11–20 of 474 posts
Ah, humans. Even when there are no cultural / group loyalty / greed / etc. reasons for a person to behave very differently from how they clearly know they should...they still tend to behave very differently from how they clearly know they should.
Do your research before getting into rivers. My local river has several gauges and hotlines you can call to get dam releases. They also have a chart of the water release amounts and if you could paddle/float/canoe/kayak etc. It even has a turbidity gauge that will show you if any harmful bacteria is present, we have issues with fertilizer runoff and e-coli. It's a rather mundane river in an area not as known as Glaci…
Acquaintance did some suburban kayaking and didn't see a 3ft drop (some kind of dam or culvert under a bridge) until too late. The fluid mechanics of that drop are such that there is a vortex at the base that makes it difficult to get out. He was able to stand but just barely - scary to think how close a call that was in a pretty innocuous looking setting.
Do your research before getting into rivers. My local river has several gauges and hotlines you can call to get dam releases. They also have a chart of the water release amounts and if you could paddle/float/canoe/kayak etc. It even has a turbidity gauge that will show you if any harmful bacteria is present, we have issues with fertilizer runoff and e-coli. It's a rather mundane river in an area not as known as Glaci…
If you stand (and especially walk) in a fast current, you’re asking to get your foot caught and then drowned.
Do your research before getting into rivers. My local river has several gauges and hotlines you can call to get dam releases. They also have a chart of the water release amounts and if you could paddle/float/canoe/kayak etc. It even has a turbidity gauge that will show you if any harmful bacteria is present, we have issues with fertilizer runoff and e-coli. It's a rather mundane river in an area not as known as Glaci…
Acquaintance did some suburban kayaking and didn't see a 3ft drop (some kind of dam or culvert under a bridge) until too late. The fluid mechanics of that drop are such that there is a vortex at the base that makes it difficult to get out. He was able to stand but just barely - scary to think how close a call that was in a pretty innocuous looking setting.
Because of modern civilization we have a rose-tinted view of nature and take it for granted. Raw nature is scary and easily able to kill you.
...and the more we try to legislate away any possible source of danger we might encounter in our day-to-day lives, the less prepared we will be for places where nature is left to fend for itself.
A car can easily crush you, electricity can stop your heart. Don't be paralyzed in fear, but still think a bit of the worst plausible case.
And just downstream, world class kayakers paddle Great Falls for fun and practice.
It's wild (and sad) to think about the two groups of river users.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and the more we try to legislate away any possible source of danger we might encounter in our day-to-day lives, the less prepared we will be for places where nature is left to fend for itself.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an argument. "We need to keep life more dangerous in general so that when we hit special cases it'll be easier to deal with" strikes me as generally doing more harm than good because our day to day is going to cause more harm and those special cases are always going to be special. Unless you have specific examples that you're thinking of here.
Do your research before getting into rivers. My local river has several gauges and hotlines you can call to get dam releases. They also have a chart of the water release amounts and if you could paddle/float/canoe/kayak etc. It even has a turbidity gauge that will show you if any harmful bacteria is present, we have issues with fertilizer runoff and e-coli. It's a rather mundane river in an area not as known as Glaci…
Acquaintance did some suburban kayaking and didn't see a 3ft drop (some kind of dam or culvert under a bridge) until too late. The fluid mechanics of that drop are such that there is a vortex at the base that makes it difficult to get out. He was able to stand but just barely - scary to think how close a call that was in a pretty innocuous looking setting.