Hell and High Water - A few interesting weeks on the Shotty

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It has been a very interesting few weeks on the Shotover River. As you all know the river levels have been higher than usual this season. This is definitely a good thing, as most of the rapids are far larger and more exciting than at low water, not to mention a quicker trip.

Many people get the impression that more water means less rapids, due to the rocks creating them being much further under water. While true in the sense that the rocks are deeper down, what makes high water trips more narly is directly related to the speed at which the water is flowing over the rocks. When there is more water in the river, the river flows faster. This is similar to water flowing in a pipe. The thin layer of water flowing just next to the pipe walls hardly moves, due to the minor imperfections that slow down the flow. The next layer of water, buffered by the first, moves slightly faster. This continues so on and so forth until you reach the center of the pipe, in which that final layer of water moves the quickest.

This same process allows the surface water to flow at a higher speed than water at the bottom of the river, and by the same logic it is easy to see why more water in the river means a faster flow. When you move water over a rock at higher and higher velocities, the hydraulics become ever more powerful, generally resulting in bigger rapids.

Higher water on the Shotover doesn't necessarily mean a harder river. In fact the difficulty of the river rises and falls in little peaks with respect to the flow. In short, every flow changes the personality of the rapids on the Shotty, some get easier, some get harder, but the overall trip is still good fun.

The rapids that get interesting at high water are Rock Garden, found at the beginning of the trip, along with Anvil and Oh Shit, found in the Mother Section. A shallow rock at the entrance to Rock Garden at low water creates a monster hole at higher flows. Anvil becomes a must-make move in the middle of the Mother section, where the water that normally flows around a cave starts pillowing up in front of it. The line requires paddling hard right at the wall to the top of the pillow, only turning the boat to the left at the last second to ride down a super-highway of water that rockets you downstream. If you don't get to the top of the pillow, it throws you sideways into a left-to-right moving lateral hole that flips if you can't get your boat pointed right into it. Oh Shit is the biggest and best hit on the river (with the exception of Mother-in-Law), as a rock you normally raft to the right of creates a monster rooster-tailing wave right down the center.

The last part of the trip is always interesting at high water. The first rapid in the last section, Jaws, has a rock that starts flipping boats at high water. The Oxenbridge Tunnel and Cascade pose their own problems, as the tunnel get narrower and narrower as the river rises and Cascade starts flipping boats and swimming people. And lets not forget Mother-in-Law, the class 5 beat-down of a rapid we do when the water is too high to fit into the Tunnel. The cutoff level for the Tunnel is between 52-55 cubic meters per second (cumecs), and requires an on sight judgment call. There is a tributary called Moonlight Creek that feeds into the Shotty just below the mother section and can sometimes put us over the cut off level.

The interesting weeks on the Shotover actually began about three weeks ago, when one of our guides, Adam, flipped off the rock in Jaws at around 47 cumecs. This is a nasty place and flow to flip, as Mother-in-Law and the Tunnel are only about 150 meters downstream. At 47 cumecs, this gives a time frame of about 30 seconds to get your shit sorted or you're committed one way or the other.

After Adam flipped, his people were pulled into a couple of boats, those being Arion's and Simon's. Simon pulled in four swimmers, while Arion pulled in one and the other two swam to shore. Adam flipped his boat back over and got to shore, but Simon wasn't able to do the same and found himself committed to running Mother-in-Law.

At flows below 60 cumecs, Mother-in-Law is a serious beast and requires a very precise line and a big brace by the guide to stay upright. With 12 people in his boat, most of them water-logged and caught in a tangle of limbs and paddles, Simon's line leading into the rapid was anything but precise and he ended up flipping in the big hole. The safety kayaker on the trip, Gwyn, was trying to stay ahead of Simon and ended up getting worked in the hole as well. During the 4-5 seconds of washing machine action, Gwyn recalled seeing a bright blue object suddenly descend from above right on top of him. Realizing by this not-so-subtle hint that Simon had flipped, he managed to get out from under the boat, rolled up, and started cleaning up the mess. Tom, the trip leader, saw where Simon was headed and followed, with Arion close behind. Tom stuck his line, and Arion kept his boat upright but got sucked out himself. The rest of the trip, Adam and his two remaining passengers included, ran the tunnel and helped with the cleanup. Fortunately no one was hurt, including the poor souls that got flipped twice in about 1 minute!

What happened a week after this is now being referred to as the Tunnel Incident. It all began with a rainstorm the night before. The river rose to 51 cumecs for the morning trip, just under Mother-in-Law levels, and by the afternoon trip we were rafting on 48 cumecs. At this flow, the Tunnel is still quite narrow and has the added hazard of the undercut sections beginning to stick out on the sides. One of the major concerns of running the Tunnel is broaching sideways, as the boats behind you could wash into it and have some major troubles on their hands.

We had enough boats on the afternoon trip to merit splitting into two trips, and I was on trip two. We always radio into the base after the Mother section to let everyone know things are still peachy keen, and while doing so our trip leader was informed that there was a wrap in the Tunnel. Our plan became to get down to Jaws, run one boat at a time, and eddy out afterwords. Absolutely no one was run the tunnel until told otherwise. We all got through Jaws, were informed the blockage was clear, and proceeded to run the Tunnel one boat at a time. The scene on the other side was under control, but there were still a good number of people on shore along with several deflated boats.

What had occured in the Tunnel proceeded roughly as follows, being the story I've pieced together from those involved. After three or so boats had entered the tunnel and successfully gotten through, one boat became jammed sideways about 80 meters into the 180 meter tunnel. This boat then flipped, remained stuck, and the 6 or so people and their guide swam Cascade. The next boat jammed sideways along with the first, but the guide managed to keep it upright by getting everyone to the high side. The third boat came in on top of the two others, shifted sideways and flipped under the second, upright boat. All the passengers from this boat swam Cascade, but the guide managed to stay with the boats and climbed on top. At this point the boats started to shift, and all three boats rotated so they were pointing lengthwise down the Tunnel. While more ideal than sideways, it didn't do much good in this case. The second upright boat, still on top of the third upside-down boat, was jammed on the left hand wall while the first, originally upside-down but now sideways boat, jammed on the right hand wall resulting in a three boat plug halfway down the Tunnel with 7 passengers and two guides still aboard.

The guide of the fourth boat, seeing this happening, started blowing her whistle to stop any more boats from entering. The guide of the fifth boat, hearing the whistle blasts, managed to stop at the very last moment and stayed out the Tunnel. The guide of the fourth boat, in a moment of brilliance which forever will be kept in my mind as the perfect example of thinking outside of the box, got her crew to use their hands and paddles to push themselves backwards out of the tunnel! They successfully pushed their way to the entrance and got pulled out by a throw bag.

By this time the rest of trip one was stopped above the Tunnel, and the trip leader decided to enter the Tunnel to sort out the mess. After reaching the blockage, he had his crew use their hands to keep the boat from shifting and started directing the guide of the third, upside-down boat, to start using his river knife to cut the boats and release the air.

Still unaware of what was going on inside the Tunnel, the guide of the fifth boat (who had heard the whistle blasts and stayed out of the Tunnel) had the remaining guides at the entrance of the Tunnel lower him on a rope down inside to see what was going on. By the time he got to the blockage the stuck boats were being cut, so he pulled himself free from the rope and climbed into the trip leader's boat. After enough air had leaked, the three stuck boats, 7 people and two guides, and the trip leader's boat with an extra guide all flushed out of the Tunnel and successfully made it through the last rapid.

In the end, there were no serious injuries, despite Cascade being a shallow nasty rapid. The worst was some bruises and rock scrapes. It was impressive to hear how everyone had managed to keep their cool during the incident, as the situation was very serious. It also is a good story to use when explaining why river guides carry a knife and go through so much rescue training, it is just for situations like this one! A big part of rafting is re-evaluating procedure to ensure a safer trip, so to prevent future incidents like this we now run the Tunnel with far larger spacing, ensuring that there are no more than two rafts inside at any time.

The Tunnel Incident happened the day that my brother Daniel was coming to town to hang out for a while. I had wanted to take him down the river the next day, so we arranged for him to join me for the afternoon trip. That next morning the river had dropped down to 31 cumecs, but some clouds rolled in and it started to rain as we were driving in to the river. Thinking it was going to be another hot morning, I had only brought my short sleeved dry top and was a bit chilled by the end of the trip. By lunch time, we started monitoring the flow and saw that the river was rising about 2 1/2 cumecs every fifteen minutes. Needing to make a call before we geared everyone up, we decided that we were going to make it under the cut-off level of 70 cumecs, but just barely.

We got to the put in, geared everyone up, did the safety talk, and put on the water at exactly 67 cumecs, more than double the flow in the morning! The once clearish blue water was now a dark, brownish-black, with logs and other debris aplenty. What a trip for Daniel to decide to join me on! This flow was far far higher than any flow I had ever seen before, so needless to say I was pretty nervous. My crew was mostly Brazilian, but enough of them spoke English so communication wasn't an issue. They paddled well, but I was glad to have my brother up in front to provide some real power.

We had one of our boats nearly flip in the center hole at the top of Rock Garden. The guide, Deano, hit the guts of it and popped up almost sideways. We missed the meat of the hole, but clipped the left hand side of it and submerged the boat. After that we regained control and cruised through the rest of Rock Garden. While normally a class 2 shallow bit, the rest of Rock Garden was chock full of huge waves.

When we got to the Mother section, we all tightened up the spacing to cover each other and dove in. Anvil rapid was absolutely cranking! Our line was perfect and we hit the green highway of safety, but one of our other boats didn't make it and ran hard left right into the hole. He managed to T-up his boat and held it straight, keeping his boat from flipping but launching himself to the front of it in the process. Everyone else had sweet lines, and we all got through the Mother Section in one piece.

As we cruised by Moonlight Creek, we could see it in flood as well, pushing the flow at this stage to approximately 80 cumecs. Jaws was completely washed out, and we all eddied out right afterwords to scout Mother-in-Law.

Mother-in-Law was fortunately (but slightly disappointingly) very forgiving. The big hole was mostly washed out and the second hole was non-existent. Everyone made it through upright, with only a couple swimmers here or there. Just watching some of our lines, we would have had several flips had it been a lower flow Mother-in-Law.

When it came time for my boat, I arranged it so I would go first and another guide, Mathius would follow. My line through the main hole was right where I wanted it, but Mathius wasn't in the right spot and had a close call, nearly tipping over. Around the corner of the main part of Mother-in-Law are some large rocks, and at the flow we were now sitting on they were entirely under water creating a couple massive pour-overs. I was trying to steer the boat between the pour-overs, but my brother (opposite me at the front of the boat) wouldn't stop paddling despite my cries, so he pretty much pointed our boat directly at the biggest pour-over. I thought we were done for. Luckily, it was once again a forgiving bit of water and we washed out upright and intact, no thanks to my little bro. Seriously gave me a couple of gray hairs.

All in all, a very interesting few weeks. The high water we have enjoyed all January is on the way out, and the river is starting to drop fast. There is no more snow up in the hills and it's all groundwater and rain keeping the Shotover flowing. Lower water will test a different type of guiding ability, the technical side as the water slows down and more rocks pop out. Bring it on!

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Photos

Big Water Cascade Round 2
Hitting the buffer...

Flip at Jaws
Jaws bites again!

Entering the Tunnel
Sal setting up to enter the Tunnel

Tunnel Incident
A picture worth a thousands words, this one.

Sal running Mother-in-Law
Big hit, yee-haw!

Aftermath at Mother-in-Law
Sal with 5 people in the water, Tom Skinner about to drop in.

Mother-in-Law
I'm about to get swallowed...

After the big hole
Popping up, a tad more wet.

Dan at the helm, post Mother-in-Law
You almost flipped me you little snot.

Jesse running Mother-in-Law
Hitting the guts!