River Blog

The American Whitewater Accident Summary for the first six months of 2025 is out, and available on the American Whitewater Website:

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Article/view/article_id/vdr5yHqaFIQyHL9oT3kuO/

Before I get into the details of the Accident Summary, let me just put in a plug for AW: If you are not yet a member yet, joining American Whitewater should be at the top of your Whitewater To-Do List. A basic membership is a bargain at $35, and you will be supporting an organization that supports all of us at so many levels.

 https://membership.americanwhitewater.org/s/lightningmembership

Among its many excellent services, AW provides collects and publishes comprehensive and insightful safety reports. This includes the whitewater accident database, and report summaries by Charlie Walbridge. I’ll cover the database in a future posting, today I’m going to focus on Charlie’s summaries. You can find them periodically in the AW magazine:

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Journal/archive/?

The first half of 2025 six-month summary is loaded with information relevant to keeping ourselves safe on the river. I recommend you click the link at the start of this post, and give the entire report a read, but here’s a quick review of some of the highlights:

• Portaging often seems safer than running a sketchy rapid, but portages can be deadly too. A kayaker on the Little White Salmon died from a fall while portaging. Consider all the risks on your paddling trip, including approach, portaging, and “bug-out” plans, or ways to get off the river in a hurry if you need to (or you just don’t feel safe). 
• The basic rules of safety never go away, and ignoring them continues to lead to avoidable deaths: always wear a PFD and helmet; dress for the water not the air; low-head dams and strainers are drowning machines and should be avoided at all costs. And most importantly: don’t boat alone. Rafting is often viewed by less-experienced paddlers as a way to experience advanced rivers, especially when led by an experienced guide. But the rapids are still hazardous, and when an out-of-boat experience happens, swimmers in Class IV and V rapids often do poorly. When in fast-moving technical water, the safest place in back in the raft, or any other nearby raft. Aiming for shore may be deadly. Know before you go, listen to your guide, and whenever possible choose a trip that involves several rafts traveling together. 
• Paddleboarding offers some of the most exciting paddling, but it remains an emerging sport, and Best Practices are still being debated.  I’ve had top-notch paddleboarders tell me that the safest place for them if they fall off their board is back on their board, and that makes a lot of sense, but ankle leashes continue to lead to fatalities, mostly from entrapment. This needs to be debated among whitewater paddleboarders (and I can barely stay upright on a paddleboard on a lake with the tiniest amount of wind!), but strongly consider a leash connected at the hips with a quick-release harness. 
• Tubing seems benign, but always wear a PFD no matter how slow the water is moving, and know of any downstream hazards. Nobody on tube should be anywhere near a Class V rapid, and people will make mistakes and miss turns. Well-marked takeouts, informed participants, and staying far above hazards is of paramount importance. 
• Finally, and most importantly, there continue to be amazing saves on the river! I’m not asking you to put your own life in danger, but we are all in this together. Consider getting CPR trained, and a little Swiftwater Rescue Training never hurts!