From the moment you enter the facility, you sense the US National Whitewater Center is something special. Note: Despite the name, the Whitewater Center is privately owned. While there is no facility fee, the Whitewater Center charges $12 per vehicle to park for the day, or $40 per year. As you pull into the drive, you see the main building which houses ticket offices, the Outfitter gear store, convention center and meeting space, the market, and the River’s Edge restaurant.
US National Whitewater Center
At the ticket offices or Outfitter, you can pick up a facility map that shows all the activities and trails. Check out the facility map here: Facility Map. There is a pretty amazing list of activities available at the center, but most come at an additional fee. The center offers an all access pass for $79 per day ($69 for ages 9 and under) or $149 per year. Single activity passes are available and range from the $18 Wildwoods pass (treehouse village, challenge course, balance bike course, boulder garden, and more), to $35 for mountain biking or deepwater solo, up to $59 per day for whitewater rafting.
The facility is really impressive, and packs a huge amount of features into the 1,300 acres. As you look down from the main building, you can just see a fraction of the total facility. But, even then you can see a portion of the whitewater river, the beer garden, several large climbing walls, portions of the challenge course and ziplines, and the edges of the woods that house all the mountain bike trails. We were there in the winter off season when the water wasn’t running. But, even then, the facility is pretty amazing. You can also see huge floodlights all the way around the outside area for nighttime operation.
US National Whitewater Center overlook
If you go towards the left side of the whitewater area during the winter, you’ll see that they have a huge outdoor ice skating area set up for the winter season.
Winter Ice Skating Area
Towards the back left side of the main area we visited Hawk Island. This is a large island, surrounded by the whitewater river, that features most of the challenge course and zip line towers.
Zip line tower on Hawk Island
After we left Hawk Island, we walked around the backside of the facility and saw the Wilderness Channel part of the river. We also walked down to the Flatwater activity area on the Catawba River where the docks are located for kayaking and paddleboarding on the river.
Wilderness Channel
As we circled back to the main facility, we found a great vantage point with a view of the Upper and Lower Ponds, River Jam Stage, Pump House Biergarten, and Deep Water Solo rock climbing area.
Lower end of US National Whitewater Center
We wrapped up our day with a short hike on one of the mountain bike/hiking trails, the green rated, 2.5 mile Dog Leg trail around two small ponds near the Off Leash dog area.
One of the ponds on Dog Leg trail
The Off Leash area was an interesting concept it was a relatively large section of the trail area that was fenced in separately to allow recreation with off leash dogs.
The US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte NC is 1,300 acres of great activities and very nice facilities. It’s well worth a visit if you enjoy hiking, paddling, mountain biking or other outdoor activities.
