Buffalo National River Paddler Map

What it solves

Five outfitter websites. Three USGS gauges. One paddler trying to decide if Saturday's float is on.

The Buffalo runs 153 miles through three districts — Upper, Middle, and Lower — each with its own gauges, its own access points, its own seasonal personality. Today, a paddler planning a weekend has to cross-reference raw cfs from three USGS sites, hunt for NPS regs, call an outfitter for their take, and still guess whether the section they want is too low, too pushy, or just right.

The Paddler Map collapses all of that into a single live view. Color-coded floatability per section. A plain-English read for each gauge. 7-day water-level and temperature trends. NPS & AGFC regs at every access. And a co-branded outfitter showcase so the operators who keep the river running get featured, not buried.

What's unique

Six things that don't exist anywhere else on the Buffalo.

Live floatability per section

USGS feeds for every reach, translated into a color band on the river: too low, runnable, pushy, closed. Not raw numbers — an answer.

7-day water level & temperature trend

Rising or falling? Warming or cooling? Two charts, one glance. Plan tomorrow's float around today's direction.

Plain-English river reads

“She's at a friendly 4.1 and dropping — easy Class I cruise, bring a fishing rod.” Deterministic, no LLM required, written like the river guide your uncle wishes he was.

Outfitter showcase mode

Authorized operators get a co-branded panel with a logo, contact tap, and a popular-runs list per section — built so Riley's and friends keep their voice on the river.

NPS regs & AGFC fishing intel

Camping rules, day-use rules, life-jacket law, smallmouth slot limits — surfaced inline at the access where you actually need them.

Spawn-phase intel for anglers

Layered on top of the PFG data engine: smallmouth bass spawn phase per section, water temp targets, and what the bite should be doing this week.

In the wild

Screen grabs from the live Beta.

Lower-district section sheet on the Paddler Map showing Gilbert to Buffalo Point reach, gauge 4.50 ft, 380 cfs, water temp 57.8 degrees warming, 24-hour trend rising 0.2 ft, status HIGH with medium confidence, and the river read: 'Bigger water on the lower river. Strong paddlers fine; new paddlers tire fast.'

Switch districts, tap a section, and the right-side panel rewrites itself — live cfs, water temp, trend direction, confidence, and a written read.

Outfitters serving the selected section, surfaced inline. NPS concessionaire badging, tap-to-call, tap-to-visit — no scrolling, no Googling.

Mobile view of the Paddler Map at 390 pixels wide showing Buffalo National River header, mode toggle for Paddler / Recreation / Angler, today's best sections panel highlighting Buffalo Point to White River, a safety note, and the district pill row above the map.

Phone-first. Built for the put-in parking lot, not the desktop. 390×844, touch-sized targets, the same live data.

Desktop view — the operator showcase, the legend, and the plan-your-run picker, all without leaving the map.

Who it's for

Locals, tourists, and the outfitters keeping the river running.

The local

“Is Saturday on?”

Weekend paddlers in Marshall, Jasper, Yellville, and Mountain Home need one glanceable answer before they commit a Saturday and a shuttle ride.

The tourist

“What's a safe first float?”

Visitors from Little Rock, Memphis, Tulsa, and St. Louis arrive without local intuition. The map gives them district, mileage, difficulty, and an outfitter on the same screen.

The outfitter

“Send people, not phone calls.”

Operators like Riley's get a co-branded conditions view they can link from their own site — one source of truth, fewer “is the river running?” calls, more booked floats.

How it was built

Native AI in co-design and development.

The Paddler Map is the first lab product we shipped end-to-end on our AI-native pipeline: agents handle scoping, UX critique, and the build itself; humans hold the approval gate and the relationship with the river community. The same SOP that ships PFG ships this.

Riley's Outfitter sat in the room (virtually) as design partner — their put-ins, their runs, their phrasing of “is the river up?” calibrated the floatability model and the river reads. The scoping doc, the UX heuristic review, and the risk register are all AI-authored and human-approved artifacts in the repo.

Role	Owner	On this project
Scoping & UX design	Claude (Claude Code)	Feature scoping doc, persona model, floatability rubric, accessibility heuristic review
Code implementation	Codex	React app, USGS / NWS data wiring, section-sheet UI, mobile responsive build
Release polish & review	Copilot	Changelog, PR-level review, copy nits, version pins
Approval & field validation	@sirgaladad + Riley's Outfitter	Operator sign-off, feature priority, real-river truth-checking