Lake Fork Post

[Schizzle]

For what it's worth, my vote would be to leave today's rating system alone. Leave some room for personal judgement and healthy portions of humility.

As a transfer from the climbing world, ratings are guidelines that change by location, weather, recent rockfall, etc. Just like rivers change with wood placements, flow levels, and riverbed transformation. Only the arrogant get really fixated on ratings, either to brag about their exploits, or to whine "I can usually clean X-rating, but I got schooled at X-river/climb."

The only kind of rating that's really dangerous is the kind that you take for granted you can do, then get in over your head. That being said, I think a guidebook worth it's salt will tell you when a run has a mean disposition (examples from CRCII "...sieves are everywhere...You might be able to run this drop, but think of how your friends are going to get your broken body out of there"). Black widow spiders.

Modern guidebooks will tell you when a run is too low to float and at what levels the difficulty leaps a full notch. It's nice to know when to consider it to be full on flooding, too. I love the CRCII example of hitting the Embudo at 4.1' before people really understood how a few inches flow can make an impact. Someone who doesn't seek out local beta/knowledge might think he's got it made until mile 2-3, then he shits himself and realizes he's committed to the end and the canyon walls just got a lot higher and steeper.

[Cutch]

Downgrading is dangerous.

Class V lumping is just as dangerous. The key is to find a happy medium.

first to give a general guide to boaters who have never run a give stream before

Yes, which is why accuracy and consistency are important. Our current system has consistency, but has lost accuracy over time. Perhaps a better question, do you still think Gore is for teams of experts and you have a high chance of dyeing, because it's six minus? That was the original consesnsus in the early 90's, via Floaters Guide to Colorado. Sticking to that perspective would create great consistency over time, and horrible consistency of the difficulty rating classes because he have placed a limit to how high the rating system goes.

to give the rest of the boating community something to talk about around the campfire

No. Because if that was the case we wouldn't place a cap on runnability, and I'd be running at least VIII+ by now. On a serious note, any boater that brags about being a _+ boater has much greater issues with kayaking and safety (not to mention self esteem) than a rating system will ever fix. Think of the mid west skiers that brag about making it down a black diamond.

Just my thoughts. See original post for better reasoning in what I just said.

Cayo, awesome point. I've never thought of doing things that way, but you pose an excellent solution to creating a more detailed run analysis. Very cool and creative.