Quote:
Originally Posted by jballen1
Hey guys, I could really use your expertise on this one. I am doing a school project on creating a manual. The topic I have chosen is 'How to plan a multiday raft trip.' The sections of planning I have picked to high light are these.
Food
Area
Rapids
Safety
Equipment
Any sort of advice and ideas that anyone can add are much appreciated. Thanks guys!!!!
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You realize your acronym is FARSE. Sorry I was just condensing for space on the quote and noticed that.
I have guided for years and manage to pull off 2 or 3 privates a year now, often putting disparate groups together under tight deadlines ( I am a fiend at calling the cancellation lines to pick up permits ).
So not that you are doing the manual in the order you have listed, but you have to determine where and who first. I am assuming by area you mean the river of choice.
So first you pick a place to float. For me it is often the Middle Fork. Is it appropriate for children? Not so much in spring, but....I did take my 5yr old down June 1st ( 3.4 such a sweet level for kids ) and my 3.5 yr old down last fall in September. So spring doesn't always rule out certain groups of potential participants but can.
After the where and when then you have to figure out the who. Such as kids or not. Newbies or not. Been lucky enough to do the Selway a few times and this is not a place a for newbs at high water. If you have not swam class 3+, class 4 you don't want to learn out there.
The next step is the rafting equipment, lots of passengers don't fit in to catarafts as well as rafts. I don't like cats as much as rafts, but they are great support craft and have their own advantages. They are ok for one or two passengers in most moderate situations. I have seen kids get blown right off the back of a cat a couple of times and don't like for kids for that reason.
After group gear then I move on to personal gear for all participants. That would include drybags, on river and off clothing, foootwear, rain gear....and it just goes on and on.
Part of the equipment section for me involves the logistics of shuttle rigs, trailers etc. and what fits where, who rides with whom etc.
Once you have the equipment settled on then you can go on to food planning. If six guys are running a paddle boat with one small cooler that takes a different food plan and gear than the 23 person trip I did last year where we somehow ended up with 10 craft with coolers. We were living large with cold beer and cocktail ice and lots of room for tables, stoves and other camp gear. Part of food planning is garbage management and systems and inevitably Waste management.
Now ( since safety is next ) is a good time to bring up food and other allergies since are we winding up food. This can be quite serious if overlooked somehow before getting to the river. I once found out ( on the shuttle to the river ) that someone had an extreme bee sting allergy and they were traveling without an epipen. Since this was spring and didn't want to have someone die on me or have to do an emergency traecheotomy on river, I stopped and found a sympathetic Dr to give me a scrip for an epipen. Some folks forget that on a wilderness river you are hours away from a 911 call under the best of circumstances.
Safety. More than a throw bag. I like to have all my rafters show me what they have for safety resources. I also like to have everyone ( and I mean everyone ) throw all their bags prior to the trip. For practice and to make sure when I am the one swimming out of Velvet ( just once
) that when someone goes to bag me their bag doesn't go 20 feet in a big wad of rope when I am swimming at 40 feet.
First aid. Every boat needs one. Should be well marked and the most experienced medically should be carrying a more extensive kit. Usually happens more or less naturally, but part of this is valuating who is going to be the medical lead guy in your crew. Everyone on each trip should be shown where all first aid for each boat is located.
On river safety. Determined by river flows and conditions, experience of crew and ages involved. If you don't have some ideas about this I can elaborate but it should be obvious your two most experienced boaters run lead and sweep. I also have a pretty good safety talk check list I wrote out for some one last year, but maybe you have one already.
Rapids. Lets hope they are plentiful and kind. Just curious if you are going to give an overview of how to run rapids ( cuz that is a whole nother book) or just address a few issues. Seems like your manual focus is more on the planning. Rapids as a section would seem to be more about execution on river.
Don't have much else to add ( thank God ) but last year I did write and invite my crew to volunteer for different tasks ahead of time. It worked great. A lot of times even the newbies seeing a trip unfold every night don't realize what is going on; that we are gathering firewood, that two to three buckets of water need to be brought up to the kitchen every night. Garbage and groover set up, hand wash set up. I don't mind bringing or carrying the fire pan but I don't want to set it up and take it down every camp. And I think it's better that a couple people do it every day for the trip, than someone new each night off the cook crew. They should be cooking and setting up the cocktail table not the fire pan.
So I made a list of group duties for the trip and had 2 to 3 volunteer for each night for each item. It worked out great.
Ok I'm done now.
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