Progress on Fisher's Ford Park - OPEN

[paddledog]

What up Dog- So the bedrock is porous and easy to get through then? Awesome!-M-

We will see soon, I am going to put a helmet cam on the
jack hammer boom. All I was trying to say, with out getting
political, was that the rock was tougher than the boys from
Minnesota were counting on.....

[Ben Rodda]

Thanks so much for posting the panoramic photos!!! Super cool!

[paddledog]

So they have started setting the stone for the wing walls.
They are working on the upstream wave now, and will complete
both wall, fish ladder and wave slot before moving to the river right side.

This is looking downstream, what you see is the extreme river left wing wall
being set. Then the channel next to it is the fish ladder. Then the deeper channel
is where the island between the fish ladder and OUR WAVE!!!!

This is the Jack hammer working where the play wave will be.
The play wave will be over 20 ft wide......

[okieboater]

To repeat my teen age GrandDaughter's lingo
AWESOME!!!

dave

[Ben Rodda]

Thanks so much for the photos and update!

A twenty foot wide play wave does not sound like it will be very dynamic unless there is a significant amount of water. Are we sure they cant concentrate that flow some? Honestly I would prefer a feature that is 6 feet wide and is retentive than a 20 foot wide mild play wave. Maybe I am the only one with this opinion. Whats the average flow in terms of CFS there?

I Promise I am not trying to rain on the parade. Just making sure we get all that we are hoping for!

[paddledog]

Thanks so much for the photos and update!

A twenty foot wide play wave does not sound like it will be very dynamic unless there is a significant amount of water. Are we sure they cant concentrate that flow some? Honestly I would prefer a feature that is 6 feet wide and is retentive than a 20 foot wide mild play wave. Maybe I am the only one with this opinion. Whats the average flow in terms of CFS there?

I Promise I am not trying to rain on the parade. Just making sure we get all that we are hoping for!

These guys are good.
Their past work speaks volumes for their abilities.
It is planned to work from 200 to 1200 cfs.

Ford graph.png (5.87 KiB) Viewed 4105 times

Remember, that stretch of the river is well over 100 feet wide,
and has a mild play wave 24/7. Now concentrate that and put
it through a shaped opening with a 3 foot deep pool and we should
get what we want. Both the engineers and the construction guys know
what we are looking for. Besides they got me out there bending their
ear when ever possible.
I took some more pics yesterday but they don't show much.
It is slow going right now with this hard rock.
More updates soon.......

[okieboater]

One of the things we learned from the PSO Tulsa Wave re creation effort (so far, the recreation has not worked but we learned a lot) is that the fast moving water chute hitting a deep pool of water is one of the many critical variables that make for a super play wave.

For the record at the PSO Tulsa Wave, we had the entire Arkansas River diversion wing dam concentrating the water into my guess of a 50 foot wide channel opening (having waded that channel in low water I could not feel much if any of a drop) then hitting a football field sized pool of water. The entire river bed is hard slate type rock. We know all this because a engineering study mapped out the entire area's geography.

Like a bunch of things we get from nature, we had a gem of a semi natural play spot for years until another act of nature, a flood event, took it away. I say semi natural because I got to talk with one of the original dump truck drivers that created the original wing dam. He said basically all they did was haul rock fill into the river bed, I assume for the PSO intake, with not much direction. Just haul and dump. We attempted to recreate that original wing dam setup but ran out of money before we recreated the magic.

The only thing I know about the fisher ford design is what I have seen posted here.

But, I am encouraged that the designers (based Steve's post) have incorporated a pool into the play wave design.

Only the finished project will tell how well it is designed, sounds good that the designers are looking at a lot of factors.

[cpresoz]

That's great that you're getting to give them input, 'Steve, and that they're listening. I can't wait to see the improvement to our wave. I spoke with Doug Bryant, who heads up the Walton's foundation funding the effort. I saw him at a conference last week. I don't think they realized input could be gotten from local paddlers prior to design and it was done in somewhat isolation from that. But I'm confident the designers know what they're doing and pointers from you can only improve it.

[paddledog]

That's great that you're getting to give them input, 'Steve, and that they're listening. I can't wait to see the improvement to our wave. I spoke with Doug Bryant, who heads up the Walton's foundation funding the effort. I saw him at a conference last week. I don't think they realized input could be gotten from local paddlers prior to design and it was done in somewhat isolation from that. But I'm confident the designers know what they're doing and pointers from you can only improve it.

Cprez I will say that the design is set. All I can say is that they respect the local input for what we are wanting. I will stress again that this park is being designed and built for whitewater enthusiast. This is going to be a white water rodeo park. I am proud to speak for what I believe we are wanting to see the final product to be. The construction crew is anxious to see all their hard work be enjoyed by not only boaters but the public in general...

[tomOzarkVideo]

Here is a pic for reference:

Graham's right paddle blade is about 20' from the right edge of the river. about the end of the new feature.

roughly 40' river-left of his right blade, the water stops breaking. in ~15-20' in the same direction, you'll see ~10-15' of willows.. Then, another shallow drop in the distance.

A 20' feature is going to be DEEP.

[paddledog]

Another point of reference.
I would guess this wave is about 20 feet wide.
Now lets just shape that a bit and we might have something....

Now if it wasn't for all the construction equipment in the way...
This is gonna be great SOON........

[tomOzarkVideo]

[paddledog]

Here is our new wave maker....

This is the upper wave/pool

[mgood]

Loving these updates. Thanks!

[cpresoz]

It would have been fun to be out there today when the water got up to 4.7'. Thanks, Steve, for your updates.