BEND, OR -- Improvements made earlier this summer to the "floater" channel at Bend's Whitewater Park made the ride much better for most people. Bend Parks and Recreation closed the Passageway Channel for several weeks in June and reduced water flows through the channel, in an effort to make it safer. 

Parks and Rec Executive Director Don Horton tells KBND News more improvements are planned for this winter. "We are going to make some minor modifications to the Passageway Channel. There are 11 drops total, and two of those drops are flipping people a little more often than we'd like to see those waves flip people. So, we are going to make some minor improvements to those to help improve their function."

Horton says work is also planned on the center Whitewater Channel. "I think the tricky thing about designing a Whitewater Park is that it's half science and half art. We kind of have the science portion of it down, and the art piece of it is just making some tweaks to it to help improve its performance; so that's what we're doing. This winter, we're working with the Bend Paddle Trail Alliance engineering team and our own staff and we've all come up with some solutions on how we think we can improve that center channel."