When White Water Rafting Goes Wrong
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Went on a white water rafting trip with some buddies. Decided on Class 5 rapids on the Colorado River for our first time. 3rd hardest rapids in the US to commercially ride. Our raft flipped and I got carried downstream. The GoPro caught the whole thing.
I'm a WW rafting guide and this is exactly why we suggest you have rafted at least a class 3. Also, exactly why we instruct guests to be a part of their own rescue. Gore is amazing and fun, but it can also be dangerous. Respect the river. You're lucky to be alive!
Gotta agree with you on this one Josh. Gore Canyon is pretty tough and yeah we definitely recommend to everyone we talk to that Class III is the way to go. With a good guide a lot of hard stuff can go well, but it is akin to your buddy taking you out on a Double Black Diamond Slope at a ski resort on your first day of skiing. Part of this issue lies with the adventure sports industry and the fact that media tends to push beginners to harder and harder facets of different sports. The outfitters also should really be pushing for their guests to run a progression of rivers from III to IV to V after a few trips at each level. Safety could have been a little more on point too though. It looked like there were a few boats just hanging out on the side of the river.
this should be called, " absolute zero self-rescue!"
Part of that is probably experience, or lack thereof. It's easy to say "be part of your own rescue", but knowing what an eddy is, knowing which eddy you can reach and how to swim for it are learned skills, and a person who hasn't done many white water swims is going to be too busy trying to get air in the lungs to be an active part of a rescue.
At one point I was rafting and did not fall off, but at one point if we had fallen off the guide could not have saved us and we would have to float on our backs. Nose and Toes
infuriating to watch
2:41 "there's a nice eddy to swim into... instead i think I'll just float over Pyrite Falls...."
haha
I was like ok, swim to that nice eddy on the right and you'll be fine. Instead watch him enjoy his nice float down the river.
I didn't see him swim or keep his feet up
Right, he's adjusting his GoPro while the nice calm water the right passes on by...
How many eddies ya just gonna float by??
I thought the same thing!
@@dkn2128 Same here. As I was watching, the river guide in me was screaming "swim out"!
Been there, done that. The BEST visual representation of what it is actually like when you take a dive. Mine was on the Tuolumne the spring after the disastrous winter floods, the ones over twenty years ago that flooded the Yosemite Valley & rearranged the rapids run on the Merced. Normal flow on the T is 2500cfs. We ran it at 7500cfs. I was in front left & the waves were over our heads constantly. We literally had to punch through the waves to ensure that they would not push us sideways and tip us. We made all but one. Your reaction is 100% authentic as well. You are in a bit of mild shock. You struggle to get a full breath (I could tell you another story about that); & you're not very responsive. Recommended viewing for any newbies or wannabes.
I whitewater kayaked and rafted 4 years as well guided 2 in Browns Canyon Colorado. During el Nino 97-98 I saw a man pass away!! 😕 He wasn't wearing a helmet and hit his head on a rock and drowned. I, like what some of the other comments are saying agree that it's best to relax and ride the storm. I also grew up next to the wedge in Newport Beach CA and rode some pretty big waves bodyboarding and bodysurfing. The one thing I learned is to relax. Freaking out you use more oxygen and you aren't thinking straight. You made it and that's awesome!!!🙂 Also in the ocean where I'm from there is no rocks so another piece of advice that is generally taught is keep your feet up and pointed down river. Rafting and other river sports are so awesome and not a day goes by where I don't miss it. Hope this experience doesn't stop you from trying it again. Stay safe!!🙂
Yah lost your paddle, but kept and checked your gopro a few times; happy rafting.
Gore takes more than class 3 experience for sure. Very few outfits run it commercially. Glad you all are ok.
Lol, good thing there was a kayak. That guy had zero instinct to swim.
Everyone says they want adventure travel until they really get it. True Adventure means something can and probably will go wrong. I was an international Guide for Sobek (the original adventure travel company). It pays to have stern and frank safety talks prior to each section of a wild River - to allow the guests a graceful no ego bruising out.
The fact that you thought this would be a good first river. I'm lost for words but it's real stupid. Anyway, cool video. Cheers
Gotta stay cool. I've had some rough swims myself. Probably five times longer than that and wasn't near as shook up. But I trained for a hard swim because I knew I was really green. Hard swims build charicter. Get on some easier water and build up to that level.
This is why I pulled people out of the Colorado River both alive and dead when I was doing whitewater rescue work. People who didn't know what they we're doing, People who underestimated the awesome power of a big volume River.
ah the joys of having fun on the water
Water good. Rock bad. Boat best. Swim to the eddy as opposed to slamming into a rock.
missed the eddy river right above pyrite because camera adjustment was more priority? take your beating and get back on the horse.....and I've taken many too
Gore Canyon is just so awesomely beautiful. Toughest commercially-run whitewater on the entire Colorado river though, unquestionably.
True, Gore is stout but definitely not the toughest on the entire colorado. Barrel Springs, Upper and Lower Death in Glenwood, just to name a few....
Chills
Haha same
"Class 5 first time".............................don't bother considering Rocket Science.
Addendum. I said normal flow is 2500cfs. Mea Culpa! Normal flow is 500cfs. Flood stage is 2500cfs. We ran it at 3x flood stage. Sorry for the misinfo.
you should have tried to get to shore or get into an eddy but instead you decide to let yourself get beat up and almost pinned
No sense of self preservation! Didn't try to avoid objects or try to swim into one of the many eddies!
Worried more about that camera..
I've done a number of 3's and some 4's in the Smoky Mountains region and ejected a couple of times- no issues with the self rescue, but they are nothing compared to these 5's- wow. Some of these 5's I've watched videos of...looks like there are all kinds of possibilities of getting pinned. Scary stuff.
I’m not sure about it being the three hardest commercially run rapids. Lava? Crystal? Big drops?
It's stupid to make such a claim, since difficulty in whitewater is dependent on so many factors, but Gore is definitely considered more difficult and dangerous than Lava, Crystal or the Big Drops.
Upper gauley wv commercially run rapids. Check it out on utube if you’re not familiar.
Not going to pile on and armchair QB here. I'm sure if you had to do it over again, you might skip class V's on the first trip. If nothing else, this video of the experience shows what you or all should try to do next time you get thrown in. Foremost, with little or no prospect of help downstream, you have to fight (not panic) to try to save yourself.
He falls out shortly after 2:00.
Is that pine creek rapid in Colorado
Anybody else hear the guide call out a highside left right when they hit, then correct it to a highside right as they where pretty much already doomed. Don't think it mattered because the camera man and the paddler next to him didn't seem like they knew that call anyways.
at 2:38.. seems he could have swim himself out in the eddy on the right.
Eric TK he was too worried about the go pro 😂
Not with the current,no.I was trying to swim away from the current earlier today and,It was the hardest thing!!!
Well
I like doing this in Pennsylvania
Been a few times on guided 3-4’s and it’s sorta fun and gets your blood going but if I never do it again I’ll be good.
Holy $hit.. im not going there!!!
Nice video man! Glad to see you got your moneys worth!
Jason Fuentes haha
Wasn't even in a self-bailing raft. Really?
What? They ARE in a self bailer.
intense
You panicked
It's all fun and games until it's fuck no.
SWIM!!!!!! Don’t just float
🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Your so lucky to not have swam toilet bowel but still going right on pyrite does not look fun
The Lord Jesus Christ had mercy on you that day! Very scary situation - glad you made it out alive!
I hope everyone was okay! I'm a reporter for Caters News and we're putting a new tv series together which this footage would be great for. Can you please email me at alycecollins@catersnews.com for details - thanks!
this is flirting with painful death. Large sharp rocks in fast water and no way to get out if ANYTHING goes wrong.