Can you imagine what it would cost to build a river? This question was floated by environmentalist Mark Hume when I interviewed him for Rapid magazine over 10 years ago. A river conservationist and writer, Hume used this question to argue that rivers are precious, valuable and perhaps completely impossible to replicate. I agree, but that hasn’t kept people from trying.
Man has been messing with rivers since the beginning of time—damming, channelizing and diverting. Whitewater paddling plays its part here, too.
Early slalom courses modified natural streams, then the Augsburg Olympic course in 1972 was the first to be completely manufactured from concrete. Many more slalom courses and playspots have been built or modified over the years, but all of this pales in comparison to Walt Disney World.
Walt Disney doesn’t do anything halfway. In the mid ‘90s, Disney approached Intamin, a major Swiss amusement ride manufacturer that had been making water rides since 1979, with a challenge: Make us a river. This was not to be another bumper-boat-type ride. Disney wanted to simulate an Asian rainforest whitewater river and provide the closest experience to whitewater rafting short of actually going rafting.
The resulting feature is impressive. Aboard a 12-person, round and guideless raft, you descend 30 feet in five minutes, bouncing through continuous class II and III, ending with one major drop. The ride also has Disney’s typically immaculate attention to detail in the surroundings.
As I’m waiting in the long line (which is also typically Disney) for my turn on the ride, I think of all of the manufactured rivers I’ve paddled.
Except for small, modified play features, any concrete river has felt pretty foreign—the water does not behave as it does in natural rivers. As we board the solid raft and secure our seatbelts—no PFDs in sight—we are assured by the grinning loading attendant that we are going to get wet.
We gain elevation up a long rollercoaster-style escalator ramp and, at the top, are dumped into the water. It looks like a real river. It sounds like a real river. If it wasn’t for the little boy across from me with mouse ears, it’d feel like a real river.
We pick up speed with the current and round a bend into manufactured mist, the roar of rapids ahead. It reminds me of October mornings on the Jacques Cartier River in Quebec.
The river twists and turns with complex rapids—holes and offset waves—this would be really fun to paddle. Our boat occasionally bumps the side of the 25-foot wide channel, but mostly stays in the middle. We sweep around a bend to see an unmistakable horizon line. I’m genuinely surprised to feel the familiar butterflies of anticipation as we approach the lip. This could be any number of drops on the Upper Yough in West Virginia.
Wow, I think to myself, this is really good! Over the lip and down the steep slide with a woosh of soaking water at the bottom. A narrow canyon continues with more rapids until the current lets up. Just like that, the ride is over—I miss the calm float of appreciation before the take-out.
As we unload, my kids have big smiles. Somewhat unexpectedly, they cheer, “When we get home, let’s go rafting!” And that sums it up.
Try as Disney might, it’s not the real thing. While there is the familiar pull of the current and the environment looks authentic, the rapids are completely and noticeably without something. It is subtle but immediate. It is enough for my kids, who spend their summers around rivers, to notice. The other modified rivers I’ve paddled, while certainly more real, also lacked what only natural rivers have—soul.
Alchemy is a regular column in Rapid magazine. When not on the Kali River Rapids ride at Disney, outdoor education professor Jeff Jackson spent some time touring It’s A Small World After All.
This editorial originally appeared in the 2014 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.
