On Wed, Feb 18, 1998 at 02:22:33AM -0700, Philip Wylie wrote: > Pardon my ignorance but would you not class white water kayakingas an extreme > sport the same as sky-diving and would this not > leave sea kayaking in the category of "recreation" (although recognizing > some of the extreme circumstances which can occur on the ocean). No, whitewater kayaking is not an extreme sport; it's a recreational the sport in the same way that sea kayaking, mountain biking, skiing, and other outdoor sports are. Extreme whitewater kayaking, like extreme skiing, extreme mountain biking, etc., is an extreme sport. I hope that doesn't sound like nitpicking, for there's actually an important point in there: the overwhelming majority of whitewater paddlers do not run the class V stuff that you see on the cover of American Whitewater every month. Most whitewater paddlers are quite conservative (and I include myself in that) and stay well within their limits -- they consider it recreation, as do I, and getting hurt or killed while doing it isn't particularly appealing. ;-) (Aside: speaking of American Whitewater, many of the paddlers I know grow tired of reading of extreme first descents month after month and wish they'd write articles about rivers that J. Average Paddler can actually do without mounting an expedition. But hey, it's not our magazine, so...) > Therefore would the proportion of deaths that do occur > amongst white water kayakers reflect a propensity for much greater > risk taking where as recreational kayakers are more conservative in > their risk taking? Well, we could discuss "the risk paddlers *think* they're taking" vs. "the risk paddlers really are taking" ad infinitum, but before we get into trying to explain the "proportion of deaths" and its perceived disparity from other sports, we would need to establish just what that proportion is -- then we could debate possible explanations for why it's the same or different from other sports. ---Rsk *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Feb 18 1998 - 03:44:52 PST
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