"Wilko" wrote in message
...
Carey Robson wrote:

Using air and/or water temperature to relate to river grades perverts the
river grading system. Dress for the water temperature on rivers. On the
west
coast of Canada you can almost always see the snow that the river is
coming
from. It isn't hard to figure the water temperature.

Yep, I agree. Paddling glacier melt rivers in the middle of the summer,
one learns that lesson very quickly! If I'm too hot, I'll roll to cool
off, if I'm too cold because I didn't wear enough for the water temp, I
might die.


Hmm, I'm not so certain the I agree that considering water temps perverts
the rating system, whether or not you are dressed appropriately. Ice cold
water is harder to paddle than pleasant tropical water for many reasons
(icecream headaches from face shots, hypothermia--even with appropriate
clothing, reaction time when you flip, the strength in your hands, ice crust
and other obstacles). And dressing appropriately for icy winter water is a
pretty bulky set-up, and will effectively change how you can paddle when
compared to the same rapid on a summer t-shirt and pfd day.

Besides, its already a pretty perverted system. Its supposed to define the
difficulty of the rapids, but what determines that? A rocky rapid is
harder in a breakable glass boat than in a plastic one. A beginner will find
the same rapid impossible that an expert finds simple. A raft and a kayak
will seldom agree on the difficulty of a rapid. A remote rapid with little
chance for rescue is considered harder than the exact same rapid if a road
was put in right next to it. A certain rapid is much harder in a torrential
rain with poor visibilty, or a snowstorm than on a sunny summer day. The
list goes on, and most folks have a very informal allegiance to it anyway.

Unless we want to standardize *everything*, rating systems regularly take
all sorts of variables into account, and produce all sorts of variations. To
truly have a standard system, I imagine a system that is based on assuming
all paddlers on all rivers:
a) wear appropriate clothing for whatever the current weather is and
that the particular clothing does not affect their paddling on that day.
b) are in the same type of boat ('glass, plastic, rubber, whatever)
which are the same type (raft, yak, canoe) and the same style (squirt,
downriver, playboats, slalom....)
d) have the same theoretical access/egress availability and accessiblity
for rescue
e) are being paddled by the same type of paddler (beginner,
intermediate, expert...)

etc etc.
As long as grading systems are NOT standardized for the myriad of possible
variables, then there's nothing perverse about including the restrictions of
clothing as a factor, IMHO.

--riverman