The Whitewater World Comes to Montgomery

It took one day for my dad to join the Montgomery Whitewater swim team. But before we dive into that, I wanted to talk about the newest man made river in the U.S. S02 designs third planned whitewater center joining the likes of Charlotte and Oklahoma City. Having never been to OKC most of my comparisons will be the Charlotte location.

First glances are this place is big, bigger than the Go Pro's and pictures can do justice. It is set up with two courses that feed into a pond at the bottom where the boaters and water are then brought back up to the top. The park feels very similar to the USNWC in Charlotte, especially it's earlier days where it didn't have many of the other attractions such as the zip line or rock climbing walls. 

The two courses are set up like Charlotte with a "competition" and "adventure" channels. But, the adventure channel feels different than the Charlotte edition. The channel is narrower with plenty of eddy lines to get use too. It took about four trips down in the phat cat to start to figure out where the lines where to stay in the main current. As my dad reviewed our footage he was sure to remind me of making sure to remember my angles when trying to trying to break through the eddy lines. But, overall it is a challenging section that is great to get reps over and over again as you ride a conveyor belt without having to get out of your boat.

The competition channel is bang bang bang right out of the gate. It is filled with drops and some good surfing holes. The big spinning eddy's are also present through out.

We had a great experience, the guide was awesome and when we talked to him you could tell he was excited to have something so cool in his hometown. My dad take a swim and went down in perfect swimmers position at the drop near the bridge on the adventure side. We was picked up promptly after and now that I know he is okay it was a great weekend with my dad.

My tips for when you visit the Montgomery Whitewater Center.

• Walk the whole course, the top of the channels has some crazy eddies just when you are trying to pick a channel. 
• Bring some sort of shade! Not a lot of trees yet. Also, if you have a tailgate cart or something like to roll stuff out to the car might not be the worst idea.
• The restaurant had great views and good food. The beer at $6 wasn't outrageous, but it was no bus bar prices, it had a pretty good selection.
• Outside the park, Bibb Street Pizza was three minutes away and was very good New York Style Pizza. There are a lot of hotels to choose from but we camped in Gunter Hill Campground which had a great view of a lake with clean but very old restrooms. 

The access this center will help more people boat who never even thought about it. It should be looked at as a great tool for the whitewater world as a place for people to be introduced and then practice in a safe more controlled environment. The RCO crew would only be more stoked if they built this in Atlanta so I could go after work.

We look forward to visiting again and hope that you get to stop by and enjoy it too!

If you enjoyed this blog let us know! We'd love to write more or talk about it on the return of the podcast!