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Published: November 11th 2008
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Put In on the Shotover
Me looking quite enthusiastic about the trip. Hey there folks! Its been two weeks since my last update, and quite a lot has happened.
First off, I have started getting trips on the river as business has started to pick up around town. So far I have done 8 trips in total. Knock on wood I haven't had any carnage so far. I have managed to keep everyone in the boat, myself included. And no flips. Gonna do my best to keep that number as close to zero as I possibly can. Just the fact that I am typing this is pretty much guaranteeing myself for some trouble soon. Oh well!
The river is quite fun, but I have never seen a low flow river that is as powerful as the Shotover. One cumec, or cubic meter of water per second, is the equivalent of about 30 cfs, or cubic feet per second, the standard way of measuring water flow. We raft the Shotover from 8.5 cumecs up to 70 cumecs. When compared to rivers like the Colorado, which flow from 1,000-10,000 cumecs, you can see how the Shotty would be considered low flow. Typical high flow river behavior is powerful hydraulics such as big waves,
On the water
Momentarily possessed by the devil, muwahahaha. My poor crew has no idea what they are in for... big boat-munching holes, and large surging boils (upward moving currents that created a mound of outward flowing water at the surface). Low flow rivers lack the water it takes to create hydraulic river features worth worrying about, however the Shotover seems to be a major exception.
Even in the flat stuff, which makes up about 80% of the trip, the currents are very strong, with multiple moves requiring one to steer the boat in a narrow gap between a cliff side and a powerful surging boil. If you hit the cliff you might stick and flip, and if you go too far into the boil it'll grab the nose of your boat and throw you into an eddy, requiring more paddling and slowing the entire trip down as you clog up the river.
The top section of the river trip has 2 rapids, the first one being a class 2 called Red Rocks and the second being a class 3 called Rock Garden. For the life of me I can't figure out why Red Rocks gets its name. There are no red rocks whatsoever. The creatively titled Rock Garden is just a lowsy rapid. The top move is
The Shotover River
A beautiful bird's eye view of the Shotover River. probably the hardest on the river, as you are trying to fit your boat into a gap that is nearly too small for it, and the consequence of missing is to drag your boat over a shallow spot. Its the kind of rapid that leaves me huffing and puffing while my crew looks bored.
The lower section of the trip has two sections, the Mother section and the Jaws/Tunnel section. The Mother section is the real meat and potatoes of the trip, involving 6 class 3/4 rapids, depending on the flow.
The first rapid, Miner's Revenge, is a simple move around some sharp boulders and into a couple lateral waves. It used to be called Shark's Fin, but the shark fin rock rolled over in a flood and is hard to see now. Miner's leads right into The Squeeze, in which the entire river narrows down to just a couple boat widths wide and drops into a monster pillow of water coming off the right hand wall. Not T-ing up to it will almost certainly flip you. This one typically fills the boat like a bathtub, making it quite difficult to control due to the extra weight.
The Mother Section
A cool shot of the Mother Section. This isn't me, which is why everyone seems to be having fun. The typical expression on the faces of my passengers is sheer terror. The next two rapids are Anvil and Toilet. Anvil is a simple set of two lateral waves, and Toilet is an easy right turn into another two lateral waves...at 30+ cumecs that is. This is one of the reasons why the Shotty is so bizarre, as normal rivers get more powerful as the water rises. Toilet manages to get more nasty as the river DROPS, turning into two steeps holes as the river drops below 20 cumecs. The first one slows you down and fills the boat with water, which sets you up perfectly for the second hole which folds the boat in half. Unless you manage to hold your angle just right, it'll turn you sideways and surf you for a bit, spitting you out if you're lucky and flipping you if you're not.
After Anvil and Toilet is the aptly named Oh Shit, followed by Pinball Alley. Oh Shit got its name from the old days when Queenstown Rafting used bucket boats. If you managed not to flip in Toilet (the rapid was much nastier in the old days, it has mellowed out a bit lately) your boat was so full that water would be flowing over
Cascade and the Tunnel
A cool shot showing the last rapid of the day, Cascade, and the boat just coming out of the tunnel exit. the sides. This left you at the mercy of your crew which you now needed to turn the boat and set up for Oh Shit. The typical result was dropping into the rapid sideways and washing up against a well placed rock right in the middle of the current, ending with an oh shit from the guide followed shortly by going upside-down.
Oh Shit has been my major source of trouble, as the Oh Shit rock itself is still there and I can't seem to avoid it. I have only gotten through the rapid twice without having a small confrontation with the damn thing. As a righty guide, I just can't hold my angle away from it and get the driving power to push me past it that a lefty guide would have. I have considered switching sides just for that rapid, but I am not going to give up that easy just yet. After Oh Shit is Pinball Alley, another left-to-right rapid that ends in a sticky hole, concluding the Mother section.
After the Mother section is a bit more flat stuff, and then the rapids Jaws and Sequel. Jaws is a short and precise rapid that,
Running Cascade
Trying to not get my hair wet... just like Toilet, gets nastier as the river drops. Around 17 cumecs a shallow rock appears in the middle that grabs the nose of your boat and drops you sideways into a hole that can hold boats and surf them a bit. Quite often we have to get a rope to boats stuck in the Jaws hole and pull them out. After Jaws is an easy class 2 rapid called Sequel, which leads straight into the Tunnel.
The Oxenbridge Tunnel is a 180 meter tunnel built in 1905 by the Oxenbridge family to try and divert the river so they could attempt to dry pan the river bottom for gold. They failed rather miserably, as only half the river ended up going into the Tunnel, the other half going through a rapid called Mother-in-Law, a stomping class 5 rapid which we only raft when the Tunnel gets too full of water (around 55+ cumecs or so). The Tunnel itself is only about as wide as our boats are long, and at lower water (below 20 cumecs) the entrance gets clogged up with shallow rocks, making the move into the tunnel rather risky as boats can flip off the corner
Getting My Hair Wet
Oh well, I suppose I need to wash it once a day at least...
If you look in the back ground of the one, and the the last one, you can see a green floaty. There is a rope attached to it, so if you find yourself swimming through the tunnel towards Cascade you at least have a shot at getting out of the river, beforehand where it divides the river in two. Just the other day I biffed it and ended up going into the tunnel backwards. Once in, the goal is to keep the boat off the sides, as the tunnel is not smooth even in the least bit, and makes some turns in the middle. Once through the tunnel, you have to get your crew up quickly for the last rapid of the day, Cascade.
Cascade is a shallow bumpy ride, and the line is to go as hard right as you can, bounce off the wall (trying not to fall out in the process) and line up the last drop into a hole that tends to submarine the boat. At higher flows the hole at the bottom can flip you, so holding a hard left hand angle is a good idea in theory, although not always a feasible option when neck deep under water. Our camera person sits at Cascade taking snapshots, Ill try and get some of those on the blog soon.
And that concludes the trip! We do two trips per day and the river can change levels between morning and the afternoon. Definitely keeps you on your game.
Thats all for today, more updates soon!
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