Articles

American Whitewater is proud to recognize Dane White of Jacksonville, AL as our Volunteer of the Month for April.   His friends refer to Dane as our Alabama River Ambassador.  If you've paddled Alabama whitewater in the last 30 years, chances are good you paddled with Dane.  He's lead many hundreds of first-timers down Alabama favorites including Little River Canyon, Town Creek, South Sauty, Teddy Bear, Johnnies, and Short.  Dane shares his enthusiasm for paddling with everyone wanting to experience

American Whitewater needs your help to secure future takeout improvements at Ward’s Ferry Bridge, the takeout for the Wild and Scenic Tuolumne River. Recently, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Don Pedro Hydroelectric Project that does not recommend a whitewater boating  take-out facility at Ward’s Ferry as a license requirement.  In fact FERC staff believes the Don Pedro Project has NO impact to the take-out. Instead, they believe the take-out problems

American Whitewater is excited to announce our partnership with the Montana-based Freeflow Institute. Freeflow Institute is a Montana-based organization offering seminars, workshops, and adventures for creative people in Earth’s wildest classrooms. By offering intelligently structured, professionally catered trips into wild spaces, the Freeflow Institute affords established and emerging writers, artists, and athletes, the time, community, and inspiration to take their practice outside and build creative cohorts of advocates for thoughtful, strategic environmental preservation. The end result – inspired and effective

The Kremmling Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released preliminary plans to update their Special Recreation Area Management Plan for the Upper Colorado River from Parshall to State Bridge. We need the paddling community to speak up for our interests regarding proposed changes to the management of this reach, which includes Gore Canyon and the Pumphouse to State Bridge sections. We make it super easy to comment with our easy action templated forms and we’ll hand

Oregon is renowned for its plentiful water supplies and outstanding recreation opportunities on its public waterways. The abundance of outstanding water resources is a reason why people continue to live, work, recreate and travel to the state.  Protecting rivers and access to them is important to conservation and recreation as it ties to strong local economies and community health.     Oregon House Bill 2835 started as an ambitious effort to address some of the access concerns in Oregon, and in

Nancy Kell, a very experienced Mid-States kayaker, died on February 24th after flipping in a Class II rapid on West Virginia's Red Creek. There were a number of strainers in the vicinity above and below the water. One of them snagged her tow, pulled her out of her boat, and held her under water. She was with a very experienced crew but they could not reach her quickly enough to save her life. Equipment snags are a real risk. (People

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests (GMUG) are conducting a Wild and Scenic River Eligibility Evaluation as part of the current Forest Plan Revision process. While the Forest Service is mandated to conduct an Eligibility Study as part of the Plan Revision process, this opportunity only happens every 15-20 years and we need to ensure that the Study is comprehensive and robust. We need YOU to share your love and knowledge of these rivers with the Forest Service!

Oregon is a state renowned for its plentiful water supplies and outstanding recreation opportunities on its public waterways. The abundance of outstanding river resources is a reason why people continue to live, work, recreate, and travel to the state.  Protecting rivers and access to them is important to conservation and recreation, as it ties to strong local economies and community health. Right now there is a bill in the Oregon House that will improve and protect our access to rivers

American Whitewater is hiring a new Southern Rockies Stewardship Director, following the announcement of the previous Director moving on to a new role with the State of Colorado. The Southern Rockies Stewardship Director role is a full-time position. The location of the position may vary within the state of Colorado, and the Director works from a home office. The Director reports to American Whitewater’s National Stewardship Director, and benefits from significant support and collaboration with AW staff, board members, and

It is with great appreciation that we announce that Nathan Fey will be leaving his role as the Colorado and Southern Rockies Stewardship Director of American Whitewater at the end of the month. Nathan served in this role for the past 12 years, growing our work in the region from an ambitious new idea to a thriving and effective program that has reshaped how rivers are protected and restored in the Southern Rockies. We will greatly miss working so closely

Calling all paddlers who've paddled or aspire to paddle the Devil's Postpile, and who could provide comments for the incredible nature of this section of the Middle Fork San Joaquin River. Comments are needed ASAP and are due on February 15th. Currently, American Whitewater is working with the Forest Service on the Inyo Forest Management Plan Revision. We are working both to ensure the Devil’s Postpile remains included in the inventory of Wild & Scenic eligible rivers and that whitewater

In 2018, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Wild and Scenic River System. In the wake of the impressive anniversary successes, however, one might ask, “So, now what?” Luckily, the rivers community asked that question some time ago. As with conservation innovations of the past, a group of river advocates and concerned citizens united to ensure that the rivers anniversary wasn’t simply a one-time party. And so, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Coalition was born at

Here at American Whitewater we are rapidly fixing bugs and enhancing the user experience on our newly redesigned website, which we launched late last week. Due to the complexity of the database that backs our National Whitewater Inventory and other aspects of our site, some bugs were expected. We launched our site under a hard deadline based on the outstanding financial support we received for this project from the US Coast Guard, and we appreciate our community’s patience and constructive

Test article 

American Whitewater has worked with an outstanding team of website designers and programmers over the past two years to redesign our National Whitewater Inventory (NWI). The NWI provides high quality information for a growing list of 5,760 whitewater river reaches across the United States. Each year this online guide helps almost 1,000,000 paddlers avoid hazards and match their skill level to the right rivers at the right flows. Like a Wikipedia of whitewater rivers, the Inventory is a dynamic crowd-sourced

On December 28, 2018 the Department of the Interior (DOI) proposed a rule that would change the way Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests are handled by the DOI. The FOIA allows the public to access information the national government has in its possession. It provides a legal requirement for government transparency and accountability, allowing for public debate, and also provides an avenue for legal discovery in judicial challenges against the policies of public agencies, which are otherwise hidden