In the spring of 1970 my senior year of high school was winding down rapidly.  Classes were becoming optional, as most of us had been accepted to some college or other and we were in that dreamy twilight zone wherein our grades and conduct just didn’t matter anymore, and we had cars, money, and time on our hands.

My friend John came up with the idea.  His Dad was an Army officer and he rented a 15-foot Grumman canoe cheap from the Army’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command.  He wanted to run the Seneca Breaks, a Class 2 mile-long set of rapids on the Potomac several miles above Great Falls. The boat was a 15-foot Grumman, generally considered a good solo boat for gentle whitewater.  So, four of us loaded into it to run the Potomac at near-flood level.  We had some idea of somehow sharing the three Army-issued lifejackets between us.  Not only were we ill-equipped, the Potomac was near flood stage and still cold in the early spring.

We paddled the boat out from shore in flat water above the rapids, got halfway across the ½ mile-wide river and turned downstream toward the first rapids.

Me, in the bow: “John you see that rock, right?”

John, in the stern: “Got it!”

Me, a few seconds later: “We’re gonna turn, right?”

John: “Got it!”

Me, later: “LEFT, LEFT!”

John: “Got it!”

Rock: “What a bunch of dips, CHOMP!”

Yep, we hit the only exposed rock in the whole rapids at high speed, spun sideways, and flipped upstream.  Four newbs were thrashin’ in the brown.

We all survived but it involved rescue squads, fire departments, helicopters, the whole shebang.  Rather than putting me off river adventure permanently it somehow kicked off a lifelong obsession.

After nine months away at school, I took a tandem canoe whitewater course from the Canoe Cruisers Association the following year.  While paddling on local trips I noticed how cool kayaks looked and got interested in them.  I went on club trips and led a few myself.  I hitchhiked up to the 1972 Olympic Trials on the Savage River in May and was captivated by the glamour of that event.  I took the CCA basic kayak course in the fall of 72 and paddled at every opportunity.  Later that year I quit my job and lived in my van for a year, paddling full-time throughout the Appalachians.  Later jobs revolved around the paddling business.  I worked in outdoor shops and later became a paddling Park Ranger.

Thus started a river-oriented life. This obsession has dictated jobs, education, and lifestyle from then on.  I’m still learning about the river and about paddling.  I can imagine few better ways to use up forty years.

John H and me (right), Ohiopyle 1972

Here are a few pics of the Potomac surrounded by two feet of snow.

The lower parking lot at Anglers Inn

The C&O Canal towpath was snow-covered but usable, thanks to the xc skiers.

The obligatory self-portrait, to prove I was there.

Cupids Bower, just above Anglers

Maryland Chute in the snow

Another party heads for the put-in

Too cold for me, I wussed out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come on down to Dodge City.  The 2009 Potomac Whitewater Festival is coming the week of July 10-12.  Events range from the Class V Great Falls Race, to the beginners’ Community Gorge Paddle.  Check it out at http://www.potomacfest.org/

Photo of Ryan Bahn styling at the Wave Surfing event by Potomac Paddlers.

Check out the vid from lastyear’s party.  More info to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXL9fXep4RU

Whitewater kayaking participation is down slightly, but not drastically.  The graph from the earlier data posted below now looks like this:

This report has some demographic data, which looks like this:

For some reason the 2006 data from this report disagrees with the number reported by OIA earlier. In other figures for recreational and sea kayaking indicate that the former is still growing strongly, while the latter is shrinking somewhat.

The better news is that canoeing is enjoying a small amount of growth, as shown below.  Note that canoeing still has higher participation numbers than all forms of kayaking combined.

This supports my iconoclastic theory that open canoeing remains the basis of whitewater paddling, providing the ideal vehicle with which to introduce newcomers to the sport as well as the broad, purchasing base of the commercial pyramid.

The Outdoor Industry Association has published their annual review of statistics on the numbers of people participating in outdoor sports.  The new document is the 2008 Outdoor Recreation Participation Report, and it includes some numbers for recreational, sea, and whitewater kayaking.  The plot above shows the numbers the OIA has reported for whitewater paddling since they first started tracking the sport in 2001.

For the first few years the OIA reported on two categories of paddlers: participants are defined as anyone who reported being in a whitewater kayak at least once during the reporting period.  Enthusiasts were defined as someone who reported being in a whitewater kayak at least three times during the period.  After 2004 the OIA ceased to track the enthusiast category; they indicated that the number of enthusiasts were too small for defensible statistics.  I added the dotted line for enthusiasts using the ratio of participants to enthusiasts from earlier reporting years.

The current extrapolated level of enthusiasts is about 100,000.  This number is probably still somewhat too high as an indication of the number of “real” whitewater paddlers, that is those who own their own gear and get out regularly, as the OIA reported that the average number of outings per year for those in the enthusiasts category was just over three, the minimum for the category.  Does going boating three times per year make you a whitewater paddler?  I don’t know, I’d call that pretty marginal.  So, the real number of boaters is probably somewhat less.  AW says 50,000 and that sounds closer to me.  Other reports said that there were about 11,000 whitewater kayaks sold in 2006, and years ago Bill Masters of Perception said that about one in ten kayakers buys a new boat each year, so that would support the higher number.  Incidentally, Masters sold some 10,000 boats per year in the late 70s; that indicates the total number of boaters now is about the same as 30 years ago.

Whatever the actual numbers are, the trends are the most interesting information.  So, the bad news is the number of people in the sport is still down about 75% from the high in 2002.  The good news is that the precipitous slide of the last six years may be bottoming out.  This will only be proven in future years, but it has to stop somewhere.

Do we care that this is happening?  Intuitively I say yes.  As an amateur boater with no stake in the commercial side of the sport I’m not losing anything from the downturn, and the decrease in participation means that some of my destinations are less crowded than they once were.  The lower Yough, for instance, has been a famous madhouse on summer weekends through the entire 40 years I’ve been paddling, a place and time avoided by most experienced boaters.  In recent years, though, I’ve been able to walk up to the permit window on prime days and get a launch permit and shuttle ticket on the spot, no waiting.

I do have friends in the industry, however, to whom I wish no pain.  Most of them will agree if pressed for an honest answer that the commercial side of the sport is in serious pain.  The firestorm currently overtaking the broader economy has been a fact of life in the whitewater industry for years.  In addition, it has long been an axiom of all outdoor sports that paddlers, climbers, hikers, etc. make good environmental stewards.  This is reason enough to be alarmed at a drop in the number of whitewater boaters.

If we do care about this situation, how did we get in this fix and what can be done to improve the situation?  That will have to wait for another post.