Picture this: A family of four decides to spend a day at the park. Dad runs a class IV whitewater slalom stretch, while mom takes a cross country ride on some twisting singletrack. Little Johnny decides he’s going to bomb down ladders through the freeride course, while sister Sara steps into a harness and heads up a 5.8 route.
It sounds too good to be true—like some kind of mountain adventure utopia. But such adrenaline sports parks are coming soon to a city near you.
In the past year two man-made whitewater parks have been developed in the region. Last August, the South’s speediest sprawling metropolis, Charlotte, N.C., unveiled the U.S. National Whitewater Center in the city’s northwest corner. The park’s constructed waterway has four different adjustable channels of class III-IV whitewater, ready to be paddled for a mere $15. But the fun doesn’t stop there. The center also has 11 miles of singletrack and a 50-foot climbing wall on its 300-acre property. It’s a full-on adventure amusement park—a healthy alternative to leave behind Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in exchange for a wild run in a whitewater raft.
The Adventure Sports Center International, which is scheduled to open this month in the vacation escape of Deep Creek Lake, Md., is no less remarkable. Built on a mountaintop above Wisp Ski Resort, the 1,700-foot course’s wave-shaper technology can vary its obstacle and rapid classes in just 20 minutes. Inflatable bladders can alter the flow between stomach-churning drops and steady slalom runs. It even looks like a natural river. In addition to being the future location of the Whitewater Hall of Fame, the center also owns the Fork Run Natural Area, which has 10 miles of biking and cross-country skiing trails, freeriding obstacles, fixed ropes climbing, and a bouldering garden. As word spreads, both parks will open up the world of whitewater to many people who normally wouldn’t dare explore hidden backcountry channels, as well as offering a bounty of one-stop shopping outdoor opportunities to new recreationists.

CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS
Although they are run by private nonprofit entities, both parks were created with the help of investors and the combined pitch-ins of local and state funds. Whitewater parks go back to 1974, when Confluence Park was opened in Denver. Now there are nearly 40 across the country, and the trend is on the rise. More than half of the parks that exist today have popped up since the year 2000.
“The appeal from the very beginning was predictable, convenient recreation,” says Risa Shimoda of McLaughlin Whitewater, the company that designed the Adventure Sports Center’s course. “People don’t have the time to drive eight hours and hope that the river is running. It’s a hybrid between an amusement park and an outdoor experience that’s great for those who aren’t that experienced.”
Driving several hours to the trailhead is undoubtedly a pain in the backside—and the wallet tucked therein. So it’s hard to fault urbanites who don’t have the luxury of living mountainside. Concentrated outdoor playgrounds might be the way to get more people back in the outdoor saddle. According to a study by the Outdoor Industry Association, 33 percent of Americans stop participating in their outdoor activity of choice after the age of 18, citing time constraints like school, children, and household maintenance. Less traveling to the put-in could be the key to getting more people into adventure sports. Adventure parks also offer outdoor recreation with a safety net—as lifeguards are accessible if anyone swims after pouncing through a class V rapid.
But these centers by no means cater solely to entry level. Many elite paddlers have moved to Charlotte to train at the U.S. Whitewater Center, and the facility has received glowing endorsements from the regional whitewater community.
“The Whitewater Center makes kayaking—a sport that used to suffer from inherently being located in the middle of nowhere—visible and accessible to the general public,” says new Charlotte resident Brett Heyl, the 2006 U.S. National Whitewater Slalom Champion.
The Charlotte waterway—the site where Heyl won his crown—is the biggest pumped artificial course in the world. Modeled after the course used at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, it has earned a designation as an official Olympic training site. On April 27 it will hold the U.S. Team Trials, and in 2008 the center will host the Olympic Trials. Eventually, between Charlotte and the Adventure Sports Center, organizers are hoping to reincarnate a World Cup whitewater series in United States.
“The whole time I paddled, we never had a training site like this,” says David Hepp, the Whitewater Center paddle sports manager, who spent nine years on the U.S. Slalom Team. “It’s appealing to the elite because our slalom section is one of the most difficult in the world, so paddlers will get really good training here. These parks give us legitimate sites to host real races.”

BUZZ KILL
Some outdoor enthusiasts feel that these man-made adventure opportunities detract from the wild experience. After all, it’s paddling in a simulated, controlled environment. The fear factor and the vulnerability of being in the middle of nowhere is half the buzz. And the Southeast is full of world class whitewater rivers.
“These giant whitewater facilities have Disney-fied the outdoor experience,” argues Gene Richardson, a world-class paddler from Atlanta, Ga. “They may help attract more participants to the sport, but at the same time, they are undermining the essence of paddling: the connection to the wild river and immersion in raw nature. Outdoor sports are rooted in the raw natural experience. Simulated replications of rivers— like those at the Charlotte Whitewater Center—run the risk of separating a sport from its outdoor roots and replacing nature with an adrenaline fix.”
But Hepp argues that adventure parks are just a stepping stone and not a convenient replacement for the wild outdoor experience.
“We want to expose these sports to the urban masses that would never have a chance to mountain bike or paddle,” he says. “People can then take what they’ve learned here and drive into the mountains and get on real rivers.”

PAY TO PLAY?
Another area of privatized recreation has developed with the recent emergence of downhill mountain biking. It makes geographical sense that many ski resorts have gotten in on the action. It’s big business at many West Coast resorts like Whistler, and now Southern ski hubs are joining the fray. But a day of downhill is not cheap. On Snowshoe Mountain's hailed trail system a full package that includes a lift ticket, bike rental, and padded gear goes for $125.
Ronnie Bonkowski is an avid downhill rider from Akron, Ohio, and a season pass holder at Snowshoe. Every year he forks over $250 to be able to make weekend trips to ride the West Virginia resort’s extended trail system. Despite the high cost, he says it’s a reality to fully enjoy the specific style of biking on what he calls the best series of downhill-specific trails in the region.
“I’ve been to almost all of the downhill systems in the East, and it doesn’t get any better,” he says. “I don’t look at it as I’m paying to mountain bike. I look at as I’m paying for the shuttle and lift service. I have other outlets near me, where I can ride some pretty rugged downhill terrain, but there is no shuttle. It’s a difference between two runs a day and two runs an hour.”
But he admits the cost does alienate some of his friends who would like to hit the mountain with him more often.
“Not all of my friends are frequent fliers like I am,” Bonkowski says. “Some of them can only come with me once a season, because it can be pretty steep to spend over $100 for a day on a bike.”
As downhill becomes more mainstream, though, costs should drop. Right now the fringe riding style keeps the cost of bikes at $5,000 on the high end, and as more people come to the slopes in the summer, the burden of operation costs should be eased and extended to ticket prices. In recent years Snowshoe has seen a 20-30 percent increase in participation annually.
"It’s expensive because of the equipment and the labor that goes into the trail design,” says Trevyn Newpher, Snowshoe’s Mountain Bike Program Manager. “The market and the industry is getting more streamlined and production is going up in this line of bikes, so it will get cheaper. It’s one of the largest growing areas of the sport.”
Not all resorts think it’s a good idea. Mid-Atlantic mountain bikers were buzzing on the Internet about trails possibly opening at Whitetail, a ski resort in Southern Pennsylvania that is a regular outdoor escape for Washington, D.C., residents. The resort decided against bringing back its program, not seeing any financial gain in previous attempts. “It wasn’t worth what we had to go through to manage the program,” says Amy Stein of Whitetail.
It makes you wonder whether or not this is the right direction for adventure sports. And as the Charlotte and Maryland whitewater parks open up for their first full seasons in 2007, we’ll have to wait and see if the outdoor world will change course, embrace convenience, and pay to play. •