FIBArk, America's Oldest Whitewater Festival
Near Salida, Colorado
Every June, Salida throws a party for the river, and it is the oldest party of its kind in the country. It is called FIBArk, spelled with capital letters, and the letters stand for First in Boating on the Arkansas. It began in the year nineteen forty nine, and the origin story is pure mountain town bravado.
Two Salida men made a bet, challenging each other to race boats down the Arkansas River all the way to Canon City, straight through the Royal Gorge, a stretch of canyon that most people at the time considered impassable to boats. On that first run, six boats set out on the treacherous route toward the Gorge, and the race nearly killed the contestants. So in the years that followed, organizers wisely shortened the course to a punishing but survivable stretch of whitewater.
What started as a dare grew into what the festival calls the oldest whitewater festival in North America, and one of the first whitewater events in the United States. In the early nineteen fifties the festival hosted the first whitewater slalom event ever held on the continent. Today FIBArk draws thousands of people to town each June for downriver races, freestyle kayaking, a raft rodeo, live music, and the loud, joyful chaos of a town that loves its river.
