Paddleboard craze afloat on the Spokane River

Mimi Vimont and her crew of yoga instructors were certainly dressed for the occasion – fitness wear to make bending and stretching easiest on the body.

But the group of seven weren’t preparing to do a lotus or hero pose in an indoor studio. They were about to paddleboard up a placid stretch of the Spokane River – from beneath the Division Street Bridge upstream beyond Gonzaga – and do yoga on their boards right there on the water.

“A lot of our clients have already signed up to be out here,” said Vimont, who owns Beyoutiful Hot Yoga on the South Hill. “We’re outside and it’s gorgeous, rather than just being in a room.”

Paddleboarding – or more appropriately, stand-up paddleboarding – is the latest water sport to ripple across Spokane waterways. It’s popular in many areas in the United States, and is now gaining momentum in Spokane.

It is similar to canoeing or kayaking, only it’s on a 30-inch-wide board, and users stand up while rowing. Paddleboarding companies have cropped up along waterways in Spokane, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene. The biggest draw: how easy it is to learn.

“It’s just an easy thing, to get into this sport,” said Cara Quien, who owns a local paddleboard rental company. “Unless you’re afraid of the water.”

There are launch points along the Spokane River, and for a fee, they’ll provide lessons and equipment for amateur or expert stand-up paddleboarders.

Carl Strong, aquatics rentals and program supervisor at Spokane Parks and Recreation, said this is the first year stand-up paddleboarding companies have started renting to customers on the Spokane River.

“The popularity of paddleboarding is definitely increasing,” he said.

Fun Unlimited is one such company that’s staked out a spot underneath the Division Street Bridge near the Spokane Convention Center. Quien and her husband, Keith, own water sports rental locations at the Red Lion Templin’s Hotel on the river in Post Falls and in St. Petersburg, Florida – locations with already thriving water sports communities.

They look at Spokane as a new opportunity.

“This is the future,” Keith Quien said, while accompanying a group of customers up the Spokane River toward the No-Li Brewhouse. “We want to make Spokane a paddleboard city.”

Many customers enjoy paddling to the brewery along the river, where paddleboarders can tie up their boards, walk up the bank and find a table or Adirondack chairs at the brewery’s large outdoor patio and lawn along the river.

“Every year on my birthday, I drag my friends out and do what I want to do,” said Rachael Krum as she crawled onto her board. “This year I wanted to do paddleboarding.”

Lessons only take a few minutes: Kneel on a floating paddleboard with a paddle and then stand up. It takes a half hour or so to gain your sea legs, and balancing can be difficult in choppy water. But before long equilibrium on the water can be achieved.

“Most people fall down when they try and turn,” Cara Quien said. “It just takes a few minutes to get used to it.”

City officials and Fun Unlimited say there is no risk to paddleboarding on the Spokane River.

The river is a deep calm pool above the dam. Paddleboarders can peer to the bottom in many places, sometimes catching a glimpse of fish, submerged rubble from the city’s past or garbage carelessly left by others.

While there is a dam just west of the Division Street Bridge where Fun Unlimited launches, it is safe as long as customers follow the well-marked signs, Cara Quien said.

“By this time of the year, it’s less dramatic,” she said. “We want to see everyone enjoying this river.”