I wouldn't call this a "near death" unless you were given CPR.
It sounds like just a bad swim for you, and a terribly bad swim
for your friend, who went under a rock.

Jokes are supposed to be funny. Are prison jokes considered funnier
in WV than elsewhere?

Commercial passengers who "swim" or experience "carnage" are almost
twice as likely to return, various studies indicate. Many companies
give guests a "thrill" by maneuvering them into the biggest waves.
However guides should be sensitive to what their guests want, and
it can't hurt to ask.

Many mishaps occur right after lunch. Usually I wait to eat until
the big rapids are behind me. Did you consider refusing to continue
in that same boat configuration after lunch?

It's always best when guides know the river well, especially on rivers
with many hazards (e.g. undercut rocks). I don't know the Gauley,
but standing up above a rapid with rock strainers is a bad idea!

It could be that his standing up rocked the boat enough to dump you
and your friend out. It could also be that looking back at him
interrupted your concentration and led to your falling out.

Usually paddle boats have more than two people, and you made it seem
like Charlene was on the same side as Chuck. That's odd.

Hope you didn't tip your guide!

No, from everyone else's comments, I suppose that it wasn't what anyone
other than me would call "near death". But for me, it was close enough.

As for Chuck giving his guests what they wanted, there were only two guests,
me and my friend. And then was, of course, Charlene - who did, yes, sit on
the same side as Chuck. So we actually had three on one side (the left
side), and me, and only me, on the right side.

You are insightful - because our swimming was shortly after lunch. But it
wouldn't have done any good to have eaten earlier or later - as we started
our with a Class V, and ended with a Class V. They were all pretty much
evenly spaced out.

When I was supposed to be paddling, the last thing that I would have been
doing was looking back. No, I looked back at other times. And I don't really
think that he was standing when we all went swimming. But my friend seems to
think that he actually did it for fun......

The Lower Gauley has LOTS of huge, undercut rocks - and lots of seives. As
far as I am concerned, there is NO good place to "go swimming".

And, no, I didn't tip him!

I really appreciated your comments, Bill - as well as those of everyone
else - as they have given me a clearer understanding of what I was getting
in to. It is my own fault for not finding out all of this stuff BEFORE I
went - EXPECIALLY the raft configuration of the trip. A small boat, on Class
V waves, with four people - three on the left, and me on the right - I
believe is what did it. If we had been in a larger boat with more people, I
don't believe that it would have happened.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment - I really do appreciate it!

Celia,

About the class V's - understand that raft guides and companies
typically inflate the actual difficulty of a rapid by one class. If
your guide tells you it's a class V it's probably really a IV, and a
IV really a III.

They are selling an experience, an adventure, and having their
customers memories imprinted with the "Class V" rapid they ran is just
business as usual. Deceptive, but still not unusual.

Mike McCrea wrote:

Celia,

About the class V's - understand that raft guides and companies
typically inflate the actual difficulty of a rapid by one class. If
your guide tells you it's a class V it's probably really a IV, and a
IV really a III.

They are selling an experience, an adventure, and having their
customers memories imprinted with the "Class V" rapid they ran is just
business as usual. Deceptive, but still not unusual.

That's a load of crap! How many rafts have you guided?

JAM

J. A. M. wrote:
Mike McCrea wrote:

Celia,

About the class V's - understand that raft guides and companies
typically inflate the actual difficulty of a rapid by one class. If
your guide tells you it's a class V it's probably really a IV, and a
IV really a III.

They are selling an experience, an adventure, and having their
customers memories imprinted with the "Class V" rapid they ran is just
business as usual. Deceptive, but still not unusual.


That's a load of crap! How many rafts have you guided?

Talking about a load of carp: how many times did you paddle or raft the
Lower Gauley and encounter class V rapids?

I know more than a few rivers on both sides of the Altantic where the
rafting companies seem to have found some mysterious class V rapids that
are yet to be found or paddled by any other paddler, including locals
with hundreds of runs below their belt.

I've also overheard more than a few guides giving this kind of a "class
so and so" speech to their customers, even though they were talking
about runs that were at least one class easier than what they made them
seem to be.

If you want to deny that those practises are pretty common among raft
guides, go ahead... just don't expect experienced paddlers to take you
very serious.


--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Wilko wrote:

J. A. M. wrote:
Mike McCrea wrote:

Celia,

About the class V's - understand that raft guides and companies
typically inflate the actual difficulty of a rapid by one class. If
your guide tells you it's a class V it's probably really a IV, and a
IV really a III.

They are selling an experience, an adventure, and having their
customers memories imprinted with the "Class V" rapid they ran is just
business as usual. Deceptive, but still not unusual.


That's a load of crap! How many rafts have you guided?

Talking about a load of carp: how many times did you paddle or raft the
Lower Gauley and encounter class V rapids?

I know more than a few rivers on both sides of the Altantic where the
rafting companies seem to have found some mysterious class V rapids that
are yet to be found or paddled by any other paddler, including locals
with hundreds of runs below their belt.

I've also overheard more than a few guides giving this kind of a "class
so and so" speech to their customers, even though they were talking
about runs that were at least one class easier than what they made them
seem to be.

If you want to deny that those practises are pretty common among raft
guides, go ahead... just don't expect experienced paddlers to take you
very serious.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

The Lower Gauley is class 4. Unless you've been stuffed under one of the rocks or run over by a raft. Then it's class 6!

Heavens Gate is not that hard to run. It's easier than Upper Mash or Pure Screaming Hell. The left gate is under cut but you have to get close to it for maximum effect. A large rock, just down stream on the left is also a danger. The face of it is flat, some say concave, and it splits the current. I've seen swimmers held against it for several seconds before washing out.

JAM

J. A. M. wrote:
Wilko wrote:

J. A. M. wrote:

The Lower Gauley is class 4. Unless you've been stuffed under one of the rocks or run over by a raft. Then it's class 6!

The international difficulty rating has nothing to do with consequences,
but all with how difficult it is to stay on your line, because of the
width of the line, the manouvering required because of holes, waves,
rocks, drops, speed of current etc..

Getting stuffed under a rock says nothing about how difficult it is to
run the lines. Calling consequences a certain class makes no sense.
Strainers can kill, does that make running over a fallen tree on an
almost fla****er river it suddenly class VI?

As for your class IV rating for the entire lower Gauley, I think only a
few of the rapids on the lower Gauley deserve that rating. But where
does that leave the rafting guides' claims of it being class V?

Heavens Gate is not that hard to run. It's easier than Upper Mash or Pure Screaming Hell. The left gate is under cut but you have to get close to it for maximum effect. A large rock, just down stream on the left is also a danger. The face of it is flat, some say concave, and it splits the current. I've seen swimmers held against it for several seconds before washing out.

Just FYI: I've run the Gauley a couple of times, the upper more than the
lower, but still, often enough to know what I'm talking about.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

I stand corrected Jimbob; everyone knows a raft guide would never
exaggerate and I'm sure Celia's trip really "started out with a Class
V, and ended with a Class V. They were all pretty much evenly spaced
out."

In message , Mike
McCrea writes
I stand corrected Jimbob; everyone knows a raft guide would never
exaggerate and I'm sure Celia's trip really "started out with a Class
V, and ended with a Class V. They were all pretty much evenly spaced
out."

It would appear that Celia's trip was class VI but only as she perceived
it

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

About the class V's - understand that raft guides and companies
typically inflate the actual difficulty of a rapid by one class. If
your guide tells you it's a class V it's probably really a IV, and a
IV really a III.

They are selling an experience, an adventure, and having their
customers memories imprinted with the "Class V" rapid they ran is just
business as usual. Deceptive, but still not unusual.


That's a load of crap! How many rafts have you guided?

Totally normal on the Arkansas. Royal Gorge...Class V...bull (except
high water, and then it's shut down to commercial rafting).