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Published: December 16th 2008
Howdy team! Doing a bit of back entry type blogging here, as I haven't had too much time to get all this stuff organized until now.
Let me begin by saying that raft guides tend to wear quite a bit of fancy gear down the river. This includes a lifejacket with a rescue harness, a whistle, a river knife, a throwbag (a bag of rope, usually attached around the waste), a flip line (for flipping your boat back over), a helmet, and at least a few pulleys, caribeeners, and prussik loops (the last three of which are used for mechanical advantage systems, good when boats are stuck). And that doesn't include the gear we wear to stay warm, which can add up to a dry top, dry pants, neoprene socks, good river shoes, and several layers of thermals underneath it all. So on any given day, a raft guide might be floating down the river with over $2000 worth of gear (amount in Kiwi dollars used for dramatic effect, the Kiwi dollar is going for about 55 US cents at the moment).
So this is all well and good, but do we actually get to use it all? The
answer, river depending, is usually no. Some rivers flip boats more than others, some rivers wrap boats more than others, but regardless of the river, rescue situations that involve the river knife and/or rescue harness are quite rare. So, naturally, the questions arises, "Do we know when and how to use the appropriate gear for a river rescue?"
The New Zealand Rafting Association (NZRA) offers a yearly river rescue course on both the North and South Island, and this year I went to the one being held on the Rangitata River on the South Island near Christchurch. This three day intensive course was designed to give us some practice in tackling a large variety of river rescue situations, battle test our gear, and freshen us up on our first aid. Additionally it brings everyone up to date on all the new standards and criteria for raft guides of all ability levels.
At 3:15 a.m. on the morning of the 25th of November, I was picked up by the company jeep and we took off for the Rangitata. The crew was 5 strong and included Deano, Adam, Kurt, Arion, and myself. This was the morning after my first, and
Check In
Or as the Kiwis pronounce it "Chick In"so far only, Mother-in-Law run and of the 5 of us, Deano, Adam, Kurt, and myself ended up flipping or dumptrucking in the rapid. Needless to say Queenstown Rafting's best and brightest were attending the workshop!
The Rangitata river is located in the Peel Forest a bit south of Christchurch near the town of Geraldine. It is a rather short rafting trip, being only 9 km. or so, but flows through a gorgeous canyon and has some fantastic rapids. The section that the companies run seems as if it were custom designed for rafting, it starts at class 1, goes a bit further until its class 2, then becomes class 3, then class 4, then class 5, then done! We stopped in Geraldine for some breakfast and carried on to the meeting point. After check-in, we did a quick first aid, knots, gear, and mechanical advantage refresher, had some lunch, got our swim gear together, and headed out to the river.
Normal rafting flows for the Rangitata range from 70-200 cumecs, so the river itself is quite a bit larger than the Shotover, which we raft from 8.5-70 cumecs. When we got there, the river was cranking at
about
1400 cumecs! Thats about 6-7 times the legal flow! At that flow, it is pretty much impossible to try and work out in the main current so the instructors went to the self described plan C.
They split us into 6 groups with people of all abilities, ranging from Grade 4-5 Senior raft guides to trainees. Some groups even had professional jet boaters and river boarders. The afternoon had 6 stations, and each group split to there starting station and would rotate through each one.
Each station had one focus, and the first day had us work on foot entrapment rescues, first aid, belay systems and harnesses, throw bag practice, live-bait rescue, and flip training in a boat. Each station was held on the side of the river in the eddies, where it was a bit more controlled. It had been a sunny day, but by late afternoon when we were all finished and eating dinner, it started to rain. So much for any possibility of dry gear for the next day. Fortunately we dished out the extra cash and rented a cabin in the nearby campground and stayed warm at dry all night.
Day 2
Michel and team
Getting ready to do some belay harness stuff began with a breakfast and a quick first aid talk, then we headed back out to the Rangitata. By this time the river had come down to a more manageable 600 cumecs, and our first task was to swim across the river. We walked about a quarter mile up stream of where the swim was supposed to end, and went from there.
Now I splurged on a dry suit before coming down here and let me tell you. Worth. Every. Penny. I'm in pretty good shape, but my swimming endurance is not the best. That first swim across the river was tough, I pretty much didn't think I was going to make it to the point we were trying to get to, and I certainly wouldn't have if I wasn't wearing the appropriate gear. The cold just sucks the energy out of you. After the swim, a steep hike up the side of the canyon and a long walk to lunch, where we were once again broken up into groups. 5 groups, 5 stations, and this time we were going to be working in the main current.
Station 1: Rescue a victim on a rock using a boat
on a tether. This one took us a couple times, but the deal was to paddle to someone in a nasty spot and use a rope to pull the boat back once we had them.
Station 2: Set up a line across the river and pull as many people across as you can in 40 minutes. This one was tough. We swam a few of our team across the river, set up some anchors, threw a throwbag across, tied the mainline to it, pulled the mainline over and attached it to the anchors, used a 3:1 mechanical advantage system (called a Z-drag) to tension the line, then used pulleys and ropes to drag the rest of our team across. We managed to get only one person over before the time expired.
Station 3: First aid, basic stuff. A bunch of drunkards fell off of a 60 foot tower and we saved them!
Station 4: Live bait rescue and river knife work. Finally a chance to battle test a couple nifty gadgets on my life jacket! A live-bait rescue is when a rope is attached to the rescue harness on the back of your lifejacket and you physically
On the safety line
The backup line in case the mainline fails. swim out to the victim (most likely going to be unconscious) and a team pulls you back in. The river knife is a once-in-a-lifetime rescue tool, most guides never have to touch it. Knock on wood that I never have to. If someone gets pinned between a boat and a rock, you can use the knife to cut the boat and pull them out. If a rope gets tangled around an arm, leg, finger, anything really, you can cut yourself free. The real point of the exercise as to see if the way we rigged our knife was satisfactory. Did it come out easy? Did it stay attached to your person? My results: success!
Station 5: Rope on a tether to get across the river. Very similar to Station 1, except for a nasty hole in the middle of the river that could flip you (and did for some groups). We didn't have much time to play around with this one, as it was getting late.
After we were done, we helped clean up the last station, and I volunteered to guide the boat we were using down to the take out. This seemed like a fun idea,
and best off I wouldn't have to walk all the way back, but as we traveled down the river and picked up more gear and more guides as we went, I started to get a bit nervous. The river was still pretty big and there were more than a few powerful hydraulics that could have easily tipped us over.
Things got really scary when my boss, Guido, climbed into the boat. Down stream of where we were was a massive wall with just about the entire river pushing into it. The move was easy, but the consequences were dire. I knew that if I put my boss, 3 NZRA instructors, and about 5 river guides into the water I would never, EVER, hear the end of it! Fortunately enough, we made the move, and finished off the day with a big meal back in town.
The last day was the rescue scenario, and we broke into two large groups, went to the top of the river (which was now flowing at around 250-350 cumecs) and got started. I was in group two, and we were to head down stream and find a disaster scene to fix. We got
The Accomodations
Raining at this stage, trying desperately to dry our gear. to the scenario and there were approximately 15 victims, some on rocks in the river, some in the water, and a couple in the shrubs. It took us about 30 minutes to handle it, and we dealt with everything from victims getting pulled to safety via a boat on a tether to a patient going into insulin shock. Good fun!
We rafted a bit further, but pulled over and had to portage the class 5 section. I was a bit disappointed to have to miss it, but apparently it was a bit too nar nar. Fair enough. After the portage it was our groups' turn. We had everything from a person in a nearly inaccessible cave, a foot entrapment, and large number of medical emergencies. I had a dislocated shoulder and was sitting in a precarious spot on a cliff, just to make it harder to get me off it. It took a while to handle each part of the scenario, and poor Deano (who was the foot entrapment guy) was in the water for about 40 minutes.
When all was said and done, we rafted to the take out, had lunch and finished off with a quick
de-brief. Overall, it would have been hard for me to enjoy and get more out of any other course. I already knew the basics and the theory behind the stuff we did, but never before had I gotten then chance to put it to practice. It would have been nice to have had a bit more time at each station, but given the number of people involved and the range of material to be covered, I can see now why we were so rushed to get stuff done.
All of us from Queenstown Rafting had to work the next day so we booked it out of town as soon as we could. The 4 hour drive from Geraldine to Queenstown was beautiful, we had fantastic weather and awesome views of glacially fed lakes like Lake Tekapo (pronounced take-a-poo, I'm not kidding), the Southern Alps, Mount Cook (New Zealand's tallest mountain), and high desert plains. It has been said a million times, but NZ is such a scenic and gorgeous country. There is such a large variety of natural wonders to be seen in a relatively small area, a short drive will take you to completely new and breathtaking scenery.
Scouting the swim
Day 2 - activity number 1, a big swim! Most of us are actively dreading it. Just out of town we stopped for a wee gander at a class 6 rapid on the Kawarau river called Nevis bluff. It was always a bigee, but after 300-400 million tons of rock were dumped into it during the construction of the road through there it got a bit out of control. I know a few kayakers have run it, but i doubt any rafters have successfully gotten through, if even tried to.
After the reality check of Nevis Bluff we dropped off the company vehicle and headed to the Red Rock pub for a couple of well earned pints, and then it was off to bed. The last three days had been so physically intensive, I hit the pillow and slept like a rock.
That's all for now folks, take er easy!
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