15 River Features

reading a river is no different than reading a book you just need to understand the language you need to have the vocabulary we're going to introduce to you all the different types of features in a river once you know those features are known by name you're then going to be able to put the pieces together to come up with what the rapid is really doing what we're going to teach you in reading a river is simply being able to identify the proper route through the river and the proper way to get through a rapid as easily as possible with the skills that you have reading a river is a super fun part of whitewater kayaking because every rapid is a little bit different and everyone tells a little different story some Rapids are long they read like a long chapter some of them are super short and they read like a sentence those are the easiest ones so let's first introduce to you each individual feature the first feature I want to introduce to you is the Eddy there are several parts of an Eddy you want to be aware of the anatomy of an Eddy the first is the top of an Eddy the top of an Eddy is the very most upstream side of the Eddy it's usually up against the rock or right against the shore around a corner then you have the bottom of the Eddy the bottom is the most downstream side where the where the Eddy or the slow water starts disappearing and turning back into current you also have the eddy line and the Eddy line separates the current from the Eddy understanding the Eddy line is key which is a separate feature in itself lastly you need to know about the pocket of the Eddy the pocket is the most stationary or upstream moving current in the Eddy that's the place where if you can get your kayak tube you're going to be able to sit there and hang out the next feature I want to introduce is the hole the hole is probably the most misunderstood feature in all of river running and the reason is because holes take a little bit of skill to work with now what a hole is it's simply where the water rushes over a rock creates a trough in the river and the downstream water fills in on itself fills the trough in creating a foam pile if you see a wave breaking in the ocean that foam pile it's essentially a hole same thing out here on the river now the anatomy of a hole a hole has several parts you need to be aware of the foam pile that the upstream rushing water what we call the boil line that separates the water it's kind like the bottom of the hole separates where the water starts going downstream again and where the water is still rushing upstream you also have the corners of the hole the corners of the hole or where the foam pile disappears enter back into the current very similar to the corners of Eddie's now the next thing you need to be aware of is the shape of a hole when we talk about the shape the shape is if you had a bird's-eye view looking facing downstream and looking at the foam pile if the if the foam pile is straight across we just call it a straight hole the foam pile looks like a smiley face where the corners are further downstream than the center of the hole we call it a smiley hole if the corners are more upstream we call it a pocket hole or a frowny hole the last kind of hole is a diagonal hole one where the foam pile runs diagonally across the river meaning one end is further downstream and the other end is further upstream each one of these holes you'll deal with slightly differently and we'll get into that in the technique section of how to go through holes another awesome feature in whitewater rivers are rocks rocks are pretty much what make the white water the rocks are the bottom of the river the rocks sometimes are large boulders or just little rocks in the river you're going to find all of these things in almost every whitewater river you run but you basically need to be able to identify with a rock is whether that rock is friendly or whether the rock is not friendly most rocks in a river are quite friendly you'll find that they have pillows on them they tend to be smooth enough that you can paddle around them you can paddle over them you can bump into them there are a few rocks out there that you most definitely need to be aware of those types of rocks are number one thin rocks are very sharp rocks where the water hits them and rushes past them very fast those rocks are not friendly because they tend to get a kayak stuck or pinned on them they can be sharp but also they're just they don't create any kind of a pillow so the water rushes by them very quickly you also have what's called undercut rocks undercut rocks are simply rocks that are sitting on top of something what happens is some of the water goes under them creating what's called a sieve an undercut rock is dangerous because not only can the water go under under the rock but also boats and bodies potentially can go under there causing a pin entrapment or even a death in worst case scenario now the cool thing about rocks are most of them are extremely safe but it's key as a River Runner that you can identify dangerous rock from friendly Rock and we'll go over those as well the next feature you're going to find in a river is the Eddy line the Eddy line is what separates the current going down river with the slack water which is called the Eddy now an eddy line comes in a lot of different forms you've got crisp clear Eddy lines which are sharp line between the current and the Eddy those are the easiest to deal with you also have wide 80 lines mushy Eddy lines or otherwise known as boilie Eddy lines there's any lines if you look at it you don't actually see a distinct line between the current and the Eddy the current almost fades out and then slowly turns into an eddy so it's a little it's less distinct another thing you're going to find with Eddy lines is how strong the current differential is some Eddy lines are super strong is really fast current and then a really strong eddy so the current differential is huge and the difference between the current and the eddy is extremely visible and you've got slow or slack moving water with a very much you're very slow eddy current differential is much smaller the next feature I want to introduce you to is waves now waves are awesome part of river running waves or would make your boat bounce up and down waves are things that you can surf in the river I mean waves make kayaking unbelievably fun awesome now what you're going to find in a wave the anatomy of a wave is the peak which is the very top of the wave then you have the trough which is the very bottom or the deepest depression you also have the shoulders of the waves as shoulders the most to the right or left of the wave is a wave starts to disappear as we discuss how to go through waves you're going to need to know that and that terminology because we're going to refer to it quite a bit

Channel: Paddle Education

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Id: h7GnKQaKyiE

Length: 6min 37sec (397 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2014