This is troof. paddle til the last couple seconds, and only when you get to the lip of said drops, then the command to hold on... in my case guiding powerline falls on the lower box is a good example...
I wasnt going to say shit about this, not having been to the gauley yet, but having watched plenty of gauley carnage videos, (yeah P-love!) with and 17 years on the rio, i feel like i can opine on this fairly... and for most of us this is second nature.. but ....
IF you are going big... and everyone in the boat is in for the experience, the point is to go big and dunk your passengers/custies in a safe as possible manner, not leaving rubber behind, or leaving people pinned by rubber to a rock underwater. looks these clowns have no idea how close they might be to that.
i have seen it plenty of times just from the videos i have watched, it seems the locals have the flip and splat lines dialed, to eject their customers downstream. of course results vary...
but, point is there is a way to do things ..... and a way to NOT do them....
and these guys showed poor fucking judgement. they should be on the hook for the price of that boat.. I know i would have been if it were my companies boat. after it was paid up i would then be extra fired for being such a jackass representing a company like that...
Honestly on the real, (as a personal note) because the Rio Grande and the Rocky mountain rivers in general are shallow, rocky and usually cold we rarely ever boat to intentionally wreck people... except very specific spots on each river. (like for instance, souse hole, intentionally or not, has a 50-75% flip rate at high water...) not to mention it seems like 8 /10 customers want to stay in the boat if possible. of course theres always the seasonal rookie carnage and the random jaded loose cannon guide, but in general there is a different style of trips out west. wrong style of riverbed i guess.
that being said, there should still be much more careful screening of customers, especially for high water and class IV... cramming boats with mandatory six loads, fattys, geriatrics, and folks who are two weeks post quadruple bypass surgery or drunk bikers... has caused us all major put -in consternation.
If youre gonna be dumb, you better be tough, and if youre gonna run hero lines, try to make it look like you belong there on the edge of oblivion.