# wow.....



## Poedunk (Apr 19, 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKBlkRFto9g


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## Liquido (Feb 27, 2012)

Wow is right!!!! Where to begin in picking that apart from the warmth and safety of my office?


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## Hooter (May 29, 2016)

What stretch is that? 


Sent from my iPhone using Mountain Buzz


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## Poedunk (Apr 19, 2015)

That's Satan's Cesspool on the South fork of the American that they flip on.


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## SixPek (Jul 19, 2016)

Poedunk said:


> That's Satan's Cesspool on the South fork of the American that they flip on.


They flipped at Fowler's Rock, looks like to me..then went for a nice swim through the upper haystacks and satan's.

So much wrong here...


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

Lots to learn from this film about big water raft guiding. 

Here is my play by play:

0. The crew has not been trained well enough to paddle together in rapids. 

1. at 1:28 the boat flips. Too much momentum and no high side command called. 

2. at 3:19 a rope is deployed the swimmer is holding onto this rope. It is unclear if the guide let the rope go or simply never pulled it in after the swimmer acknowledged he had it. 

3. 4:46 swimmer with GoPro is pulled back into the boat after about 4min in the water. 

4. 6:30 There three ropes in the boat. None are secure. one is unpacked in the middle. one is being packed in the front and one is sitting in front to the oars man. 

5. 7:20 guide has crew paddle to flipped raft. back right passenger is not holding t-grip.

6. 7:30 guide 2 jumps on flipped raft and starts paddling in into the next drop while riding on top. * Maybe he could have reflipped it right away or when he had it in the current. He seems to be waiting for the Trip leaders permission. 

6.1 At 7:45 Guide in front is about to through a packed and ready to deploy bag to the swimmer. Instead, the guide in back throughs her a tangled rope from the center of the boat and tells her to through it. She throws the tangled mess into the drink missing the swimmer and pulls it back in. 

7. 8:25 another guide (the one the was originally paddling the boat that flipped? ) is pulled into the rescue boat by the oars man. He does not self-rescue 

8. 10:25 guide 2 reflips the boat on Trip leaders command. 

9. 10:40 Guide 3 jumps from rescue boat into reflipped boat. The guide who re-flipped the boat still has not self-rescued 

10. 10:43 Guide in front left tells the passenger to tuck toe under front thort. The oarsman loses the boat angle after hitting a lateral wave. 

11. 10:47 Boat that was reflipped hits the now almost sideways rescue boat causing the guide in the front right whose feet are not secure to fall out as well as the passenger on the middle right. No hang on - or high side commands were called. 

12: 11:06 Guide pulls passanger in first. 

13: 11:26 Guide that fell out still in water can not self-rescue. Instructs crew to pull him in by his strap. 

14: 12:20 Goro filmer acknowledges that "Mark" and one other person are still missing.



Wow.


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## Poedunk (Apr 19, 2015)

Yeah, I was shocked when the guide of the first boat that flipped came up on the raft halfway through the video. That group of kayakers they passed were probably having a good laugh watching this shit show. The helmet camera wearer (assuming he's a customer) had a huge eddy to swim to. It looked as if the flipped raft was going into the eddy but he found a rope floating (probably was a loose rope in the raft that flipped) and didn't try to swim to the eddy that the guides in the rescue boat are yelling and waving him into. He seems to think they were referring to the rescue bag, the problem was at one point he was holding both ends of the bag expecting it to magically pull him to the boat. If he would have made it to shore around that 3:00 min mark I think this wouldn't have been nearly as horrible to watch.


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

Poedunk,

Yes, and I am not sure why he / all the swimmers were not instructed to swim aggressively to shore or to the boat? 

In July at flows of 1200cfs, a long swim in the gorge has minimal risk. Currently, the water is high due to the large snowpack and bigger release from the Slab / Chilbar dams. 

This section of river has not had a high water season since 2011. Many folks (in this case guides included) just do not understand how much more dangerous the run can be at higher water. 

~ B


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

Another example of the dangers found easy (class II-III) river sections at high water levels: 

This crew paddling the Chili bar section on the same river at about 27k. https://youtu.be/2ai7H0DS_sM?t=6m

The person in the film swims for 6mins going about two miles down river. He lost all his gear. (Boat, paddle, gro pro on back of boat)

It if was not for Gavin providing safety kayaking support he likely would have flushed drowned.


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## bystander (Jul 3, 2014)

SixPek said:


> They flipped at Fowler's Rock, looks like to me..then went for a nice swim through the upper haystacks and satan's.
> 
> So much wrong here...


Due to the high water, a lot is washed out, but the video starts at Lost Hat, and the flip occurred at Satan's Cesspool. The video ended right before bouncing rock.


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## Liquido (Feb 27, 2012)

A safety talk Pet Peeve of mine is something like "If you end up swimming, get your nose up and toes up!" With no mention of self rescue or swimming to an eddy/shore. I say "Don't count on being rescued! Look for ways to self rescue!" The dude in that footage sure had some options but he waited and waited. And all the dangerous rope in the water and in the boats. Holy crap that was ugly!


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## Fruita Boater (Jan 15, 2015)

*Scary throw bag action for sure*

Where to begin  ...Yeah lots of fodder here for us arm chair critics. 

For me though I can't get over the throw bag issues here. I'm surprised the POV/swimmer didn't get tangled up while in the water-guides always remind your newbie peeps to swim away from loose/unattended ropes in the river and if you're the rescuer, don't let go of them unless it becomes a safety issue for you/them and only as a last resort. 

In the raft, stuff that [email protected] up ASAP before someone gets tangled!! Scary stuff if they had flipped again with all that loose rope laying around on deck. 

To top it off, the one lone guide picked the absolute worst time to right the raft out of riding it for all that distance. Might have been better just to T-bone it with the stern mount, nose it into shore and deal with it as a group then go it alone. 

IMHO, they're all lucky they didn't swim again or someone take an oar blade to the face when the boat righted-ouch


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## Liquido (Feb 27, 2012)

You criticize others and have a  for folks stating their opinions, but then share many of your own (correctly I might add), boy you must be a hoot to have beers with. 

My 2 cents is that these types videos and conversations are good learning tools and are interesting. All the rope in the water/boats and the swimmer's passivity are common mistakes, as are many of the other errors in this shitshow. The first thing people want to do is throw a rope, when in actuality it should be the last thing.


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

On another note, the film shows a snowball effect really well. There is a set of factors that keep the situation evolving in a negative way. 

I wonder what could have been done after the initial boat flip to stabilize the situation more quickly while still working to get the swimmers out of the drink as fast a possible? 

The many of actions the guides took with positive intent only escalated the situation.


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## Matty (May 13, 2004)

1) Better him than me.
2) Easy to say what we would have done, because there is no video of us.
3) Looks like a turkey boat mixed in with custies. 
4) Too many junior guides with throw bags.
5) Glad everyone is safe. Cali runoff is no joke this year.


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## salgoo (Apr 8, 2017)

buckmanriver said:


> Another example of the dangers found easy (class II-III) river sections at high water levels:
> 
> This crew paddling the Chili bar section on the same river at about 27k. https://youtu.be/2ai7H0DS_sM?t=6m
> 
> ...


Fantastic rescue effort.


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## BlueBoat (May 19, 2016)

That is good footage to view and learn from.
Glad I wasn't on that junk show!


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## bystander (Jul 3, 2014)

buckmanriver said:


> Another example of the dangers found easy (class II-III) river sections at high water levels:
> 
> This crew paddling the Chili bar section on the same river at about 27k. https://youtu.be/2ai7H0DS_sM?t=6m
> 
> ...


I didn't know that one got posted. We were all glad Gavin joined us that day. I'm not sure the rest of us were prepared to drag him to shore in all that.


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## Fruita Boater (Jan 15, 2015)

Liquido said:


> You criticize others and have a  for folks stating their opinions, but then share many of your own (correctly I might add), boy you must be a hoot to have beers with.
> 
> My 2 cents is that these types videos and conversations are good learning tools and are interesting. All the rope in the water/boats and the swimmer's passivity are common mistakes, as are many of the other errors in this shitshow. The first thing people want to do is throw a rope, when in actuality it should be the last thing.


With respect Liquido, not sure how I'm criticizing anyone for stating their opinions on the buzz by my comments here other than the individuals in the video, that IMHO, carelessly endangered the lives of inexperienced customers, multiple ways/multiple times on a commercial trip-that's my beef.


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## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

bystander said:


> I didn't know that one got posted. We were all glad Gavin joined us that day. I'm not sure the rest of us were prepared to drag him to shore in all that.


1. Me too Gavin has an unusual reputation in the small expert class of boaters the CA region. We have been paddling a fair amount together in the last 6 months and I have been grateful to have him take lead in Gnar drops that scare me. He has also been helpful in rescue situations. And his portage slaying pattern continues and I hope he does not push it too far. 

2. I think self-evaluation after incidents like the ones in these post can create teachable moments for everyone. The goal is to improve risk management as imperfect humans. My last swim was in an easy class III rapid. Little danger but a great reminder my propensity to make mistakes.


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