Thread: River walking. How?

Originally Posted by Jhon

Sorry guys, still don't buy it, both from experience and logic. Doesn't matter how hard the current pushes a skinny pole down it will do the same if it is positioned upstream or down unless its exactly in the "shadow" of your leg. Which is not how it works. The pole will/should be away from your legs to give you the tripod effect. And any current pressure on the pole will be significantly multiplied on your legs of such larger circumference. Useless having the current pushing the pole down if its also floating your legs away downstream from under you. I can just see the cartoon of a horizontal hunter desperately hanging onto an upstream pole begging it to stay upright.

Anyway, glad it works for you.

You really need to do a bunch of testing (in summer ) in a variety of swiftness and depth rivers to get a real appreciation of what works and why.

In the 70's the tramping club I was in, used to head off down to the Otaki river in late summer and spend a day on river Xing practice. It was an ideal learning river, as at that time it was nice and warm, the braids allowed you to find different depths, and different velocities.

Fast water does not need to be more than calf deep before it will upend you. The upstream pole is to give your body stability when lifting one foot and moving it forward, as without it you are attempting to be a ballerina in two foot of fast flowing water. The pole does not anchor you, it just gives you more balance.

If you lose your footing in fast flowing water, you can regroup with a pole upstream as you can bring it forward with you and stab it back in, but with a pole downstream you end up tripping over the bloody thing, and once your body is down in the water its very very hard to get back upright and sort shit out.

In the decades well before lightweight inflatable kayaks and pack rafts were invented, big heavy plastic bags inside your canvas pack, and tied tightly at the neck were the only inflation aids we had for negotiating deep river Xings and gorges. Never had walking sticks either. Just used a manuka pole.