PaddleWise by thread

From: Natalie Wiest <wiestn_at_tamug.edu>
subject: [Paddlewise] Grand Canyon & skiing fame
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:56:52 -0600
Matt,

My Grand Canyon running experience is a bit dated - hmmm, by about 30 years-
but I did run it in a hardshell kayak.  Pretty sure the model was Lettman Mark
IV, but 24"wide x 13'2" long, and home built.  What I discovered is that one
could only set the general direction - water so immense and powerful you
didn't have a whole lot of control over that.  I paddled a championship slalom
race on the Arkansas directly afterward, so it's not that I didn't otherwise
have very good boat control.  You're probably no stranger to big water, and at
30,000 CFS I found you typically flush through even some bad looking stuff.  I
wasn't quite prepared for that size so had more than a few heart pounding
experiences.

At that level, there wasn't a whole lot of maneuvering to be done, but I
suspect you'll have lower flows so there may be some mandatory maneuvering.
At high water, sea kayak would have been grand, but I didn't even own one
then.

Natalie Wiest
Houston area Texas - where it will be 75 degrees today!
Skiing looked fabulous, but I'll take my whitewater in flowing stage.

[demime 1.01e removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat]
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************
From: Jackie Myers <jackie_at_muddypuppies.com>
subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Grand Canyon & skiing fame
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:34:40 -0800
Natalie Wiest wrote:

>You're probably no stranger to big water, and at
>30,000 CFS I found you typically flush through even some bad looking stuff.  I
>wasn't quite prepared for that size so had more than a few heart pounding
>experiences.
>

It would be interesting to know what the flow rate is nowadays compared 
to 30 years ago.  Isn't the Colorado quite a bit lower these days?  What 
time of year did you run it?   What a trip to remember! :-)

Jackie
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:43 PDT