years :D )
Shine on
~(gail)~

08/21/2019

Mother river returned our gifts back💔