Surf’s up in Post Falls

POST FALLS – While growing up in Twin Lakes, Chris Hoffer yearned for a chance to ride the fabled turquoise waves off Hawaiian shores.

He discovered later that he didn’t need to travel across an ocean for a surfing adventure.

“You can surf the river,” he said of the Spokane River, a kayaker’s surfing playground in his own backyard.

Chris and his wife, Liberty, have nearly two decades of kayaking experience between them, and they say the thrills, the spills and the one-of-a-kind vistas continue to draw them to the water.

The Hoffers, who live in Post Falls, are among a growing local group of dedicated kayakers who surf, play and ride the river, which flows past the city of Post Falls and offers outdoor enthusiasts a nearby recreational opportunity, especially during the high water of springtime.

“Everything else you have to drive to,” Liberty Hoffer said. “We are pretty fortunate to have it right in town.”

Local kayakers celebrated the first Corbin Kickoff last weekend, displaying gear, giving lessons and tips and reveling in some of the best white water the Spokane River has to offer at Post Falls’ Corbin Park.

On Saturday, slipper-shaped, candy-colored boats bobbed in the water as kayakers lined up for a chance to ride the play wave – a popular feature at the park.

Suited-up kayakers turned their boats into the wave at the end of a rock outcropping hugging the river’s edge. Whipping a double-edged paddle in the water, one kayaker mastered the timing and balancing act to stay in place.

“He’s surfing it,” onlookers cried out, hooting their encouragement. “Way to go.”

Then, in an instant, he lost it and headed back for another try.

“I always felt like it was the best roller coaster you could ever dream of being on,” Liberty Hoffer said of kayaking.

All about adrenaline

Since picking up the sport a decade ago, Chris Hoffer, 38, has surfed, played and paddled local rivers nearly year-round.

His first experience with the sport was in a buddy’s inflatable kayak.

“I was hooked in the parking lot before I even touched the water,” he said.

Chris Hoffer is a fervent backcountry skier, and he formerly raced motorcycles. But with kayaking, he said, “my adrenaline was so maxed out; I knew I wanted to be a part of it.”

During his first year of kayaking, he counted more than 70 times on the river. By his third year, he was in the water more than 320 days, he said.

Hoffer, who owns Waterfall, a local window-washing company, said he still takes his kayak out up to four times a week.

Liberty Hoffer, 30, first tried kayaking while working as a cook at an armed services recreation center in Germany. She would hang out during the kayaking classes, hoping for a spot to open up.

“It never gets boring,” said the physician’s assistant who also mountain-bikes, snowboards and trains for sprint triathlons. “You always have something new to learn.”

Although both of the Hoffers grew up hiking in the mountains of North Idaho, they view kayaking as giving outdoors enthusiasts a new perspective on familiar scenes, Liberty Hoffer said.

“You see things you don’t normally see,” she said.

The pair met while kayaking when Liberty and her sister helped Chris and a friend maneuver through a stretch of the Spokane River.

So it’s appropriate that they were married on a beach at Corbin Park, near the popular kayaking spot, said the Hoffers, who will celebrate their four-year anniversary Friday.

The sport, the Hoffers said, does have its dangers: Hidden rocks. Fast-flowing water. Ill-fitting equipment.

In his first four months of kayaking, Chris Hoffer whacked his head, getting a concussion and a broken nose and requiring nine stitches. He blames it on an improperly fitted helmet. But it has been his only serious injury, he said.

Since then, he’s become an “ambassador of the sport” and of getting good equipment.

“People don’t realize how dangerous this sport can be,” he said.

The Hoffers, members of the Spokane Canoe and Kayak Club, say that serious kayakers ideally would stock three boats: for river-running, maneuvering creeks and play-boating.

At one point, the pair had seven boats altogether, stacked against their refrigerator and outnumbering the pieces of furniture in their home.

The cost of a boat can range from a few hundred dollars to $1,000 for a higher-end kayak, the Hoffers said. But once past the initial investment, “it’s one of the cheapest sports you can do,” Chris Hoffer said.

And it’s an opportunity to be outdoors, said Liberty Hoffer, adding that when sitting in a kayak, “you feel every little ripple” of the water.

“It’s such a connection,” she said.