New App Promotes Planning a Kayak Trip on the Coal River
Charleston Gazette-Mail
25 October 2016
By Rick Steelhammer
A new website and a free, downloadable cellphone app are making it
easier for paddlers to travel the Coal River Walhonde Water Trail
and find nearby kayak rental outfitters, restaurants, campgrounds
and historic points of interest.
Launched last week by the Coal River Group, the watershed
organization that developed the 88-mile water trail and opened it
nine years ago, the new digital amenities are part of an effort by
the CRG to attract and retain new water trail users.
“The key to bringing tourism to our rural region is to.. make the
planning of a kayak trip user friendly.”
Growing interest in flatwater kayaking “is bringing hundreds of
new visitors to the Coal River Watershed,” said Bill Currey,
chairman of the Coal River Group. “These people need better
information about the water trail. The key to bringing tourism to
our rural region is to take away any fears or concerns but safety
and make the planning of a kayak trip user friendly.”
To create the new website, found at www.coalriverwatertrail.org,
the watershed group recruited volunteers Eric Meadows, owner of
Appalachian Geographic and IT Solutions of Charleston, Eric
Bourland of ebwebwork.com in Washington, D.C., Matt Thompson of
St. Albans and John Turner of Madison to come up with design and
content.
Some of the site’s most eye-catching visual images come from a
project coordinated by Turner, in which drones mounted with video
cameras show each of the 17 designated boat launch sites along the
water trail from all angles of approach…
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