Which is a dangerous combination in my case, I know. But I was just wondering if there had been any data or documentation of what is the most dangerous river in the country. Or anywhere, as far as that goes, I guess. I mean specifically in terms of drownings or river accidents. There were a couple of places in Africa where the crocodiles hung out at the bottom of the Rapids just waiting for something to be swept down into the pool, but that shouldn't count. Does anybody have any statistics? Do we factor in normal CFS, and average user population, and total length of the river ? Anyway, I'll humbly offer up my river; the Kern River here in southern California. We always used this statistic when we would be teaching:
given that there's about two months of the year when there's almost no water (basically fish flow) due to dam control, every five weeks for the past 22 years someone has died on the Kern. It's not a big river, and it's only about 50 miles long, and it doesn't have nearly the user population of tons of other rivers, so that's fairly impressive to me.
What do other people think?
RT
Bored and thinking..............
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Space Canoe
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Aldenb
rivers
The Chattooga immediately comes to my mind. AW says 11 deaths on it, with countless accidents and close calls. Plus, I'm sure there were deaths just after Deliverance came out, which is way way before AW kept records!
Every rock in the five falls is undercut, left crack and woodall are proven killers, and people have also died at raven's chute, bull sluice and the narrows.
One stat is interesting: there has never been a commercial rafting death on the Chattooga.
The river isn't too long (at least the part that you can legally run) and it doesn't really run in the summer, for three months or more. It doesn't get the crowds of the ocoee or Nanty, either.
Plus, it has killed experts and non-boaters, at high and low water. It has killed river-guides and drunk Burt Reynolds wannabes.
That's my guess for the most dangerous river.
Alden
Every rock in the five falls is undercut, left crack and woodall are proven killers, and people have also died at raven's chute, bull sluice and the narrows.
One stat is interesting: there has never been a commercial rafting death on the Chattooga.
The river isn't too long (at least the part that you can legally run) and it doesn't really run in the summer, for three months or more. It doesn't get the crowds of the ocoee or Nanty, either.
Plus, it has killed experts and non-boaters, at high and low water. It has killed river-guides and drunk Burt Reynolds wannabes.
That's my guess for the most dangerous river.
Alden
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Space Canoe
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The dangers are strainers, pins on rocks, and a fairly cold water temperature (50-55 degrees) throughout the entire summer, basically. And a lot of the deaths are from tubers with no lifejacket on them, and a sixpack of beer in them.
I taught one year at a summer camp in North Carolina and did section 3 of the Chattooga all by myself after we had taken a group of girls partway down it a few weeks before. The group had to portage "Second Ledge" as I recall; at that level there was only one place to run it and there was a nasty hard right turn you had to do right in the middle of it to avoid going right over the top of a rock and into all sorts of sharp undercut and pin situations. So yeah, undercuts were definitely getting my attention, full-time!! I also remember that big, thin, slab of rock jutting up at a 45 degree angle from the Deliverance movie.
Speaking of some other current posts, being a left-handed paddler, Bull Sluice was really easy at that level. You could eddy out River left right above it, and then peel out on your left side to get way over to River right and thereby avoid having to make the tough right turn directly above all of the mayhem.
But I'm curious, I couldn't seem to find the data on the Chattooga at the AW site. Is that 11 deaths a year, or 11 deaths since they started recording, because the Kern River has had 11 deaths a year for over 20 years in a row.
RT
I taught one year at a summer camp in North Carolina and did section 3 of the Chattooga all by myself after we had taken a group of girls partway down it a few weeks before. The group had to portage "Second Ledge" as I recall; at that level there was only one place to run it and there was a nasty hard right turn you had to do right in the middle of it to avoid going right over the top of a rock and into all sorts of sharp undercut and pin situations. So yeah, undercuts were definitely getting my attention, full-time!! I also remember that big, thin, slab of rock jutting up at a 45 degree angle from the Deliverance movie.
Speaking of some other current posts, being a left-handed paddler, Bull Sluice was really easy at that level. You could eddy out River left right above it, and then peel out on your left side to get way over to River right and thereby avoid having to make the tough right turn directly above all of the mayhem.
But I'm curious, I couldn't seem to find the data on the Chattooga at the AW site. Is that 11 deaths a year, or 11 deaths since they started recording, because the Kern River has had 11 deaths a year for over 20 years in a row.
RT
I'd also say the chattooga. This coming season may be a bad one as well, due to the unusual amount of water (it's been over 2 feet most of the summer so far) I've heard stories from before the AW records of trips where many died.... One in particular is a Tubing trip in the 70s where 19 out of 21 people died in woodall shoals. Not sure about the accuracy of the story, or what person 19 was thinking when he followed 18 of his friends into a terminal hole, but i have heard that story more than once. The 11 deaths since recording is only boaters I believe, there have been more than that for sure, the area around Bull Sluice sees a lot of drunken yokeldom...
Tim
Tim
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Sir Adam
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As a "bystander" in this debate...
I think we shoud separate this into two categories-dangerous rivers for boaters (which we'd all like to know about for our own sake) and unsafe rivers overall (so we know what kind of folks live down by the river 
).
The Upper Hudson has a death every year or two, usually from heart attack (overweight rafting guests + beer and no sleep the night before+ Ice Cold HUGE water=more work than some folks hearts can handle ), but occasionally the odd foot entrapment.
It would also be interesting to see (but difficult to figure out) the danger by percentage-that is, very few people go down the Hudson Gorge (relative to the Kern or Chatooga, I'd say), and very few people get hurt...but as a percentage of the total number of people going down (boaters and non-boaters
), how may get injured / maimed / killed?
I hope that thought doesn't make anyones head hurt! I doubt it's possible, but it would be nice to put everything into perspective....
).The Upper Hudson has a death every year or two, usually from heart attack (overweight rafting guests + beer and no sleep the night before+ Ice Cold HUGE water=more work than some folks hearts can handle
), but occasionally the odd foot entrapment.It would also be interesting to see (but difficult to figure out) the danger by percentage-that is, very few people go down the Hudson Gorge (relative to the Kern or Chatooga, I'd say), and very few people get hurt...but as a percentage of the total number of people going down (boaters and non-boaters
), how may get injured / maimed / killed?I hope that thought doesn't make anyones head hurt! I doubt it's possible, but it would be nice to put everything into perspective....
Keep the C!
Adam
Adam