On The Water

This chapter includes info on the first day Safety Orientation, River Safety , trip to trip logistics, daily travel distance, daily end of day briefings about next day activities, Rapids, Bow-line Safety, what if your boat gets away, moonlight floats, scouting, Ferry angle discussion, face your danger, righting a flipped raft, and eddy avoidance.

The most important factor is getting on the water at a reasonable time. This depends a bit on the purpose of the trip but a reasonable expectation for most groups is everyone should be ready to launch by 9:00 am every day. This can vary depending on whether the previous day was a hard day or other factors. If your group is launching at 11:00 am every day this will affect the trip in so many ways. First, is safety. Organized groups that get on the water early are less likely to have problems and those that do not are more likely to have problems occur. Most problems occur late in the day when there is not much time left for a rescue. If your trip has a serious incident and you have to call in a helicopter they will not come after dark and you may have an injured member of your group in pain or worse overnight. It also is not a good idea to be running big rapids late in the day. People are tired and trying to flip a raft back upright and retrieve gear late in the day is best avoided. The last factor is that your desired camp is more likely to be taken late in the day and you may be faced with a long row to the next camp and your itinerary may be affected. It may seem like it is not a big deal but experience has shown that groups that get on the river early have much smoother trips and encounter less problems.

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