Bow and Stern Roles in tandem

[Jiibash]

After all the work you've done on that route I can understand. Earlier maps of Nam use to show a dam midway between Martin and Barnum Green as you know it was actually a thrust fault forming a perfect line across the river and 8 foot sheer drop. I think that cartographers error cursed one off the finest canoe routes in the world. At one point the access to these rapids allowed anyone to spend a day on white water I guess you still can. I do have an idea that would get you over there. As you know Johnny is coming up this summer so I'll bow for JJ and you can do the "how not to video" cause I know JJ won't listen to me even tho he's almost blind. Water proof sound recording would be cool but I know you could also do the voice over. The last time we were out I got to watch him swim the Kenogami. Guess I could go swimming with him this time round. Would you believe the year before I joined the club the Partridge set on the Nam was given the "E" having claimed a tin can, it might still be rapt around that rock. The "E" in many cases was earned. With the intense stress that's involved in providing outdoor education these days I don't know how Mr. Haslam does it but I'm profoundly grateful that he does. I'll advise JJ not to bring anything of sentimental value and don't worry, he's more experience in white water swimming than both of us combined.

 

[Uncle_Skwid]

Slightly off-topic in terms of tandem roles but I don't do tandem. So there. I do, however, paddle a tandem boat solo. And it's FANTASTIC, albeit a little wide for a lot of cross-stroking. I can camp out of it for many days (I'm planning 16-18 in January 2017, by the by) and can still move it around while loaded (the boat, that is...).

Any who.

All this talk of Classes and Scales has me confused. The old Outers rating. American Western Rivers Ratings. AW ratings. Keel Haulers river ratings (which is actually a really useful system as it is a comparative system of individual rapids.)

Big waves from an open canoe are fantastic because an open boat rides so high (until it doesn't). It's like being able to see while careening downhill on a runaway train. (As opposed to kayaks which sit so low in the water everything is a mystery until the mystery is revealed.)

So I constructed a short introductory GoPro video from our recently celebrated July 4th weekend promoting my own Class System. We'll call it the WVA Class system for Canoe Camping on Rivers. (Note Rivers, not Creeks, which are very different and far more boat crunching.) According to AW, all the rapids in this video are ranked about the same. And I disagree. So here I'll attempt to spread them out through the classes, thereby making for a more streamlined, logical progression, and a better story board.

Enjoy, and as always, please don't take it (or me) too seriously.

 

[pblanc]

Video is private and cannot be viewed.

The American Whitewater international scale of rapid difficulty is the standard throughout most of the US and can be viewed at the link below.

An exception is the Colorado River which generally uses a 1 through 10 rating for rapid difficulty.

While very useful, the AW scale is not perfect. Problems arise when the scale is applied to rank the difficulty of an entire river run. How does one rate a run that is generally Class II but has one Class IV+ rapid that is frequently portaged, for example? Also, long technical rapids are often more difficult for some than shorter, more powerful rapids that have a nice recovery pool below them. And there is a lot of disagreement that can arise in rating the difficulty of individual rapids. The AW benchmark rapids can give a paddler a sense of relative difficulty, assuming they are familiar with any of the benchmarks.

Many rapids in the USA, and elsewhere I am sure, have been downgraded over the last 40 years or so. Many erstwhile Class Vs are now considered Class IVs and many Class IVs are now Class IIIs. This should be taken into account when referring to older guide books.

 

[Uncle_Skwid]

Whoops. Sorry. I tend to click private whenever I see the word.

 

[Jiibash]

pblanc has hit the nail on the head. As to your question I viewed the video and agree with you.The hole run appearing to be on the same stretch may be the cause for the equal rating. Rapids are rated as a whole and not broken down by their component parts. Also remember that rivers change their flow volumes and so no set way to communicate what someone coming behind you might find. The majority of my experience in rating rapids was in establishing new canoe route's we were concerned about what the paddlers behind us would find. You seem to be working your way from a C2 to a C4 in the shots. If your line in the last set had been out of the standing waves maybe a C+3. Hope this helps.