I missed the weekend festival at the Reno's Whitewater Park, but I did
get there during the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, May
17-19.

I hadn't been in Reno for over four years. During my earlier visits,
I'd often wandered down and looked at the Truckee River that flows
through the downtown area. I always thought it had potential for
kayaking if it could be cleaned up and easier access provided.

This was my first visit to a "man-made or engineered" whitewater park
so I can't compare Reno's to any other whitewater park. Nevertheless,
I'm impressed by everything that was done and the fact that the El
Dorado and Harrah's casinos loaned $500,000 each to get it built.
For WW kayakers in the far western states, Reno could become a road
trip destination for park and play or slalom training.


The Truckee River whitewater park has two channels around an island.
The right channel has the slalom gates. The left channel has the
playspots. Surfboarders, dogs, tubers, and fisherman were also in the
river.

If you're with someone (spouse, kids, etc.) who's not a kayaker,
there's a multi-plex movie theater located right next to the park. Of
course, there's casinos all over town.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few photos that
I took with my new digital camera. I'm still trying to figure out how
to work the digital camera so the photos aren't the greatest and I'm
too lazy to learn Photo Shop or image editing.

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/bobowilliams77

Bobo wrote:

This was my first visit to a "man-made or engineered" whitewater park
so I can't compare Reno's to any other whitewater park. Nevertheless,
I'm impressed by everything that was done and the fact that the El
Dorado and Harrah's casinos loaned $500,000 each to get it built.
For WW kayakers in the far western states, Reno could become a road
trip destination for park and play or slalom training.

Looks like a fun run. I think it's quite a bit wider than most of the
artificial whitewater courses I've been to (In Germany, France, the
Czech and Slovak republics), and those almost river wide holes look like
they can easily accomodate several playboaters at a time.

What's that guy in picture 0040 doing? Is he a board surfer?

--
Wilko van den Bergh Wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

What's that guy in picture 0040 doing? Is he a board surfer?

Yep, he's a board surfer. In that picture, he successfully stood up and surfed.

Bobo wrote:
I missed the weekend festival at the Reno's Whitewater Park, but I did
get there during the following Monday - Wednesday, May 17-19...

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/bobowilliams77

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few photos that
I took with my new digital camera. I'm still trying to figure out how
to work the digital camera so the photos aren't the greatest and I'm
too lazy to learn Photo Shop or image editing.

Your pictures have good color balance, so PhotoShop won't do much good
and it's a multi-year learning curve anyway.

The main problem is blown-out highlights, which is endemic to digicams.
Fujifilm has a SuperCCD chip that has extra sensors for bright spots,
so that might be an eventual answer for your next digicam.

Thanks, I enjoyed your slide show! I've been doing Giant Gap over and
over again, so I didn't get to Reno either.

"Bill Tuthill" wrote in message
...
Bobo wrote:
I missed the weekend festival at the Reno's Whitewater Park, but I did
get there during the following Monday - Wednesday, May 17-19...

http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/bobowilliams77

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few photos that
I took with my new digital camera. I'm still trying to figure out how
to work the digital camera so the photos aren't the greatest and I'm
too lazy to learn Photo Shop or image editing.

Your pictures have good color balance, so PhotoShop won't do much good
and it's a multi-year learning curve anyway.

The main problem is blown-out highlights, which is endemic to digicams.
Fujifilm has a SuperCCD chip that has extra sensors for bright spots,
so that might be an eventual answer for your next digicam.

Thanks, I enjoyed your slide show! I've been doing Giant Gap over and
over again, so I didn't get to Reno either.


Bill, I gotta disagree on the PhotoShop comment! PhotoShop (I use PS
Elements, somewhat reduced in features but vastly reduced in price from the
full version) is an extremely valuable tool, for more than just colour
balance. And it's not that hard to learn, either! Basic familiarity with
using adjustment layers and sharpening can be picked up very quickly and can
make picutres soooo much nicer!

As to Bobo's shots, blown-out hightlights are definitely a problem, but they
all seem over exposed by at least one stop--which makes the highlights
problem much worse! Digitals are far more tolerant of underexposure than
overexposure. But underexposed shots have more tendency to digital noise
(grain)...

The shots on my website[http://www3.telus.net/avrsvr/], including the
kayaking ones--to keep this on topic--were all shot on film, but then
scanned into the digital world. Most of those had significant PS work (all
had at least some PS work) to get the best results from the image. (No
different that doing careful darkroom work in the old days--just a lot
easier!)

-Paul

Thanks Bobo; nice pics. Was there a charge for running the river?

Brad

"Padeen" wrote in message news:QRgvc.113818
Was there a charge for running the river?

No - Free parking too

Randy