After pressing for access for more than 20 years, paddlers are running the Ohiopyle Falls in plain sight in a three-week trial that ended Sunday. If boaters follow safety guidelines, the park plans to let them plunge over the falls along the Youghiogheny River again at certain times each day next summer.
View full sizeRafters prepare to put in for a trip on Pennsylvania's Youghigheny River that will involve lots of white water -- but not shooting over a waterfall. DANIEL LOVERING, New York Times
OHIOPYLE, Pa. -- For decades, kayakers and other whitewater boaters were prohibited by park safety rules from paddling over the crest of an 18-foot waterfall in this scenic corner of southwestern Pennsylvania.
But it was just too tempting, so daredevil paddlers simply slipped over Ohiopyle Falls at night to avoid being seen.
"We couldn't catch them," said Stacie Faust, the assistant manager at Ohiopyle State Park, about 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Now, however, after pressing for access for more than 20 years, paddlers are running the falls in plain sight in a three-week trial that ends Sunday. If boaters follow safety guidelines, the park plans to let them plunge over the falls along the Youghiogheny River again at certain times each day next summer.
The paddlers' battle for the falls began when a North Carolina advocacy group, American Whitewater, started lobbying the park in the 1980s, eventually obtaining one-day permits in 1999 for "Over the Falls" festivals each summer.
"We were able to demonstrate that quite a few people can paddle the falls in a manner that's responsible, that provides a level of safety that ultimately the park was able to get some level of comfort around," said Mark Singleton, the group's executive director.
The policy barring boaters from the falls had been in place since the late 1960s.
Since the start of the one-day festivals, paddlers have hurtled over the falls about 15,000 times, said Barry Adams, an American Whitewater volunteer who helps organize the annual event.
The park's new policy has attracted hundreds more in recent weeks. More than 300 boaters ran the falls in the week after the park opened access Aug. 22.