Ode to the Club Boater

Cherokee Park Restoration

Stream Restoration Project along the Middle Fork of Beargrass Creek in Cherokee Park. View more photos here.

Proposals to make rapids safer raise a raft of questions

There’s a boulder in Staircase Rapid on the South Fork of Idaho’s Payette River that can kill you.

If you spill from a raft upstream on the left side of the river, you might get channeled to the boulder’s submerged undercut face, where the water could suck you into a dangerous sieve. River guide Dean Fairburn drowned here in 2007. Some 15 to 20 rafts wrap here every season, according to commercial outfitter Chad Long, who co-manages Cascade Raft and Kayak with his extended family.

But with the river low this fall because of work on an upstream dam, Chad’s father, Tom Long, saw an opportunity. Could the boulder be moved to make the rapid safer? It’s not exactly natural, anyway: The Army Corps of Engineers reconstructed the run after a mudslide here blocked the river in 2001. So Tom got a stream-alteration permit from the state — and kicked off a heated discussion within the whitewater community.

Meanwhile, this past July, 23-year-old river guide Kimberly Appelson became the fourth person since 2000 to drown in a more notorious, natural sieve in Frog Rock Rapids on Colorado’s Arkansas River. This fall, officials there also considered tweaking the rapid to make it safer — rousing yet more debate.

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Linville Falls

Russell Fork

The Russell Fork River is a free-flowing stream with 16 miles of great whitewater between Haysi, Va., and Elkhorn City, Ky. Every year in October the Russell Fork has guaranteed water releases on the the weekends. Since I started paddling I have never missed a year of boating at the Breaks Interstate Park on this beautiful Kentucky/Virginia river.

Hollis and Jennifer came along for the ride and to see the park while Jay Thomas and Myself met at Garden Hole for a Saturday run of the upper section. It was unusually warm on this day, an added bonus and great paddling weather.

The Russell Fork is a beautiful river wether your paddling it, viewing from the high above the gorge, or swimming it, out of your boat through 20 Stitches while hitting every hole through the rapid.

This year, since I had the family in tow, we stayed at the lodge, which was a decent room with a spectacular view. I'll certainly be back next year, if not again this October.