Whitewater preference?

[Gamma1214]

In order to prevent thread drift I'll start a new thread but I'm curious about your approach to whitewater. In the Shoutout your local builder thread, Robin posted a pic where the paddlers seemed to be taking a conservative line.

This led to the comment that:

It looks like the paddlers are mostly avoiding the main part of the rapid and paddling the eddy on the side.

Now, IMO, that's the smart play if you're taking wilderness trips (which these folks appear to be). You don't take unnecessary chances that endanger yourself or others just for the adrenaline rush. I can certainly see where, in more "civilized" waters, (and help more readily available) you might take a riskier route.

Great example in the included ALF - Tellico video...

I'm not sure what the spin was above the drop but, IMO, the guy in the red canoe @ the 2:47 mark really nailed it. Didn't beat himself up over the big drop or play Maytag in the hydraulic, just made it look easy (and likely could have done it with camping gear). I thought the run was quite impressive for that reason but, of course, the paddler did not throw himself over the biggest drop or take the riskiest route like most of the others did.

What's your approach to whitewater... are you utilitarian & take the safest route to the bottom of the rapid, are you compelled to tackle the riskiest route like you've got to conquer it or do you portage as much of it as possible? Also, does your strategy vary situationally?

 

[Steve in Idaho]

To begin with, I'm not even interested in running those big drops like in that video, although I enjoy watching.

Other than that, yeah it's situational. Depends on what boat I'm in and how familiar I am with it too. I've only done one multi-day trip with anything bigger than class 2+. On that trip, after scouting the first class 3, I chose to line my loaded MR Guide along the bank. That was on the first day of a week long trip. Had it been the last day or had I had an empty boat, I would have ran it. Had the flow been higher so it wasn't so technical, I probably would have ran it anyway.
Another c3 (depending on who you ask) on the second day was not so technical - so I ran it. Was a bit of a rush.

On day trips, I get more froggy. But c3 has been my limit so far.

 

[recped]

I own a "playboat" but I very rarely paddle it and basically I never do park'n'play type stuff. Big difference between a playboat filled with flotation and a tripping boat with 200+lb of gear. For the last 10 years I've been using a Mohawk XL14, deeper than your average tripper and more rocker than many.

When I'm tripping and especially when solo, I usually try to take the easy line for anything Class III or greater. Sometimes on a small river there isn't much choice but the rapids tend to be pretty short. On the big rivers like the George in Northern Quebec the class III/IV rapids go on for miles and out there in the "meat" there are likely to be huge hydraulics that may be avoidable if you are in your boat, not so much if you are swimming.

 

[eckilson]

To me, you play in rapids in a whitewater boat, you run rapids in a loaded tripping boat. When you are running rapids you still need to be able to do whitewater moves (eddy turns, peal out, ferries, etc.) but you are doing them to get to a safe place so you can continue down a conservative line. I love paddling my tripping boat tandem in whitewater, but it usually has float bags, not gear.