Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Museum

05/12/2026

Click through to nominate a legend! If there’s a person or institution whose leadership, innovation, spirit, or accomplishments helped shape whitewater paddling in our region, we hope you’ll take a few minutes to nominate them. The Hall of Fame is deeply grateful to the Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Museum, where the Hall was born. Together, we strive to honor our sport's history.

Help recognize the legends of Southern Appalachian whitewater. Submit a nomination for the Hall of Fame by June 15, 2026.

04/21/2026

The Hall of Fame has grown into something special—and it now has its own home. We’re grateful to the Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Museum for helping build the foundation.

👉 Follow the new page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575394530060

We’ll be sharing nominations, stories, and updates there moving forward.

The new website is southernappalachianwhitewater.org

Appalachian Whitewater Hall of Fame

03/13/2026

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DV0xsQlDlLy/?igsh=MjU3OHlhYmh4ODVx

02/06/2025

We are pleased to announce our Southern Appalachian Whitewater Hall of Fame class of 2024! While Hurricane Helene slowed our induction process slightly, we are finally able to share with you our newest inductees! Remember to come honor them and celebrate with them at our event on March 8th!

Meet the class of 2024 inductees! (They were voted in during 2024 but announced here in early 2025 due to difficulties in the region caused by Hurricane Hel...

07/30/2024

We are happy to announce the opening of our nomination process for the Southern Appalachian Whitewater Hall of Fame! We have moved our nomination process to a Google Form to help with simplicity. Click the link and nominate those individuals and organizations who you think deserve to be represented in the Hall of Fame! The deadline is August 31st, so make sure you get your nominations submitted as soon as possible!

https://forms.gle/WmzdWy4ydNjfky7N9

01/18/2024

Did you know we sell maps?! At our location at , we have a full array of William Nealy maps from our favorite Southeast rivers!
Do you want to know something even better? We now have maps in color! That’s right, we have created colorized versions of those same maps and are offering them to you! The regular and colorized maps are available for sale at Black Dome as are our beautiful logo shirts. Be sure to swing by and check out our museum the next time you’re in Asheville and stay tuned for new exhibits in the near future! Happy paddling!

12/13/2023

We are so excited to feature this Gary Harper film about early Ocoee River paddling. Head over to our website and spend some time viewing this and the many other videos we have created to highlight the history of paddlesports in the Southern Appalachians!

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12/13/2023

We had such an amazing time with Charlie Walbridge and Slim Ray discussing the history of swiftwater rescue in paddlesports.

For those that were unable to attend, we have attached the presentation video here:

https://youtu.be/FL2-d-nulUw?si=qlD2Y9GjMShz98-K

We are looking forward to our next event and exciting things to come in the new year! Happy paddling!

2023 Night at the Museum Video! Evolution of River Safety by Charlie Walbridge and Slim Ray.

11/14/2023

We had an amazing evening with and Slim Ray discussing the history of whitewater safety. Learning about how influential the Southeast was in whitewater rescue helped us understand even more about what our museum represents! Stay tuned for more updates and events in the new year!