While paddling.net covers all sort of water craft, it’s largely dominated by flat water paddling. Though I know there’re a few white water paddlers here. Are there any white water focused paddling discussion forums?
There used to be the Northeast Paddlers Board which was a very active white water focused. But that board hasn’t seen any activity for several years. Anyone know if there’s another one like it?
No - at least not in the northeast that I am aware of. Facebook put the last nail in the coffin of NPMB. If you are in the northeast then Where’s the Whitewater At and Merrimack Valley Paddlers (MVP) are probably the two most active Facebook groups. There are some active AMC groups (CT, Boston, NH, even NY-NJ if you are over CT way). Of course, the chowderheads up in ME.
I guess whitewater paddlers would rather paddle than post 
There used to be a message board in the middle Atlantic, but I lost track of that.
I do paddle with a club so that’s taken care of. Just looking for a larger white water crowd, both for information and also buy/sell of used gears.
What region are you in?
If in the Rockies, mountainbuzz was a good one, though sometimes the male ego strutting and ignorance could be offputting. There was still enough good info from regular paddlers to be helpful.
MountainBuzz is a place where people think each person needs a 12 pack before rafting the really tough places.
Not quite as bad as that but, yeah, at least with rafters the mantra seems to be The More The Merrier Cuz That Means More Beer.
The whole attitude of I Ran The Whatever, So Therefore I Am A Hotshot was pervasive enough sometimes it felt like sifting through the chaff to find a few good grains. But there were some people who knew what they were talking about. It’s free to try, so OP might as well look.
Also, at times it seemed to be more of a board to seek shuttle buddies. Caveat emptor!
That’s interesting. I bounce between the northeast and Colorado/Utah. So that’s helpful information.
Though out on the Rockies, I’m fortunate to have found myself surrounded by people who have nothing to prove any more, i.e. former professional river guides. So that “I’m a hotshot” attitude is spared. But they’re rafters not kayakers. Hence the interest in looking up some potential kayak specific information source.
BoaterTalk is the other one that I was thinking of - doesn’t look particularly active either, but I could still log in.
If you are interested in whitewater canoeing (both open and decked) check out cboats dot net.
I’m pretty sure BoaterTalk is dead. The kayak surfing group was a great place to meet other paddlers in the early 2000s or so, but Facebook killed it. A lot of the people were really mean and argumentative online and in person they were a bunch of friendly folks. s I’m facebook friends with about a dozen or so of the folks I met there. In the west there was a board called EddyFlower (if I remember correctly), they were also good for setting up group paddles and for local current information on less well known creeks and streams and small rivers in Utah and Colorado. I only checked in there when I was going to be in Utah and the site went dead about four or five years ago.
so there are ton of ww group pages- similar to meet ups, some club based, some not- many are facebook group pages
a number of paddling clubs still operate forums, and sometimes the forums outlive the clubs themselves (Monocacy Message Board). Many more choices now, often based on geographic areas so club message boards have competition from the various facebook groups
I miss boatertalk as well, you could really good advice about boat outfitting and buying and selling boats.
pcom wide open- all kinds of boats and water- embrace the diversity
People who think that P-net posters can be rude would have been horrified at some the of the BoaterTalk posts - to say people were blunt would be an understatement. Wasn’t my geography, so I didn’t use the site much, but my username and password still work
What you say it true. But in my experience, most whitewater-oriented discussion boards tend to have a fair degree of ego floating around. Fortunately, rude and offensive individuals are even more easily ignored on the web than they are in person.
The thing that was funny about boater talk was that some of the people who got into amazing flame-wars with each other, when you meant them in person they were extremely nice and helpful kayakers. I think part of the problem was that it was the beginning of the age of online forums and people had little experience in non-in person disagreement, and also lots of adrenaline junkies, who seem to have short fuses. The worst offenders for off-putting posts and flaming were actually some of the best people I have ever paddled with, and I’ve watch them all sitting around a campfire together having a good time. It reminded me of two of my friends in high school who were brothers and would get into fights with shovels and baseball bats. But they really loved each other too.
Boatertalk was pretty bad, much worse than cboats. I think those earlier days of forums really allowed people to explore their “inner jerks”. I think for the most part things have calmed somewhat. I’m not on there much, but even Mountainbuzz has mellowed. Maybe we’re all just getting older, and the young punks with chips on their shoulders have moved on.
there’s a lot to dislike about facebook, but it is really helpful for getting in touch with other whitewater paddlers and learning about different places from the locals.
There was a small one primarily for MN-WI some years back that I used to read occasionally for surf reports but I never bookmarked it. Pretty sure it was associated with this group https://www.rapidsriders.org/