On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 09:45:36AM -0800, Bradford R. Crain wrote: > As I discovered, the only way to survive this is to swim downwards with > the current (not exactly instinctual) and eventually you pop up downstream. > It's not possible to swim towards the surface alongside the headwall because > the downward current is just too strong. What you encountered there is a hydraulic -- from your description, a particularly strong one, perhaps bordering on "terminal". And swimming downwards to exit (after other attempts, like trying to swim out one end or the other) is one of the ways to escape without assistance. I've been recirculated in them a few times (including in the above-mentioned Greyhound Bus Stopper) and have only had to resort to that once. It was...unpleasant. It was dark. My ears popped. And I came up about 50 yards downstream. On other occasions, "go around the cycle a few times and see what happens", "try to swim out one end" and "try making different shapes with your body" sufficed. I've yet to have to take off my PFD to escape one -- clearly a "last resort" choice I hope never to face. All novice whitewater paddlers are taught to look for these -- often using low-head dams as an example, since they're among the nastiest (because they're uniform, river-wide and symmetric). One of the key lessons that's sometimes tough to impart is that the innocuous-looking ones are often the worst, because the water's energy isn't being expended in making a splashy, gnarly-looking hole; it's being expended in strong, uniform, recirculating flow that can be lethal. Developing the judgement necessary to know which are fun play spots, which can be punched, and which must be avoided at all costs is one part of the learning process. And experienced paddlers learn -- from guidebooks, other paddlers, or first-hand experience if they're so unfortunate -- where those spots are. Every river paddler in the southeast US probably knows about Woodall Shoals on the Chattooga -- a class III drop *unless* you blunder into the hydraulic, in which case it's likely to be fatal. Same for the Brookmont Dam on the Potomac at DC, or the choice bit of mayhem in Labyrinth on the Deerfield in Massachusetts ("le petite mort", I believe it's called), or even friendly little Snap Falls on Muddy Creek in south-central Pennsylvania, which turns vicious at high water levels. Personally, I don't think these should be posted. Anyone who lacks the knowledge and experience to know about them and avoid them probably shouldn't be on the river. And if they *were* posted, then (given our litigious society) someone who was injured in an un-posted spot -- which just happened to be nasty that particular day because of water level -- could well make the argument that somebody else was negligent by not posting that spot as well. Heck, on some runs (like the "Miracle Mile" of the Meadow River in WV) there could be a sign every 50 feet warning of hydraulics, undercut rocks, boulder sieves...so no thanks. ---Rsk *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Dec 20 2007 - 13:54:16 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:28 PDT