Thanks for this. I got in the habit of
leaving a loop dangle in the water. I just liked the way it looks. Never gave a thought to it catching on something. I use very long painters, 25 feet increasing the chance of intanglement.
Impressive drop ZZZ
ANd I am not saying that the difficulty of the dam is the same as this waterfall.
My argument is that the OUTCOME of running the tunnels is a crapshoot. From the descriptions (I have never seen it) I get the idea that by the time you are close enough to inspect it you are already committed to a tunnel. If that tunnel has any form of strainer, teh outcome may be a drowning.
I have heard my share of arguments aregarding the relative Class of given rapids. In many of the arguments the person argueing for downgrading a feature was a highly skilled, super confident paddler. But the AWA classifications are not aimed at that person. Rather, they are very conservative so that paddlers at the beginning end of the spectrum have a tool to use for judging a river’s difficulty.
If a Class II feature is runnable most of the time, but will kill you if a strainer is present, and you don’t know if and when a strainer is present then what is the classification? Still a II?
Jim
still a class II
a strainer in a rapid is a temporary addition, so therefore the rapid is still a class II. If the tube entrance is truly unscoutable then yes, I would agree that the difficulty/danger goes up, but from what I can tell, you can stand on a bike path directly above it, so scouting should be easy. lots of easy class II-III rapids become unrunnable under temporary conditions such as flooding or logs, but the rapid ratings are given for a rapid at “normal” flows and conditions. For example, when the water is so high that the tube entrance is underwater, forming a whirlpool sucking things down, it is obviously unrunnable. A rating is a guide, not a black and white rule. That is why i usually scout rapids i’ve run many times before, but has a blind entrance and there could be a chance that wood has collected in it.
Sorry for the family…
Not a lawyer here(and I don’t play one ) but I’m under the impression that legally, as soon as signage goes up, liability escalates dramatically. No sign? The state has minimum liability…