[Paddlewise] River hazzards and such...

I have just been reading the recent good posts on hazzards and 
responsibility, etc.. and agree in full.  I the irrigation flume story 
however reminds me of  a day on the McKenzie River here in Oregon, perhaps 
ten or twelve years ago, when I was more fit and an active whitewater 
paddler.  We had pretty much finished the challengin part of the run some 
time back and were taking it easy... with nothing but friendly class two 
things ahead as I remember it.

We later came across a group of newbies with an apparrent instructor, so I 
stopped by to simply say hi to the instructor, and found him to be from the 
U of O in Eugene's outdoor program.  Well... I sort of hung out a bit since 
I saw a strainer downstream and the class two rapid was tending to flow a 
sig portion of the current right into that...

Sure enough, one boater flipped in the eddy about 80 or 100 yards up.. the 
last paddler in the group, so I went over and paddled him and his boat over 
to the side as far up as possible.  I by that time of course he was perhaps 
halfway downriver toward the tree.  I then advised him to consider putting 
in downstream of the tree... but  he insisted on putting in right where he 
was.... to make him feel better I myself put in downstream, hoping he would 
follow suite, and hung out on the downstream side of the tree.

He just about dumped it again before he got passed the reach of the treee, 
and the instructor never seemed to have the least bit of worry, although he 
was the only experience person in his group, and was downstream enough there 
was no way he could have had any effect on the outcome if the guy strained 
himself...   :)

Maybe I am a bit paranoid... but somehow the confidence that paddler had 
that he would not flip twice on the water that had already gotten  him once 
seemed unjustified... in light of the tree he had to get around.    Risk is 
great when the fall back plan is in place.. that is how one learns and 
increased skill and thrill... but to have walked a bit downriver and then 
put in would have given the same kind of practice and experience without the 
tree below and the price that it could have dealt him...

So the thrill is great, but common sense is at times greatly lacking... 
making me very picky as to whom I used to paddle with.  (And I was sometimes 
the least skilled in the group, but no one ever had to rescue me either...I 
portaged things sometiimes that others did not ... but I never had someone 
needing to haul me out at their own risk... )

Mike






> Every year a group gets caught in their raft under the flume, stripped of
> their clothes and dumped into white water that will neither float them or
> allow them to breathe. Almost none of them will be wearing their PFDs but
> the fact that they had them is demonstrated by their presence floating 
> still
> in the eddy under the falls long after the victims are taken away. Every
> year a few die from this.
>
> Nothing will cure stupidity.
>
>
> Craig Jungers
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