Swiftwater School

We arrived in Chico, Ca bright eyed and bushy tailed,

ready to learn. The good part is that I have cut out all

the slide shows, rope work, and knot tying.

So here is all of the fun stuff or maybe that's all we

really did was have fun.

We worked on two different rivers.

The first shots are from the small, slower one.

The rest of the shots are from north fork of the Feather River.

Or as we came to call it the fun stuff

Seen here we are learning the basics of working in a river current

You can read all you want about ferry angles, flow rates and the likes but
you cant learn it 'till you're in it

One of the hardest things to learn about a river is, as soon as you think

you know whats coming you're wrong.
This sneaky vessel almost floated over us without a sound.

The drill you see here is to simulate being drawn into a strainer. A strainer is anything

in a river that allows water by but catches larger objects. They are also one of the most dangerous river hazards

Often lodged in the swifter current these strainers will trap a person by pinning them against it, then pushing them and holding them underwater.
Here you see us floating into a controlled strainer to feel the force of the water,

so we could get an idea of how they work.

As class went on we got into larger and larger rapids. Seen here is the class descending a set of class 4 rapids.


Banzai!!!!



Me about to descend the rapids.

Notice the smile, mask on helmet

Head above water

Entering the beast


Hmm whats missing?

All's well that ends well

In all we spent two days on the water covering numerous methods of rescue, current reading, low angle rope rescue and river safety