"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
...
"riverman" wrote in message
...
To support my point, here is the AWA Rating scale. Look at how much of it
is subjective, without defining the subject. Terms like 'easy',
'difficult', 'easy to maneuver', 'easily missed', 'fast moving',
'complex'..... what boat are they talking about? And what boater? Even
reference to 'swimmers' leaves quite a few assumptions to be made. As an
open boater, I always am challenged by the reference to 'waves that can
swamp an open canoe'. And as a rafter, I can hardly imagine doing an
eskimo roll...

Read these descriptions, and imagine yourself in a huge raft. Then
imagine yourself as a novice in a squirt boat. The descriptions won't fit
the same river on the same day.

The Six Difficulty Classes
Class I: Easy. Fast moving water with riffles and small waves. Few
obstructions, all obvious and easily missed with little training. Risk to
swimmers is slight, self-rescue is easy.

Heh. Came across this:

http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...tomofchute.jpg
http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...endofchute.jpg
http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...tecauldron.jpg

Was described as "riffles" in the guide.


grin Obviously, the guide was written by a rafter.

--riverman

"riverman" wrote in message
...

"Keenan Wellar" wrote in message
...
"riverman" wrote in message
...
To support my point, here is the AWA Rating scale. Look at how much of
it is subjective, without defining the subject. Terms like 'easy',
'difficult', 'easy to maneuver', 'easily missed', 'fast moving',
'complex'..... what boat are they talking about? And what boater? Even
reference to 'swimmers' leaves quite a few assumptions to be made. As an
open boater, I always am challenged by the reference to 'waves that can
swamp an open canoe'. And as a rafter, I can hardly imagine doing an
eskimo roll...

Read these descriptions, and imagine yourself in a huge raft. Then
imagine yourself as a novice in a squirt boat. The descriptions won't
fit the same river on the same day.

The Six Difficulty Classes
Class I: Easy. Fast moving water with riffles and small waves. Few
obstructions, all obvious and easily missed with little training. Risk
to swimmers is slight, self-rescue is easy.

Heh. Came across this:

http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...tomofchute.jpg
http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...endofchute.jpg
http://www.wellar.ca/gokayaking/pics...tecauldron.jpg

Was described as "riffles" in the guide.


grin Obviously, the guide was written by a rafter.

--riverman

Maybe! I never thought of that! Although I don't think you'd eve see a raft
on the Bonnechere, at least not in that location :-)

My wife and I actually tried to check with a local before heading out on
that particular trip. He seemed to know exactly what we are talking about,
and said that he thought if we found it too difficult to navigate we could
probably just get out and "wade down the riffles." Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Keenan
gokayaking.ca

I always thought river grade worked like this

Grade 1 take the mother-in-law / father-in-law
Grade 2 take the girl/boy friend
Grade 3 take the husband/wife
Grade 4 take the mistress/lover
Grade 5 take the photographs
Grade 6 take the mother-in-law / father-in-law.


By the way when I do my current lecture show about the trips I did in
Iran I describe the last few days on the Bakhtiari river as the hardest
grade 6 flat water I have ever paddled.

Paddling into vertically sided canyons with no eddies and no way of
seeing around the corner to the end of the canyon is incredibly
exhausting even when you are drifting on the flat.

The full report of the first two trips is on my web page - sorry I ain't
got round to posting the last years trip on the site yet. Got to find
time to unravel my Internet web page files - they got confused - don't
ask!

http://www.dmanby.demon.co.uk


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