These days, the authentic outdoor sporting experience is fast becoming an endangered species. Climbing walls substitute for real rock faces (which themselves are occasionally studded with anchor bolts installed by recreationists). Rivers are manipulated to create whitewater for rafting and kayaking. Some ski trails have even been built indoors.

But little in the realm of manufactured nature quite approaches the U.S. National Whitewater Center, a $35 million commercial park that opened last month just 10 minutes from downtown Charlotte. The center, with rapids designed to challenge weekend rafters and serious kayakers alike, is completely self-contained, and completely artificial. Every boulder in its concrete channels was placed there by design. The water, which comes from the municipal supply, not from an adjacent river, is pumped around the park. When kayakers finish a run, they ride an escalator back to the top.

With the center's convenient location and thrilling yet safe rapids, the backers hope to attract people willing to pay $25 a day to kayak, or $33 for 90 minutes in a raft with a guide.

Yet there are people who wonder whether, in the manufacturing of an outdoor experience, something is lost. If people are exposed to a nature that isn't authentic, they say, how will they learn to protect the real thing?

Mark Singleton, executive director of American Whitewater, a sporting and conservation group, said that the artificial river should appeal to young people who are unable to drive hours to a real one.

"But this new potential generation of paddler that gets introduced to the sport through concrete structures isn't going to have that same exposure to an environmental ethic," Singleton said. "We see the things that sometimes cross over -- graffiti, cigarette butts, an uncaring attitude."

Others, though, see a potential upside to these artificial adventures.

"We could use them to heighten people's awareness," said Roger Moore, associate professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at N.C. State University. "If they're conceived of well enough, they could include educational messages that would help people be even more responsible when they do go out to a natural environment."

In the extreme

The Charlotte project is the most extreme example of a trend in whitewater sports toward more controlled environments. In recent years, rivers around the country, often in urban areas, have been transformed into stretches of rapids, re-engineered with concrete beds and strategically placed boulders. Cities from Reno, Nev., to South Bend, Ind., have embraced the idea, seeing economic advantages in attracting boaters and tourists.

Even Raleigh is planning to build a modest whitewater park at the base of the Falls Lake dam.

Jeff Wise, a Charlotte businessman who is executive director of the whitewater center, said that river parks are convenient "gateways" for people who have considered paddling but don't want to drive for hours to reach whitewater. Many of those people will go on to experience, and appreciate, real rivers. "They're not going to say, 'I never want to leave my backyard,' " he said.

Wise defended the experience in the parks as genuine. "A concrete channel is not as authentic as a natural channel, but the experience is real," he said. "It's not an amusement ride."

Genuine, to a degree.

"What folks miss in a controlled environment are the objective dangers of the activity," said Aram Attarian, assistant professor in N.C. State's Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. Attarian, a rock climber since the 1970s, uses his sport -- the climbing gym version vs. the clinging-to-the-mountain version -- as an example.

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