Melissa wrote: > When choosing a group for a trip that could include exposed coastline > and rough weather/water paddling, I would hope that each member of such > a group would be sufficiently experienced. [...] > I would think (hope) that the > difference in strength, experience, and paddling speed between the > strongest and weakest in such a group would be minimal to begin with. Melissa makes a very important point. I think the decision about the trip starts well in advance, when planning who is participating. If you expect no weaker paddlers, there is no issue. If you expect weaker paddlers, say, by introducing a new paddler to kayaking, then plan for that. The only time this is out of your control is when you join a trip organized by someone else - especially outfitters - they unfortunately have no control over the claims of skill level made by the folks that buy into a trip. The approach I used to take is to allow the faster paddlers to take the lead but not get out of sight. They would be expected to take detours or yo-yo back and forth to take up the time diference between the fastest and slowest. There would be a requirement to maintain _only_ two groups, so every paddler has to take their pick - fast or slow. Having experienced the bad side of groups splitting up (one group got lost and eventually arrived nearly hypothermic), I learned long ago never to allow a complete split of the "meet you later" type. You're either on _my_ trip or you're not. I've taken a breather from leading trips of all types (paddle, ski, hike...) Too many frustrations with managing the above - I only go with people I know well now or go as a participant and lay back. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jul 14 2000 - 17:40:31 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:27 PDT