Kayaking And Risk Assessment

A few weeks back someone asked on one of the kayaking message boards, what is your relationship with risk and why do you paddle? I thought it was a great question as well as topic of discussion. I always enjoy kayaking but I never really considered why I do it, risk versus reward. I would love it if people wanted to join in and comment a little bit about why they paddle.

Or do you walk?

Do you drop in?

Here is my response to the question:

I’m a very young 32-year-old class V-V+ kayaker who grew up and learned to paddle in New England and has since moved to the Asheville, NC/Green River area. I started my paddling career in a canoe with my mother doing class II-III overnighters with my father, brother, and our family friends. Once puberty hit I quickly moved on by myself into a kayak. Learning to kayak in southern New England I started off in a playboat going to rodeos driving to the LaChine’s, the Ottawa, and the Black. As I progressed and worked every river in the area I knew the natural progression for me was to find steeper rivers or rivers with more water. Traveling south to rivers like the Gauley, Chattooga, and Green I realized I was hooked not only on kayaking but how far and how many places I could take myself  kayaking as well. I have since made the Asheville area my home and frequent the Green River Narrows when I’m not scouting and making my way down some of the other amazing gorges this world has for me explore. In my paddling career I have been the guide, the teacher, the teammate, and still always the student.

I kayak for peace of mind. That entails multiple elements for me. I kayak for pure enjoyment and interaction with nature. I’m not a kid anymore and I can’t spend my days running around in the woods, playing in the creeks, and climbing over any attainable horizon. Kayaking has taken me to some of the most mesmerizing places the kind of places that you can never fully describe to others. I also kayak for exorcise. I enjoy a physical workout and trying to use my body to it’s fullest potential. Although I can enjoy a beer after the river I’m not the one to hang out at the take out or put in for very long. I like to go to the river and get my workout in then head home or to work. A lot of times paddling is getting squeezed into the schedule amongst many other things. I have been kayaking for almost 15 years and have gotten about 150-175 days a year over the last 10 years, partly due to living in the southeast for most of that time. This time has given me a pretty solid progression into the physical aspects, the knowledge of the sport, and the dangers it poses. This peace of mind is formed from a combination of the mental stimulation I get piecing together a rapid through the knowledge that I’ve gained, the physical exercise of having to make the moves on the river as well as the expedition as a whole, and my quite time with nature to just enjoy the world we were given and not the one we made.

I am a paddler and can find enjoyment in most any kind of situation. Teaching beginners who are eager and excited to learn can be just as much fun as surfing a big wave on the Ottawa or running a waterfall deep in some remote gorge halfway across the world from where you call home. They all share risk and fun as aspects but they are experienced in different ways. Teaching someone to kayak I feel risk in that despite me most likely being fine I am responsible for who I am teaching and thus I feel a responsibility for controlling the situation as much as possible and making sure not only that the student is physically and mentally fine but that they are having fun as well. I find full enjoyment in sharing my knowledge with anyone who wants to learn. Watching when the roll finally comes to a kid and seeing it in their eyes is priceless. On the other hand being on a class V/V+ creek has its different forms of risk and fun. Here I access risk more on a personal level. If I’m on a creek of this caliber then I’m there with a crew that I trust and know to be capable of making knowledgeable personal decisions on whether to paddle or walk. I am basing my own personal risk on whether I see my line or not. If I can see a line then I will assess what dangers I will have to deal with while trying to stay on my line. Then I ask myself, am I physically capable of making my line? Perhaps before questioning my physical ability I have to determine if I’m mentally ready to run the rapid.  There are always mitigating circumstances such as time, weather, health, group moral, and energy levels that will always effect the final decision to accept the risk and drop in or to walk around.

As I’ve aged I’ve learned that every aspect comes with it’s own form of risk. Walking across the street at the wrong time, finding that icy step on the stoop one day, being in the wrong store when it gets robbed are all risks that could have very severe and dyer consequences. Driving a car is the single most deadly thing almost all Americans will do at some point in their lives yet largely we take that for granted. I see kayaking as a controlled environment despite the chaotic nature of what is going on.  I consider my decisions to be based on years of experience with rivers of all kinds and how kayaks and people have reacted in situations similar. Watching someone else drop into that newly come across class V makes me feel the risk different then if I was the one to drop in and probe the line. Despite my relatively controlled view of the rapid I still acknowledge that things don’t always go the way one intends.

I acknowledge and respect the risk and dangers of the river but when It comes to running a rapid more often then not if I see a line and feel I can make that line I am going to go for it. I could compare it to skiing trees, one knows there are trees all around them yet the best skiers say they never look at the trees they look to the openings between them piecing together the puzzle of that glade. I find a draw in the challenge of running hard rapids and enjoy the feeling of being able to test myself and my theories. When I drop into a hard or dangerous rapid I am prepared to do battle if need be but it is always with a consciousness of everything that’s going on around me at that moment.

 I don’t need the risk to enjoy myself but find that I have to deal with a lot of risk on the rivers that are more mentally and physically demanding to me. As I’ve aged and experienced more on the river I have probably become more conservative. I have learned to listen to my body about when I really am capable of doing something. I’ve learned what the rivers can do when things do not go as planned. Most importantly I’ve realized that the river is not going anywhere and I can always come back. I’ve lost friends to the river as well as paddled over many a spot where others have lost their lives. I like to think that accidents always happen and no matter how much we prepare for them we still can’t stop all of them. In the whitewater situations I’ve put myself into I’m far more comfortable in some hidden class V+ gorge then trying to get home in rush hour traffic.

Risk is individual. I consider the risk I take on the rivers to be a very controlled risk. I’ve certainly been in the situation where it didn’t go the way I had planned, asked myself if that was going to be my last breath. I’ve made it through so far. Accidents do happen but looking at my own experiences and using my knowledge of myself and the rivers I’m on and I like to think that that is what it will take, an accident. Until then I will continue to pursue the many rivers of the world until I’m physically unable to.

Sometimes its just not worth it.