| BV River Park: Let's Paddle! |
| Articles - BV Outdoors |
|
The concept of the Buena Vista River Park was born five years ago with Jed and Katie Selby’s vision of a community built from the river  up. Countless brainstorming sessions with Jed and I crawling around the river corridor in BV produced a vision for an accessible and enhanced river through South Main with connections to the existing Town of BV river park upstream and the BLM property downstream.The Arkansas River through the Town of Buena Vista was the site of much  of the Town’s early industry. The remnants of a dam, bridge and old irrigation infrastructure can be found along the mile of stream from the Town park to the Ramsour Bridge. However, nearly 100 years has passed since these elements were functioning and while the impacts are evident a largely natural and attractive riparian corridor is visible today. The challenge for the Recreation Engineering and Planning design team was to create a river corridor that is accessible and usable for the anticipated growth that will come from the South Main development while preserving the natural qualities of the channel. In 2004 a conceptual plan was completed and funding strategies were developed. Katie Selby wrote a successful Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant request on behalf of the Town of BV. The Town committed funds and Earl Richmond led a citizen’s effort to lead a grassroots funding effort. The donation of the property along the riparian corridor by the Town Company paved the way for a mile of public access along the River and what can be called the longest whitewater park in the US. With US Army Corps of Engineers permitting in place construction started with Fred Lowry and Lowry land and equipment in the Spring of 2006. While higher than usual flows in the Upper Arkansas River over the last year necessitated three month long construction periods the last boulder was set in the last week of April 2007 and now comes the fun part. There were several specific design challenges that led to some innovative solutions in creating instream whitewater features through the Buena Vista River Park. The appearance of monolithic granite substrata in the river created a foundation to build truly custom whitewater features. Each of three play waves will be unique across a range of flows. The whitewater features will also be unique in the State of Colorado, which already hosts over 20 whitewater parks. These park and play features are complimented by existing natural whitewater both up and downstream of the River Park. The Buena Vista River Park will be a great resource to paddlers looking for a fun afternoon of paddling in BV or serve as an excellent launch point for a longer day trip down through Brown’s Canyon. The Buena Vista River Park has been a truly collaborative, private/public, effort. The energy that radiates from the Arkansas River Corridor in Buena Vista will be palpable this summer. Mike Harvey, CFM is a Salida, Colorado based, Project Manager for Boulder based Recreation Engineering and Planning www.wwparks.com. REP has planned, designed and built over 40 whitewater parks across the US. Mike has been a resident of the Upper Arkansas River Valley for 14 years. Editor's Note: For the latest BV River Park developments, including implementation of another GOCO grant to fund the second phase of the BV River Park construction, please visit our river park page. |
by: Mike Harvey