River rapid classification rafting.

When planning a trip you need to decide what sort of classification of water you’re comfortable with doing and also then research the trip and what sort of classification you expect to see out there. Rivers are classed between one and six, most of the time you’re hovering around two, three and four. Down to my right here you have a class two section of white water and off to my left you have a class one section, pretty easy moving water. Class three starts to get a little more complicated, requires a little more skill from the raft guide and the crew and there are limits options for negotiating your way down a class three rapid. Class four rapids are more difficult, the risk of injury is higher, you have to have a better understanding of how to maneuver your raft around and be fairly experienced. Class five is really expert only, you have a serious risk of injury, very limited options on where to go on the river and the routes to take and then class six is supposed to be un-runable, class six, serious risk of injury or death, uh, typically not run from a rafting standpoint recreational

Knowing River features and dynamics for rafting.

It’s great to understand a little bit about river dynamics and river features so that you’re able to use them to your advantage when you work your way downstream. Taking a river rescue course will also enable you to get a better understanding of how to use these features to your advantage and also which features to look out for and which features to fear. Uh, on the river you commonly have a lot of sections where there are wave trains. Wave trains for rafting are a lot of fun. While you’re in a wave train you also need to be looking out for upstream and downstream V’s. With an upstream V, that is often determined by a rock in your path. You need to make sure that you understand that and that you avoid those rocks. Downstream V’s point in the direction that you want to go, so that you can have the maximum amount of fun. Also on the river there are eddies. An eddy is an area of water that is slowly moving upstream, it can actually be moving quite rapidly upstream. It’s often caused by a shoreline feature or a rock in the river that interrupts the flow of the river. Eddies can be real useful to you as a raft guide, or as a rafter, for slowing down or stopping, you can use an eddy as an area to drive into and stop so that you can wait to bring the rest of your trip downstream or just to take a break and hang out. Also it’s a great way to scout from the river using an eddy to pull over and stop. Rafting again, is organized chaos, things happen very quickly and the river is sort of a conveyor belt though that chaos and eddies are an opportunity for you to step off that chaos conveyor and take a little break and look around and see what’s going on. There are holes and hydraulics out there that are fun to play in, you need to understand a little bit about which holes are appropriate for you to go in depending on the size of your raft and the type of trip your crew is looking for. There are some holes that are quite big, quite sticky and quite complicated to get out of, and can be quite life threatening. There are also other holes that are small, playful and fun, and it’s a shame to miss an opportunity to play on the river when it passes you by, so having an understanding of what’s appropriate and what’s in-appropriate is something that you can get from a river rescue class.

Safety gear for rafting

It’s great to understand a little bit about river dynamics and river features so that you’re able to use them to your advantage when you work your way downstream. Taking a river rescue course will also enable you to get a better understanding of how to use these features to your advantage and also which features to look out for and which features to fear. Uh, on the river you commonly have a lot of sections where there are wave trains. Wave trains for rafting are a lot of fun. While you’re in a wave train you also need to be looking out for upstream and downstream V’s. With an upstream V, that is often determined by a rock in your path. You need to make sure that you understand that and that you avoid those rocks. Downstream V’s point in the direction that you want to go, so that you can have the maximum amount of fun. Also on the river there are eddies. An eddy is an area of water that is slowly moving upstream, it can actually be moving quite rapidly upstream. It’s often caused by a shoreline feature or a rock in the river that interrupts the flow of the river. Eddies can be real useful to you as a raft guide, or as a rafter, for slowing down or stopping, you can use an eddy as an area to drive into and stop so that you can wait to bring the rest of your trip downstream or just to take a break and hang out. Also it’s a great way to scout from the river using an eddy to pull over and stop. Rafting again, is organized chaos, things happen very quickly and the river is sort of a conveyor belt though that chaos and eddies are an opportunity for you to step off that chaos conveyor and take a little break and look around and see what’s going on. There are holes and hydraulics out there that are fun to play in, you need to understand a little bit about which holes are appropriate for you to go in depending on the size of your raft and the type of trip your crew is looking for. There are some holes that are quite big, quite sticky and quite complicated to get out of, and can be quite life threatening. There are also other holes that are small, playful and fun, andit’s a shame to miss an opportunity to play on the river when it passes you by, so have an understanding of what’s appropriate and what’s in-appropriate is something that you can get from a river rescue class.

How to do paddle signals for Raft?

Paddle signals are an important way to communicate from the lead raft to the trip leader or from the trip leader back to the sweep. So coming up with some basic paddle signals are advantageous to your group. Some of the commonly recognized paddle signals would be a go, which is a paddle straight up, also you can do that with just your How to do paddle signals for Raft?
hand, which would be a hand straight up, this means go. Stop, which is an important paddle stroke to have means this, paddle across the river, you can also do without a paddle with your arms out like this, this means stop. With rafting you always point to the direction you want to go so, if you want to go to the river right, you paddle to the river right, if you want to head to the opposite direction turn your paddle to the opposite direction. You guys, have an emergency, they tend to spin the paddle in the air and use a whistle and blow the whistle to get people’s attention. This means you have an emergency situation on the river. Beyond those simple paddling commands you also can come up with your own group paddling commands so that you’re able to communicate with one another. This means I need a first aid kit, sort of commonly used throughout the area, there are other paddling commands like come, or slow down, that you can use, depending on how big a group you, uh, you’re out there with and how often you paddle together will pretty much determine how complicated your paddle signals will become.

How to right a capsized raft when water rafting?

One of the ways that you can right a capsized raft is to swim toward it, climb up onto the raft and then flip it over using your paddle or a flip-line. The hardest part is getting up onto the raft. With self-bailers that’s a little easier because the drain holes on the sides you can use to help pull yourself up onto the raft. Once you’re up there, you tuck the t-grip of the paddle under the raft, check the line and then lean back and flip it over. Once you have the raft right side up, then the guides use the handles on the sides of the raft to push themselves back up into the raft and then help any struggling guests or crewmembers get back into the raft and then you can paddle on downstream. So this maneuver can be done on the fly as you work your way downstream and is a common and effective method of righting a capsized raft on a larger volume river where swimming to shore really isn’t an option.

How to learn and avoid rock obstacles when water rafting?

When helping other river users or other members of your trip, you need to prioritize what you’re going for first. You always go for people before gear regardless of what’s near you. Get the people back in the boat and then go for the gear. Gear is replaceable, people aren’t, so if you see the rescue situation about to happen, blow your whistle hard, and then paddle, paddle, paddle, go for the people first and then go for the gear. In Nepal Rivers are not so wide so that time one the way very often appears stones. Stones can make accident for the rafters. In that case should have to row the boat defending of the Stone.

How to pull someone into a boat when water rafting?

During your trip talk you’re going to cover how to self-rescue, and also how to pull other crewmembers back into the boat. Often it you’re doing a pretty challenging section of the river, its good to practice that in flat water before you get going so that your crew gets a better idea of how it works and how easy it is to do. So it usually only takes one person to self-rescue, to rescue one swimmer, you look in their face, you grab them by the PFD right by their shoulders and then you use your legs, you fall over backwards and they come in on top of you. It’s a pretty effective, pretty quick way for you to rescue one another. Then you take your seat, make sure everyone is situated and then head on downstream. Often, if you don’t practice while you’re out there on the river what will happen then is the crew will all wait for somebody else to self-rescue, to rescue that person or probably worse, during the rapid is two or three people will jump to one side of the raft to save one person and that sets you too often in a situation to flip or a situation where you have more than one person swimming because you set a low side of the raft and then two or three people are swimming at one time. It’s usually better to have the guide stay in the back of the boat and continue guiding and the rest of the crew listening to those guiding commands and instructions so that you guys don’t end up getting in the situation where you all end up swimming.

How to swim in moving water when rafting?

There are two types of swimming on the river, one is defensive swimming and one is aggressive swimming. With defensive swimming what you’re really doing is laying on your back, feet downstream and looking for help, sort of getting yourself oriented to the river, trying to figure out where you are and then getting yourself comfortably there. Defensive swimming tends to be for novice and guests that are real, or not real familiar with white water. A person swimming defensively is looking to be rescued by somebody else rather than really taking the initiative and rescuing themselves. The aggressive swimming, aggressive white water swimming is where the guide, or an experienced,white water person is taking control of their situation and swimming aggressively,from one side of the river to the other, either to the quickest point on shore or to avoid,a certain obstacle while you’re out there. If we do not know how to swim on river and it is very difficult to save the life and we con not rescue for other. It is necessary for the rafting guider.

How to scout rivers for rifting?

Scouting from shore is probably the most conservative way to run a river. If you’ve checked out a guidebook, and you understand that there are some large river features on the route that you want to check out before you run them, then scouting from shore is the best way to do that. Often guidebooks will tell you some river features upstream of the large rapid so that you have a better understanding where to take out, so that you can walk downstream and check it out. One of the beauties of rafting is that you’re also with a group of other people so scouting from shore give you an opportunity to talk to fellow raft guides so you can decide which is the best route to take and which are the best rapids to run and the best rapids to walk around. Also you have the ability to split your group. Some folks will be comfortable running certain rapids, other folks won’t and scouting gives you the opportunity to pull over to shore, give your crew a rest, give you the opportunity to figure out the line you want to take. It also give you an opportunity to let your crew see where they’re going to go and make an educated, um, educated decision whether or not they want to run that rapid or not. Um, also scouting from shore gives you the ability to walk down beyond the rapid and set up safety, you can stop downstream, you can run a rapid one boat at a time, you can have one guide downstream perhaps with guests setting up safety so that you run that rapid as conservatively as possible. It’s always recommended that if you’re on a class three or above rapid that you scout it the first few time you run it, so that you know exactly what you’re doing and where you’re going.

River reading strategies for rafting.

After planning your trip and reading the guidebooks you have a pretty good understanding of what to expect on the river, understanding also that the river changes continually and the guidebooks aren’t necessarily updated. So things changes from day to day, week to week, month to month, to month so you always need to make sure as you’re working your way downstream, you lift your vision and you anticipate and figure out what’s going on before it surprises you. One of the ways to do this is to river read on the fly. You can scout downstream, figure out your route and sort of plan how to get there. Also if there’s an area where it’s hard for you to see downstream you can pull to one side of the river or the other, stop in an eddy and scout from the eddy. You can eddy hop your way downstream, it’s a very conservative way to work your way downstream and to scout from the river. That way you’ll never too surprised as you work your way down. Um, you can come down a section of river that you are super comfortable with, real familiar with and there can be a tree down in the middle of the river and uh, that’s something that wasn’t there the day before. You need to be able to see that before it’s upon you, so again raising your vision, understanding that the river changes continually is a great way for you to approach your descent downstream.