Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

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Seanie
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Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Seanie » Sat May 10, 2008 11:26 pm

There is a bit of chat happening on the Boluisce Guide about the grade of the "Top Drop".
Pat MacAlinney wrote:Changed Grading: Waterfall section is a V (e) quoting ICF Class 5 Exceedingly difficult. Inspection from shore is mandatory; extreme hydraulics, keepers and boils; narrow in the only line of passage, high drops in cascades with difficult entrances and/or exits.
Bowsie wrote:Are we in agreement that the water fall is grade V? I personally dont think so. I have seen paddlers float down it unscathed. Giving it a grade V status might not do justice to actual grade V radids. I'd like to hear other opinions on this.
The points being made are very good. I will try to remain as neutral as possible and facilitate this debate (obviously I do have my own view on the issue, because I submitted the original guide).

I will try to clear up a few points before we go on.

What are River grades?
The purpose of the scale of river difficulty is to compare the difficulty of rivers and rapids. When we specify a rating for a given rapid, we are comparing it to other rapids that are *about* as difficult. And this must also take into account various water levels. When we are talking about things such as difficulty etc. it is far from a direct science.

What grading system does IWW use?
http://www.irishwhitewater.com/river_grades.php
It follows the The International grading system.
American Whitewater developed and maintains this system.
(I didn't/won't use the ICF guidelines because I believe they are out of date)

One of the biggest complaints/comments I heard about Seamus MacGearailt's Irishwhitewater book was that the grading was far too high for lots of rivers, and that this made the guide "out of date". With the developments in training and gear there has been a huge change in safety over the years and as such some rapids which would have been considered dangerous in the past are now runnable. This affects the way we grade things since in it's simplest form a grading system is a comparative tool.

Would a more complex grading system work better?
I had this same debate a good few months back when I was developing the idea for the site.
Firstly I believe in a flat simple 1-6 grading system, with the addition of a + the odd time. The reason for this is that it's simple and doesn't require a key or an explanation in most cases. I have been paddling for a good few years now, in Ireland and abroad and I have never heard anyone refer to a feature as been a Grade 4e or anything like that, it's making something more complicated than it needs to be. The idea of the grading system is to give a rough idea. If some people don't understand the system, that means they won't be submitting good information and also might not use it. And if the users don't understand they will be leaving with the wrong idea.

The grading system in Seamus MacGearailt's book tries to narrow this down, and I think that this greater accuracy is needless.

Secondly I believe the grading system should primarily reference points for this should be 1 and 6 (because 6 is already the agreed standard).

I have great respect for what Mark from UKRGB says on the issue:
UKRGB wrote:Yes, these descriptions are vague and unspecific. Grading is an imprecise and controversial activity. A continuous grade 3 river may be more challenging than a pool-drop grade 4 river. Gradings given by Authors of river guides are PURELY THEIR OWN UNTRUSTWORTHY OPINION and should only be used for a general guide. A river is a dangerous, unpredictable and constantly changing environment.

FORGET THE GUIDEBOOK GRADE ON THE DAY. INSPECT AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF IF YOU ARE UP TO, AND HAPPY WITH, A RIVER. [/b]
With all that said, I would welcome a discussion on the grade Boluisce and about river grading.
We'll see if we can come to an agreement, ultimately it will come down to the points being made.

kev
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by kev » Sun May 11, 2008 12:31 am

IWW river grading wrote:
# Class IV - Advanced

* high, irregular waves, breakers, powerful back eddies, whirlpools and sharp bends
* powerful but predictable rapids requiring precise handling in difficult water, for experienced paddlers only
* "Must make moves", rapids that require skill
* moderate to high risk to swimmers, group rescue is often required
* advance scouting is required

# Class V - Expert

* extremely long and/or violent rapids, often containing large, unavoidable obstacles, holes, steep banks, and turbulent water
* very fast currents with powerful whirlpools and boiling back eddies
* rescue is often difficult for experts
* advance scouting may be difficult
The above is the current grading definition as per the site.

As regards the boluisce Id have described the main drop as a 4, the features on it get more powerful in high water but with after reading the above definitions id still have gone with a 4. If its classed as a 5 then its being classed as a rapid that is only one step from being unrunnable by ordinary mortals, which i think overstates it.

Given the nature of the site this kind of discussion was probably inevitable as there is no definite line between different degrees of difficulty. Whatever grading system is used is going to be based on comparisons to other rivers and so long as it is consistent then it should be successful, hopefully the variety of contributors to the site will ensure this.

Id agree in that I dont see the advantage in complicating the grading system further a scale of 1-6 seems adequate, especially as people will inspect the features themselves and make up their own minds based on the water levels.

tiernan
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by tiernan » Sun May 11, 2008 10:57 am

It (The Boluisce top drop; along with many other drops/rivers) may have been a grade V drop when running it in a 4 meter kayak back in the day when both hull technology and rescue technique had not developed to what it is today (not having a go at old school paddling but naturally the longer something is done the more advanced it gets, and in turn easier/safer).

Perhaps it is time for there to be a re evaluation of the grade's of the rivers of Ireland, not necessarily the grading system (although this may need to be changed as elements that made up a grade IV river 20 years ago may be easily ran in modern kayaks and be included into grade III)

Everyone agreed from the LBT post that kayak technology has advanced to the point where old school technique needed to be updated (and i stress updated and not replaced for neutral purposes). Its only logical that what one can do in a kayak has advanced and therefore reducing the level of difficulty in SOME rivers/rapids/drops/etc.

Tiernan

Adrians
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Adrians » Sun May 11, 2008 6:32 pm

tiernan wrote: Its only logical that what one can do in a kayak has advanced and therefore reducing the level of difficulty in SOME rivers/rapids/drops/etc.
What Tiernan sad is correct, but were my opnion would differ is that although there has been massive improvments in both paddlers ablity & kayak technology in the last 10 years. And in turn it more difficults rapids/drop/slides are being rum more regulary, the consequences of getting things wrong haven't changed, or I would go so far as to say that the consequences have even gotten more dangerous due to fact that more people are putting/getting themselves in more compramising situations.

I know the last thing we want is an overly complicated grading system but I thing an accurate system that requires a little knowledge to use is far better than one with either installs false comfort / scares people off certain rivers.

I personal like the 4(e) type idea as it gives far far more information than just a blank number. Much like in the climbing world.

As for what grade the top drop on the Bolusie should be graded as; As I have only ran the river 10ish times and the drop in question only a hand full of times I am not as qulified as the Galway crew to say. But on the times I was there ranging from medium to very high, I would grade it as a 4 (e) reason being the run in and line is very achieviable the shite will really hit the fan if you get it wrong in high water.



Adrian



(apologies for the poor spelling, dyslexic and spell check in browser not working for some reason)

willy
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by willy » Sun May 11, 2008 8:00 pm

hmmmm..... I dont think a number followed by a letter is very complicated and, when compared to the extra information that can be passed with just one letter, is well worth the paddling population learning the first five letters of the alphabet!

A rapid can be very difficult to run clean but have very little consequences, while a very simple rapid may have a broken nose in store for an unlucky capsize!

As for the Boluisce - Iv never rely paddled in galway other than clifden and a bit of surf, shame on me!

Kav
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Kav » Mon May 12, 2008 9:43 am

With regard to River Grades in general, I'm reading the Guidebook to the South Alps at the moment and it uses the traditional 1 - 6 grading with the addition of a + and - to show if it is, say, a hard grade 3 (3+) or an easy grade 4 (4-) for example. I think this gives a lot more clarity. It also carries the caveat that in high water you should add 1 to the grade!

In regard to the Boluisce, I've only ran the top drop once myself (in low water), and it was far from Grade 5. But I have seen other, better, paddlers run it in bigger water and get their ass handed to them. Also heard horror stories of people pinned upside-down at the bottom off the drop. I think what Pat is getting at is that the drop, when done right, looks easy but if its messed up then rescue can be extremely difficult and on very high water it is easy to mess up!

J.K.
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by J.K. » Wed May 14, 2008 9:25 pm

I really can't see the top drop as being grade five. We're trying to put a number to something that changes with rainfall, so when do you want to apply the number, when it's during a 100 year storm, or the middle of a drought, or sometime round the middle of a damp irish winter with enough rain not to leave half your boat on the rock garden, right?
Yeah, I can see a massive rainfall/big release pushing the drop up to a five, but for most of the time, it's easily runnable, there's a straightforward line, good eddy access below, it's only grade three running into it, plenty of space for ropers as we've all seen.
Take a look at a lot of LVM, Black Book, etc. They're grade five drops, and I wouldn't compare the two.

Sure you can get injured here, I have been myself, but that's no reason to bump up the grade. You can injure yourself just as seriously on the naffest little bimble imaginable.

I would not consider myself at all a grade five paddler, and would be loathe to run any genuine grade five river, but to call this grade five, and have people run it successfully, that could lead them to overestimate their abilities, and dangerously so.

[edit]Great to see some decent discussion going on though.

GrahamClarke
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Irish grading

Post by GrahamClarke » Wed May 28, 2008 2:25 pm

How do folks,
First off, Seanie, savage job on the website. It really is a great resource for Irish paddlers to have.
I thought I'd wade into this discussion, primarily because I've submitted a number of river descriptions and I've always found grading a bit contentious. For the record I personally don't care much for grading anymore, although obviously I understand the need for it. For me on any given day a river is either grade ‘yes' or grade ‘no' and the rest is just details. I'm also aware that on-line forums can attract their share of little hero's, the type who' eat themselves if they were chocolate and I hope I don't come across as one of those types. And opinion's are like bellybuttons after all, everyone has one (except the freaks!).

Anyway to cut to the case I think the grading system in Ireland need's a bit of tweaking. At the moment we're slapping a homogeneous international grade on river's here that under the spotlight don't hold up. I've been abroad often enough now to realise that grade V paddling here usually doesn't translate as grade V in most other countries, going on our current guidebook. So you wind up with this situation where people say to themselves (including me), “Well I'm a level IV/V paddler, and this guide rates this as grade IV/V so happy days”. Only retrospectively do you realise that it was a continuous, walled in, must make move, paddle like a fecker for several hours, grade IV/V. I think I would be correct in saying that we don't have to many rivers like that here in Ireland. So should we be slapping the same grade on them? Bear in mind context is king here. I'm well aware that grades are approximate, rather than a definitive measure of a rapid's seriousness or difficulty and this change's with flow, character etc.

I think a way of rectifying that problem would be to introduce further the American system of grading class 4/5 into different sections (e.g. 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 et). I mean it's hardly complicated. And it's beneficial in the long run as most Irish paddlers usually wind up travelling abroad so you can be a bit more objective about grading other international rivers. It's true that by changing the system we run the risk of negatively impacting on it. Conversely however we may also rid ourselves of a problem. You know there's a correlation between this post and the one on low brace turns. Times are a changing.

I'll leave you with this thought. This is Gorilla on the Green Narrows, USA. The American Whitewater grading is 5.2 out of a possible 5.3 The lead in is a little tricky, the landing is awkward and there's a hole at the bottom called the ‘speed trap' followed by another rapid. What grade would we slap on this here? A generic V????

Graham

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Seanie
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Seanie » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:19 pm

It looks like we'll be leaving the Boluisce as a grade 5.

But this does raise the issue of grading of higher grade river features and rivers.
I agree with Graham,
the grading system Ireland need’s a bit of tweaking.
However it would take an overall consensus driven approach to do such a thing, people are still stuck in their old ways and some wont know that a change has happened.
In my opinion, it would take the likes of the ICU TDU to ratify the new system and create a detailed guide on how to implement it. Including it on its courses etc. Then with with the backing of the likes of IWW and Irish freestyle it would become main stream.

This as you can guess is no small thing and then you have to ask yourself, would it be worth it? Do river grades do much other than give a very rough guide to what a river maybe like, not withstanding river levels etc.

Personally I think it would be worth it, it couldn't do any harm, but would the masses agree?

PS. Graham I don't fully understand that system you wrote about. Is it simply a further dividing of grade 4 and 5 drops into numbers of one decimal place?.(eg the Top Drop on the Boluisce would arguably be a 4.5?). Could you expand on it please. Thanks.

Warren
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Warren » Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:53 pm

I've only run this drop once and while it was cool and hard, it was not super challenging so i'd go for a 4+ (The plus being a cop out on my part :lol: )
But i think the important part in that sentence is "i'd go for a 4+" River grading st the end of the day is a very personal thing?? To suggest that there are no rivers in Ireland deserving a gade 5 would be incorrect. I would certainly still give it to the Double drop on the Glenmacnass and the Source of the Liffey, to name but a few.
Lets not get an inferiority complex about our rivers, which when running, are damn good. Foreign rivers will always seem harder because the style and character of the river are very different to what we have here. Personally, i find steep pool drop and technical rivers far easier than continuous big volume and my opinion on their grades would be different from someone who paddled continuous big volume exclusively all th-e time. They'd be scared witless on something like the Dargle. All those rocks coming at them like that!!

Warren

GrahamClarke
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by GrahamClarke » Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:27 pm

Eh, eay???
Warren wrote:To suggest that there are no rivers in Ireland deserving a grade 5 would be incorrect
Damn right it's incorrect. But who the hell was suggesting that in the first place?? I believe I said that grade V paddling here usually doesn't translate as grade V in most other countries, going on our current guidebook. And I also said that context was king. So you need to take a look at what I said and the context it was said in and then have a look at the Irish Whitewater Guidebook. Obviously the difficulty of a river increases dependant on it's flow. But we're not debating that here.

The Irish Whitewater Guidebook lists about 14 grade V's. By today's standards at least four don't really fit the grade V bill, unless their tanking; but then the same thing could be said of a lot of rivers. Another two are only slapped with the V tag because they have one drop that's a V. So we're down from 14 class V's to about 8, if we use that guidebook and today's standards. The entire point of my post was to suggest that the grading system that we use here could use a bit of a spring clean and not to suggest our rivers are inferior in some way. One of my favourite run's in the world is an Irish west coast grade III (the Bunhowna.Savage run!)

I think we all acknowledge that grading is subjective, but only to a point. This is one definition of subjective: "judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts". Stopper's are fact's. Strainer's are fact's. Rocks' are fact's. Nasty-ass under cut's are facts. Burly line's are facts. I think that it's real easy to get caught up in the whole ‘subjectiveness' of grading argument while ignoring the externalities that river's derive their grade from. Given this there's no reason we can't be relatively accurate in grading a river. In my experience the ‘subjective' part of grading more often than not reflects a person's ability, experience, comfort zone, etc. But those things don't change the nature of a river or its hazards.

The whole point of this thread was to ask if we need to reassess the grading of river's here, particularly those given in the Irish Whitewater Guide. Just look at some of the guides on this site compared to the Irish Whitewater book. Ennistymon Falls has gone from a grade IV to a III. The Erriff has gone from a V to a II – IV. The Ballysadare has gone from a V to a III- V. The Barrow has gone from a II to a II- IV. O'Sullivans Cascades is “next to impossible” (p.57) to grade according to the Whitewater Guide but receives a IV/V on this site. There's others as well.

Look, nobody is questioning the quality of Irish river's here and it's a little lame to be suggesting that that's the case. Ultimately this boils down to asking, does our grading system need to be progressed here, in keeping with other progressions in the sport. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it does. But there's clearly room for debate on this. Which I think is a positive thing.

And Warren,
Warren wrote:Foreign rivers will always seem harder because the style and character of the river are very different to what we have here
Em…you didn't get a case of the munchies soon after writing that did you? ;) It's not Warren Mac is it?

Seanie, I know a guy stateside who'll be able to answer that grading question of yours better than I could so I'll drop him a mail and see what he says.

Graham.
(man that was a long post!)

Warren
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Re: Boluisce "Top Drop" Grade

Post by Warren » Mon Jun 09, 2008 6:14 pm

GrahamClarke wrote:
I believe I said that grade V paddling here usually doesn't translate as grade V in most other countries, going on our current guidebook.

So we’re down from 14 class V’s to about 8, if we use that guidebook and today’s standards.
Just a pedantic point, but 6 from 14 not counting as class V, i wouldn't call usually. I would say, more pften than not the description was correct ;)

I think also that this is not just an irish problem. Its all over the world where rivers have been graded that you get this.
GrahamClarke wrote:
And Warren, Warren wrote:
Foreign rivers will always seem harder because the style and character of the river are very different to what we have hereEm…you didn’t get a case of the munchies soon after writing that did you? It’s not Warren Mac is it?

No, i wasn't stoned, The character of rivers changing abroad is a big part of this. You showed a photo of a kick ass waterfall, rated as a five. Fair enough. But people go abroad, even somewhere close to home, like Austria, experience bigger volume Water, see it as a grade 5, remember the ass kicking they got and assume that foreign grade 5 is harder than Irish grade 5. They do forget however that Johnny Foreign boater comes to Ireland and experiences the same thing. He goes back thinking, that low volume rocky stuff they call a river sure gave me a hiding.

It came across that you were implying Irish grade 5 can't compare to foreign grade 5. I now stand corrected that you weren't.

Also, correct me if i'm wrong but my copy of the Irish whitewater guide uses a 1-7 system, not the international 1-6. Could be the source of a lot of this???

canned
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Re: Irish grading

Post by canned » Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:44 pm

GrahamClarke wrote:For me on any given day a river is either grade ‘yes’ or grade ‘no’
I like this approach - all too often paddlers fall into the trap of saying no to a run because the guidebook puts a number (ok - letter if you want to be technical!) on a run that people think is beyond them.

The thing is though - there are not 5 types of river in Ireland - it's not as simple as I-V so why should the grading system be?

I think it's no harm to stand back a bit further from just the grading (regardless of what that's based on).

A guide is much much more than a grading. There is a wide spread of different river characters involved. Would you say to anyone: "It's a grade IV" about something like the Clare Glens and the same about the Gaddagh and expect people to take that as sufficient? No, you wouldn't.... You'd ask questions to find out about the character of the river or an example of another river you may have paddled that the run is similar to.

Nobody uses the grading of a guide to make a decision on whether that's the river for them. True, you will be aware of your ability and decide that Grade IV is what you want to run and so use the grading system to skip buy anything up to that but once you find the list of IV's you will read further.

As for different water levels, every guide should be written with reference to how the river runs under a typical river level. On arrival, most runs will appear obviously low or obviously high. The guide should be written with reference to normal running levels IMO. Though there should always be mention of how quicky the levels can rise and drop and at what point does this change what you can run.

Any river guide should include;
General grade and grade for specific features that does not fit that grade
Scope (put ins and take outs)
Character of the river (continuous, pool/drop, boxed in, accessable banks)
Specfic dangers (portages/must runs/likelihood of trees down)

Just my opinion, it's probably the info I'd give anyone if they asked me about a run....

Tony

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