LET ’ S TRY THIS OUT
Joe stands above a rapid that has three ' hard ' moves in it . A left ferry to boof , then a right-angled charge past a big rock that you miss to its right , that has most of the river pushing against it , finally to a second left charge to another left boof at the bottom . Let ’ s call this a class 4 difficulty given the moves and the time you have to make them : challenging but not impossibly hard .
Joe is just starting to challenge himself with moves like this . He feels that he most likely has the skills to pull it off , and if he does , it would be a confidence-boosting step for him and his progression .
What will happen to him if he doesn ’ t make that move right of the rock and gets pushed up against it or fails to make the second charge left and ends up in the hole ?
Well , if that rock is just a big boulder with a pillow on the face , and the drop on the right after it has a hole that ’ ll give you a working and then spit you out , the rapid has a danger level of three . You ‘ could ’ break an arm on the rock if you slam into it upside down , or you could get a bit of a trashing in the hole and swallow some water , which is polluted and nasty . Still , neither are going to seriously injure you – IN THE MOST LIKELY SITUATION ( This is important – you can slip and fall in the bathroom and hit your head on the shower corner , but it is not the most likely outcome of every bathroom visit ).
This sounds like a good rapid for Joe to challenge his skills and progress . It ’ s a 4 / 3 .
Now , let ’ s make that rock in the middle of the river a really nasty undercut ; that ’ s a known killer . Let ’ s throw a log sticking out of the drop on the bottom right that could pin your boat underwater .
The technical skill required to run this rapid correctly has not changed one bit . But it just went from being innocuous to deadly if you mess it up . These two rapids should not have the same rating despite being equally technical to run . This is now a 4 / 6 .
This is not the sort of rapid that Joe should be practising his skills on and challenging himself with , despite being the same technical challenge .
AWAY FROM MEDICAL HELP
OK , so let ' s go back to the first 4 / 3 example and transplant this rapid from northern Wales to the middle of Pakistan , in the Hindu Kush . You are days away from medical help , and that medical help is likely to be very rudimentary at best . If you break an arm on that rock or get dysentery from the water due to drinking it in a hole recirculation , you ’ re going to be in serious trouble . This 3 / 4A just went to a 3 / 4C , and the consequences of relatively innocuous injury have become serious , possibly life-threatening .
It ’ s still a ‘ 3 ’ danger : the most likely consequence of a mistake is a minor injury , but that minor injury could become a real problem because of your exposure . The rapid is back to being something our friend Joe wants to think long and hard about before running . Perhaps it would be wiser to challenge himself technically closer to home and stay on the easier rivers while visiting Pakistan .
So why not call the first 4 / 3 a grade 4 and the second 4 / 6 a grade 6 and call it a day ?
ThePADDLER 31