riverman wrote:

The interesting thing about western ratings is that there is no numerical
classification for 'unrunnable'.

Ehm, having only run a few rivers west of the Appalachians, I think that
you might mistake Grand Canyon ratings for "western rivers" ratings,
Myron. The creeks and rivers I saw up close in Colorado were classified
I to VI, noting that my paddling buddy is from Colorado...


Class 10 often is described as "an
inexperienced boatman in a good quality boat has less than a 50-50 chance of
making it right-side up."

I know a rapid or two that fits this desciption... big grin


I like the 10-step breakdown, too, since it
clears up some of that vast grey area between Class III and Class IV on the
traditional grading scale.

Hmmm, that's one of the few level distinctions that I find very clear.
IMO a class III paddler will immediately know when they've hit a IV
rapid. For a class IV (and over) paddler, a line in a class III rapid
will not be anything to note.

(and it sounds a lot like Spinal Tap, too.)

:-)

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Wilko wrote:
riverman wrote:


The interesting thing about western ratings is that there is no numerical
classification for 'unrunnable'.


Ehm, having only run a few rivers west of the Appalachians, I think that
you might mistake Grand Canyon ratings for "western rivers" ratings,
Myron. The creeks and rivers I saw up close in Colorado were classified
I to VI, noting that my paddling buddy is from Colorado...


Myron et al, are refering to the "Deseret Scale", which goes from 1-10
and was applied to the Grand Canyon and several other large volume
rivers without difficult rapids. Rumored that 1-10 was for how high the
waves were (in feet) in that rapid.

--Chris

"Wilko" wrote in message
news:8Nq9b.42339$tK5.5098975@zonnet-reader-1...
riverman wrote:

The interesting thing about western ratings is that there is no
numerical
classification for 'unrunnable'.

Ehm, having only run a few rivers west of the Appalachians, I think that
you might mistake Grand Canyon ratings for "western rivers" ratings,
Myron. The creeks and rivers I saw up close in Colorado were classified
I to VI, noting that my paddling buddy is from Colorado...



Hmmm, I guess I missed the gist of your post, then , Wilko. Other than the
Grand Canyon scale (which I have never heard anyone but the Utah Mormons,
novices or marketers refer to as the 'Deseret Scale') there isn't a separate
rating scale for Western Rivers, so you must be referring to how the rivers
are rated? I know that because of geology, geography, plant cover and
relative age, Western water has a completely different 'feel' than Eastern
water, so as a result a Western class 4 can be completely different than an
Eastern class 4. And the nature of the boaters and their skills plays a big
part in that, too. The western boaters are more familar with open, big
water, so 'Carolina Steep Creeks' have been traditionally a challenge.
Eastern boaters are used to manuvering through rock gardens, so the
traditional '40 foot wave' is a real challenge to them. Also, the
familiarity with the types of boats plays a real role.
I once heard this summary, which is pretty good:

Back when the Americas were settled (from East to West), the natives in the
East used canoes as essential transportation, so from the earliest days,
everyone in the East had canoes and were taking them through the tightest of
spots, rather than take the time to portage. As people got more adventuous,
they began running more technical rivers in canoes, and the recreation
industry developed to support this, with durable boats and paddling gear,
and the right techniques.
The western natives, OTOH, did not run their rivers because they didn't take
them anywhere they wanted to go, and in many cases the rivers were hard to
access. That was, until after WW2, when a surplus of army rafts became
available and people started taking them on rivers for recreation. Rafts
have never been 'essential transportation'.

As a result, eastern rivers are rated for canoes, and eastern boaters have
grown up with hard boats as part of their culture for 250 years. Western
rivers are rated for rafts, and western boaters have had rafts are part of
their culture for 50 years. It wasn't until the mid 70s that the two started
to mix: some eastern boaters brought canoes to the west and started running
the big and small rivers (hey, *I* even managed to bag a first descent!) and
some western boaters brought rafts to the east and started running the
narrow rivers.

As a result, the very foundations of the east vs. west rating system is
different. The boats, the culture surrounding the boats, the 'genetic
resonance' of the boaters, and the entire outlook on the style of water is
different.

Is that what you meant?

--riverman

riverman wrote:

As a result, the very foundations of the east vs. west rating system is
different. The boats, the culture surrounding the boats, the 'genetic
resonance' of the boaters, and the entire outlook on the style of water is
different.

Is that what you meant?

Bingo! :-)

From what I've paddled in Europe, and (mostly the eastern part of) the
U.S., I got the impression that western U.S. rivers are more like what
we have over here. Sure, there are pool and drop as well as more
continuous rivers here, and there definately is a big difference in
volume between the multitude of rivers and creeks here.

In general, I found the rating of the rivers I ran in the east to be
quite different from those I ran in Europe. From the experiences of
those Eastern U.S. paddlers that I've taken on trips in Europe, I got
the impression that they weren't so used to the more continuous nature
of the creeks and rivers I took them on. They tended to rate those
European creeks/rivers higher than I would, I assume that had to do with
the more continuous nature of those streams.

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

"Wilko" wrote in message
newswG9b.44887$tK5.5159039@zonnet-reader-1...

From what I've paddled in Europe, and (mostly the eastern part of) the
U.S., I got the impression that western U.S. rivers are more like what
we have over here. Sure, there are pool and drop as well as more
continuous rivers here, and there definately is a big difference in
volume between the multitude of rivers and creeks here.

In general, I found the rating of the rivers I ran in the east to be
quite different from those I ran in Europe. From the experiences of
those Eastern U.S. paddlers that I've taken on trips in Europe, I got
the impression that they weren't so used to the more continuous nature
of the creeks and rivers I took them on. They tended to rate those
European creeks/rivers higher than I would, I assume that had to do with
the more continuous nature of those streams.

Hmmm, good observations, and I don't see any simple explanation. However, my
experience is that European rivers (if there is such a generic term) are a
differnet animal entirely than Eastern or Western water.

The eastern US rivers tend to be relatively short and intense, as the
Appalacians are an old, narrow mountain belt, and there is often only a few
miles between where the water has enough volume to have carved a good bed,
and when the rivers dump out onto the piedmont and flatten out with mud
bottoms. So, yes, eastern boaters will run a 2-mile stretch of rocky water
several times, and call that a 'run'. Several larger rivers (the Hudson, for
example) have several play stretches, but mostly because the rivers cut
across resistant geology and develop rapids in areas where they could easily
be long, class 1-2 stretches instead.

Western rivers, OTOH, tend to drain huge drainage basins, and the mountains
belts are very wide and relatively young. So the rivers can come down out of
the hills already with substantial volume, toss among miles-long stretches
of boulders, then canyon out and become long fla****er floats. The
whitewater stretches can be VERY continuous (my personal favorite is the
dozen-mile long nonstop 'Idaho Class 3' stretch at the top of the MidFork
Salmon.), but once the river changes its nature, its a long-term change.

European rivers, OTThirdH, are a mix of the two. The mountains are very old
and worn down, like the Appalacians, however they are very wide and can
support large rivers. The european steep creeks (like the ones in Slovenia)
are similar to the Eastern US rivers in nature, but because of the
dependable drainage of the Alps, they run more consistently and carry a lot
more debris through their drainout. However, because of the intermittent
nature of big floods, the rocks are sharp, poorly sorted, and the river bed
is relatively immature. So you end up with an eastern-style rocky creek,
that runs a western-style length before it changes its nature.

I think both eastern and western boaters overrate anything they are
unfamiliar with. Calling Hance in the Grand Canyon a '10' is a joke to any
eastern boater who can navigate rocks. Calling Magic Falls on the Kennebec a
'4-5' is a farce to any western boater who has run the V-wave in Lava. Any
US boater who comes to Europe is going to overrate the rapids, until they
get used to the continuous and rocky nature of them. I think European
boaters see both long runs, and rocky runs, so they might not overrate US
rivers quite so easily.

I know here in Kinshasa, I have had so many people tell me how the rapids on
the outskirts of town here are 'Unrunnable' that I want to puke. Its
basically a solid class 5-, with an entrance where you skirt a huge Lava
LedgeHole-sized pourover, run a Hance Lookalike wave train, then catch a
Niagara Whirlpool-sized eddy. I've run stuff this big in rafts a dozen times
with no problem. The stuff downstream is rumored to be worse, but I wonder
if its just continuous instead......

--riverman

To get back to the original post. the numbers could be simply correct.Take
the Zambezi, I believe beginners are taken down grade 5 in rafts on the
Zambezi and if your safety boater was Alex Nicks then he could well be up
for grade 6 after tea!

"ZattleBone" wrote in message
om...
Anyone know the differences in the two grading systems?

A friend has just come back from South Africa where (as a complete
rafting novice) he was running Grade 5. The kayakers supporting the
raft all went off to do a Grade 6 run in the afternoon. The numbers
seem a bit high to me.

Any ideas? Is a grade 6 raft-rapid actually a grade 4/5 kayak-run?

Zatt.

To get back to the original query
Maybe these grades are not that high. take the Zambezi. I believe beginners
are regularly taken down grade 5 rapids here and if your safety boater was
Alex Nicks then he could well be up for grade 6 after tea !

"ZattleBone" wrote in message
om...
Anyone know the differences in the two grading systems?

A friend has just come back from South Africa where (as a complete
rafting novice) he was running Grade 5. The kayakers supporting the
raft all went off to do a Grade 6 run in the afternoon. The numbers
seem a bit high to me.

Any ideas? Is a grade 6 raft-rapid actually a grade 4/5 kayak-run?

Zatt.

riverman wrote:

European rivers, OTThirdH, are a mix of the two. The mountains are very old
and worn down, like the Appalacians, however they are very wide and can
support large rivers. The european steep creeks (like the ones in Slovenia)
are similar to the Eastern US rivers in nature, but because of the
dependable drainage of the Alps, they run more consistently and carry a lot
more debris through their drainout. However, because of the intermittent
nature of big floods, the rocks are sharp, poorly sorted, and the river bed
is relatively immature. So you end up with an eastern-style rocky creek,
that runs a western-style length before it changes its nature.

Funny that you use the Slovenian creeks as an example, I spent almost
two weeks at the end of August paddling there. Then again, having come
used to the difficulty levels of those stretches, because I ran them
more than a dozen times this year, I also find that I tend to lessen the
perceived difficulty in my mind. That makes it difficult to rate them
more or less objectively, especially when explaining them to first timers.

I think both eastern and western boaters overrate anything they are
unfamiliar with. Calling Hance in the Grand Canyon a '10' is a joke to any
eastern boater who can navigate rocks. Calling Magic Falls on the Kennebec a
'4-5' is a farce to any western boater who has run the V-wave in Lava. Any
US boater who comes to Europe is going to overrate the rapids, until they
get used to the continuous and rocky nature of them. I think European
boaters see both long runs, and rocky runs, so they might not overrate US
rivers quite so easily.

Then again, there might be such a thing as big water and huge water
(Niagara Gorge, Zambezi). I haven't seen any of them up close, but just
watching the videos gives me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Again, not
being used to that kind of water influences my perception of the
difficulties involved.

I know here in Kinshasa, I have had so many people tell me how the rapids on
the outskirts of town here are 'Unrunnable' that I want to puke. Its
basically a solid class 5-, with an entrance where you skirt a huge Lava
LedgeHole-sized pourover, run a Hance Lookalike wave train, then catch a
Niagara Whirlpool-sized eddy. I've run stuff this big in rafts a dozen times
with no problem. The stuff downstream is rumored to be worse, but I wonder
if its just continuous instead......

Sounds like you need to get a couple of rafters and their equipment over
there... :-)

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

One of the biggest differences between Europe and the USA in grades is
the description that goes with it. British paddlers are notorious at
understating the river - not under-grading - but understating it. Brits
may well tell you - with little knowledge of your ability maybe 'You'll
be OK its only a grade IV ' whereas in the states you are likely to be
told 'Its graded IV but the crux has a nasty undercut........ '

The first time I ran the Gauley I was very cautious to begin with - till
I teamed up with a bunch of other kayak paddlers (I was travelling on my
own) - I was expecting run like the bottom end of the Ubaye whereas it
turned out to be more like the racecourse section in my memories (1987)



In message , Stuart
Miller writes
To get back to the original query
Maybe these grades are not that high. take the Zambezi. I believe beginners
are regularly taken down grade 5 rapids here and if your safety boater was
Alex Nicks then he could well be up for grade 6 after tea !

"ZattleBone" wrote in message
. com...
Anyone know the differences in the two grading systems?

A friend has just come back from South Africa where (as a complete
rafting novice) he was running Grade 5. The kayakers supporting the
raft all went off to do a Grade 6 run in the afternoon. The numbers
seem a bit high to me.

Any ideas? Is a grade 6 raft-rapid actually a grade 4/5 kayak-run?

Zatt.



--
Dave Manby
Details of the Coruh river and my book "Many Rivers To Run" at
http://www.dmanby.demon.co.uk

Excellent debate guys!

I'm rather intrigued by the eastern US vs western US vs Europe thing.
I've only paddled in Europe and the Western US and it has struck me that
most regions have a few rivers of each type!

If I was going to generalise I'd have to point out that Britain is
completely different to all of the above :-)

Take for example a couple of Californian classics like Dry Meadow Creek
and Brush Creek (have run the latter, only looked at the former) - they
really are not a lot different in character to some of Scotland's
granite gorge rivers, like the Meig and tributaries of the Etive.
Scotland is a bit short of high volume runs, but in a good spate rivers
like the Orchy and Spean develop a character like the Inn, or the
Skykomish, not as big but similar in feel! I thought boating in the
volcanic gorges of the WF Hood and White Salmon was pretty special, and
then within a month of coming home I discovered that some of the Clyde
has a similar geology, except much older and more weathered so it takes
more looking for, and is actually nowhere near as spectacular!

Comparisons aside, Britain is different, it's mainly different because
it doesn't have a snowpack so all rivers are rainfall fed, which
generally means we have to do them in the winter - that can really
affect your optimism for a certain grade! Then again the US is
different, I don't know a Tuolumne in Europe for example (maybe I
haven't looked hard enough?), the mountains are higher and as riverman
says the environment is younger, and in many cases less spoilt / more
wild which can add a lot both to enjoyment and consideration of what
you're going to do if it all goes wrong! The closest thing to the T
would be the Verdon canyon, totally different in character (limestone
gorge with siphons undercuts etc..) but similar length and commitment,
and both are pool drop although most of the T's drops are easier.

Anyway I think I digressed several times there!

I've learned to cope with a 6 grade system. I actually prefer the big
volume runs of the Western US (although some could do with the pools
shortening) and I don't have much problem matching up grades for very
different styles of river. However there are limitations, lets go back
to brush creek again shall we? It's graded 5, it has some largeish
drops, some blind chutes and a few falls with rocks at the bottom that
you can't really inspect, but is it really as hard as grade 5? Probably
not if I can paddle it in a playboat first time on it, but it is harder
than a 4, you can't obviously scout everything from the boat and
certainly can't see routes down everything. The same thing with the Meig
and various "rocky ditches" over here, there is no sustained difficulty,
there are some very technical moves sometimes potential for getting
badly hurt (lets keep grading objective?) and occasionally a leap of
faith is required (I love leading a competent grade 4 boater down the
Meig for their first time - you want me to do what?). Clearly some
things are outside of the boundaries of our 6 tier system - I don't
really know the way forward, adding higher grades as people do harder
stuff is one way but it doesn't address the differences in the nature of
the runs that we seem to agree is so important. Perhaps parallel grading
systems are required where some note about the nature of the run can
help with understanding what a grade means to you?

Here is an example, the St Joe (ID) at 8000 cfs, graded 4 for that flow.
It's not a terribly wide river so feels pretty huge with that flow, it
looked alright from the road so we got on. After a short while low
visibility (mainly due to the gradient, but partly due to mist) had us
climbing out to look at what might be a line of holes. From above it is
clearly a grade 2 wave train with the peaks just starting to break a
bit. Did that a couple more times, one bit was probably grade 3 and then
reached tumbledown falls. Yes grade 4 I guess, certainly wouldn't have
been very happy trying to read it from the river but inspection revealed
it be a 2 move rapid - launch, head left of centre on obvious green
wave, then cut hard right using a boily eddyline to take you onto the
tongue that avoids the ledge completely (OK perhaps the level was way
above what the grade was for?). After that we had decided that we were
happy with the feel of it having run the hardest part and finished it as
we would have started had it not been for the idea that there was going
to be some grade 4 round every corner (i.e. picking the biggest
wavetrains to wavewheel down). Ok so I'm partly arguing with the grade
here, it is now more common to grade for the average difficulty not the
hardest fall, but that aside had we known a bit more about the character
(big flushy water) (and yes we should have been able to work it out from
the road, but everything looks smaller from the road....) we probably
wouldn't have been looking out for an Orchy style grade 4 ledge drop
that gets harder in high flows (yes I know some of the Orchy drops get
easier) and would have played even harder on the first half :-)

Do I make some sense?

JIM

PS: everything I've run in the West (CA, OR, WA) has been graded on a
scale of 1-6!

riverman wrote:
"Wilko" wrote in message
newswG9b.44887$tK5.5159039@zonnet-reader-1...

From what I've paddled in Europe, and (mostly the eastern part of) the
U.S., I got the impression that western U.S. rivers are more like what
we have over here. Sure, there are pool and drop as well as more
continuous rivers here, and there definately is a big difference in
volume between the multitude of rivers and creeks here.

In general, I found the rating of the rivers I ran in the east to be
quite different from those I ran in Europe. From the experiences of
those Eastern U.S. paddlers that I've taken on trips in Europe, I got
the impression that they weren't so used to the more continuous nature
of the creeks and rivers I took them on. They tended to rate those
European creeks/rivers higher than I would, I assume that had to do with
the more continuous nature of those streams.


Hmmm, good observations, and I don't see any simple explanation. However, my
experience is that European rivers (if there is such a generic term) are a
differnet animal entirely than Eastern or Western water.

The eastern US rivers tend to be relatively short and intense, as the
Appalacians are an old, narrow mountain belt, and there is often only a few
miles between where the water has enough volume to have carved a good bed,
and when the rivers dump out onto the piedmont and flatten out with mud
bottoms. So, yes, eastern boaters will run a 2-mile stretch of rocky water
several times, and call that a 'run'. Several larger rivers (the Hudson, for
example) have several play stretches, but mostly because the rivers cut
across resistant geology and develop rapids in areas where they could easily
be long, class 1-2 stretches instead.

Western rivers, OTOH, tend to drain huge drainage basins, and the mountains
belts are very wide and relatively young. So the rivers can come down out of
the hills already with substantial volume, toss among miles-long stretches
of boulders, then canyon out and become long fla****er floats. The
whitewater stretches can be VERY continuous (my personal favorite is the
dozen-mile long nonstop 'Idaho Class 3' stretch at the top of the MidFork
Salmon.), but once the river changes its nature, its a long-term change.

European rivers, OTThirdH, are a mix of the two. The mountains are very old
and worn down, like the Appalacians, however they are very wide and can
support large rivers. The european steep creeks (like the ones in Slovenia)
are similar to the Eastern US rivers in nature, but because of the
dependable drainage of the Alps, they run more consistently and carry a lot
more debris through their drainout. However, because of the intermittent
nature of big floods, the rocks are sharp, poorly sorted, and the river bed
is relatively immature. So you end up with an eastern-style rocky creek,
that runs a western-style length before it changes its nature.

I think both eastern and western boaters overrate anything they are
unfamiliar with. Calling Hance in the Grand Canyon a '10' is a joke to any
eastern boater who can navigate rocks. Calling Magic Falls on the Kennebec a
'4-5' is a farce to any western boater who has run the V-wave in Lava. Any
US boater who comes to Europe is going to overrate the rapids, until they
get used to the continuous and rocky nature of them. I think European
boaters see both long runs, and rocky runs, so they might not overrate US
rivers quite so easily.

I know here in Kinshasa, I have had so many people tell me how the rapids on
the outskirts of town here are 'Unrunnable' that I want to puke. Its
basically a solid class 5-, with an entrance where you skirt a huge Lava
LedgeHole-sized pourover, run a Hance Lookalike wave train, then catch a
Niagara Whirlpool-sized eddy. I've run stuff this big in rafts a dozen times
with no problem. The stuff downstream is rumored to be worse, but I wonder
if its just continuous instead......

--riverman