Official website is up and running

Hello followers

We wanted to let you know our website is up and ready for viewing. Keep in mind there might be changes in the upcoming months to better the site for viewers.

We hope to change the paddling world in Sioux Falls by expanding people's options and adding more training classes.

Check it out

Sioux Falls Whitewater Park Official Site

Phase I donations for the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park

I am pleased to announce that we are now registered as a nonprofit in South Dakota. We have opened a checking account to start the donation process. Our first hurdle is to get funds for a designer to come to town and get everything rolling. We wont stop fundraising until the park is built we are just in the first phase.

We have set up a PayPal account for companies, groups, and individuals have more options. On the right side bar you will see an option to pay by PayPal or any major credit cards. I have given a few options for price. If you are one that doesn't like to pay online we are also taking mail in donations.
Below is our donation slip and address to send donations.

Also will be attaching the link to donate funds through our PayPal account. This is our first step to raising the funds for the whitewater park and we will be coming up with more fundraisers to help this process hurry along.
Thank you and all donations are welcome.

Donate Here

 "Donations are not tax deductible"

Ready For Donations

We are starting Phase I out of II for our fundraising campaign. Phase I would be raising funds for professional river restoration company to come in for a site visit, identify site, prepare conceptual design, meet with stakeholders, and conduct cost opinion of the park. If you wish to make a donation please message us or email us at INFO@SIOUXEMPIREPADDLERS.ORG. We have a Bank account and PayPal account set up and will soon have a link set up to make donations easier.

More to come for the blog and Facebook page. 

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First news article for the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park

Today was a great day and step for the whitewater park. Today was our first news article http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2014/07/21/whitewater-big-sioux-river/12929333/
We took the interview down at Lien Park on Thursday July 17. It was a nice hot day and the interview went great. We hope to do more articles in the up coming months to promote fundraising which should start in the next few weeks.

Argus Leader Story: Sioux Falls Whitewater Park

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Sioux Falls South Dakota Whitewater Park Official Blog

We have changed the blog name from Sioux Falls Paddler to Sioux Falls Whitewater Paddlers. This starting today 7-19-2014 will be he official Sioux Falls Whitewater Park blog and supporter. It will be an addition to the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park Facebook page, SF_WW_Park Twitter page, Sioux Falls Whitewater Paddlers Facebook group, and soon to come Sioux Falls Whitewater Park website! We will try to update as much as possible along with all forms of social network. We are getting really close to the first fundraising stage and want to make sure everyone is informed.

Thank you.

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Klondike Dam / Rapids 06/29/2014 1480 CFS 8.78 Feet

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Sunday ended up being a beautiful day so we decided to do a little kayaking at the old Klondike Dam. The Klondike dam was an old mill dam south of Sioux Falls, North of Canton and east of Harrisburg/Lake Alvin. It used to be a 100 year old dam but was damaged a few years back. 2012 Iowa decided it was cheaper to destroy the dam and replace it with a rock arch rapids. The reason they just didn't tear it down was because of the water levels. There are two wells close by that use the water levels made by the dam. If the dam was removed without rapids or some sort of structure the water level would be too low. Iowa and South Dakota worked together to get this project complete around 2012. With the recent rains a few weeks back it has made the Big Sioux River go up to flood levels. We decided it was a good level to kayak it on 6-29-14 since the river has gone down quite a bit. We have kayaked this section before at about 925 CFS and 1150 CFS. Today we decided to portage on the Iowa side (east bank) since some of the west bank was washed out. It actually worked out a lot better since we were able to paddle up the eddy on the east side about a third of the way up the river. Then we were able to portage on a flat rocky surface the rest of the way which is way easier than the west bank that took about 15 minutes to portage compared to 5 minutes on the Iowa side. We messed around in the eddy practicing edging, rolls, and bracing. We also ran the rapids about four times. Here are some videos that were taken of the day.

The group was made up of Josh Dragstra, Dan Buys, Mitchell Joldersma, Helen Harvey, and Stephan Bruggeman.

Mitchell Joldersma

Stephan Bruggeman

Dan Buys

 Josh Dragstra

 Mitchell Joldersma

Josh Dragstra

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Sioux Falls Whitewater Park Project Update 06/23/2104

Sioux Falls Whitewater Park Update 6-23-2014

We have a little bit of updates on the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park Project. Since last discussed on here there have been a couple of changes to the proposal.

First, the location has been narrowed down to one spot unless another one reveals itself. The spot we want the designers to put most of their focus on is at Lien Park located northeast of Downtown on Cliff Avenue on The Big Sioux River. Lien Park has the highest flow throughout the year in the Sioux Falls area; which makes it an ideal spot to use the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park all season long. The water level for a good park should be at least 250 CFS and if you check out the past 60 year flow rate at USGS you can see that you get above 250 CFS between the end of February all the way to the beginning of December. The park also provides a good location for parking. Currently it is a gravel parking lot with small barriers but can be expanded if needed. The park could easily be set up for events because the banks are a clean slate and option for hanging slalom gates are available and room to build built in seating. Events could be hosted such as a slalom race, 8-ball Sprint, soap box races, and freestyle Lien Park is also a good starting point for a lot of kayaker flowing south towards Brandon and farther down the river so it would be a good location to put a canoe/kayak ramp at the end of the park. The best part of Lien Park is that is parallel to the bike trail which would make it easy for paddlers, stand up paddlers, tubers, swimmers,  and rip boarders to walk back up to the beginning of the course.

Other parts of the river in the Sioux Falls area didn’t have enough flow throughout the paddling season, DENR opposed certain contaminated areas, and area didn’t work with Parks and Recreation for room for events or parking.

The second change to the proposal is we also got another estimate for a designer to come in kayak the river to see where the best option is, design park, fill out proper permits, hold investor and stockholder meeting, and price out the whitewater park. River Restoration is a well-known name in the whitewater industry. They have down work in Elkader Iowa at their whitewater park and they are working on design for Manchester Iowa Whitewater Park.

More updates on the Sioux Falls Whitewater Park:

A group has been formed as the Board of Directors for The Sioux Falls Whitewater Park, The Sioux Falls Whitewater Park has non-profit status EIN Tax ID, and Sioux Falls Whitewater Park has one more application to fill out to be non-profit status in South Dakota. We will also be starting fundraising for the designer to come in to do their conceptual design. The fundraising will start once the paperwork is submitted and approved by the state. Fundraising will consist of free will donations and possible raffle.

The group is also looking for logo design and a web page to be built. If anyone is interested they can contact us on Facebook or email at siouxfallswhitewaterpark@hotmail.com