The rumble in the Thai jungle

As I took my seat on  Finnair flight from Helsinki bound for Bangkok,Thailand I had to take a reality check to see if this was really happening. In the matter of 2 short weeks and a few emails I was heading to Thailand to run the first ever IRF workshop deep in the jungle close to Chiang Mai.

Ex-kayak freestyle world champion Eric Southwick had invited me to run an IRF guide and trip leader workshop for his newly established company 8adventures in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. 

Rafting operations on the Mae Tang river in Chiang Mai only started around 20 years ago but the area now has around 14 companies. 8adventures is the leading company in the area, offering a professional operation to the hoards of tourists wanting to experience the jungle.

Eric had kindly picked me up from Chiang Mai airport and given me the lowdown on the job ahead. My first priority was sleep. After a good night’s sleep at the 8adventures camp it was time to crack on and start the 5 day workshop. To assess the river do a check out run so I joined onto a trip and was pleasantly surprised by 2 things

• The Mae tang was super high due to recent rain. We had a solid 2km section of class 4-5 rapids to test us on all week.

• The team at 8adventures were slick. Eric and his co-owners Sak & Oat had a tight operation. This was a pleasant surprise.

Eric demonstrating the whitewater swimming position.

I had planned the workshop over 5 days to allow for extra teaching. None of the guides had ever participated in any type of structured teaching course. I also had to allow for language barriers so the plan was to take things nice and slowly and move at a speed that suited the students on the course. The 5 days were mapped out in the following way.

• Days 1 &2 were dedicated to personal rafting & kayaking skills. I needed to spend time observing each guide running the river. This worked out really well as we had commercial trips every morning so I got to see the guides with real customers.

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• Day 3 was set aside to focus on whitewater rescue skills & safety kayak skills such as dealing with panicked swimmers & unconscious swimmers.

  

  Keep your swimmers in a place where you can help them most & remember to smile.

  

  Eric & Sak take it all in. It's not every day I get to teach a former 2x World Champion & a Thai national champion about kayaking.

  

  A safety kayaker dealing with an unconscious swimmer.

  

  Same bank entrapment drill

  

  Live bait exercise 

  

  gotya 

  

  Swim test

  

  2 point raft tether exercise 

  

  Throwbag skills test 

  

  Rescue harness operation demonstrated by using a V Lower.

• Day 4 was used for trip leader assessments.

  

  A flipped raft stuck in a boily eddy was used in one of the TL scenarios. (Can you spot the surprise underneath the raft that awaits the rescue team?)

  

  One of the safety kayakers dealing with a stranded customer on the TL scenario.

  

  Mock body entrapment scenarios

• The days were long as they are on all workshops. We started early in the morning and finished late in the evening. The Thai guides really took an interest in the whitewater rescue aspect of the workshop. They had lots of gear and wanted to know how to use it. Now was the time to introduce them to my favourite mnemonic that I find myself using time and time again on workshops 
  
  
  KIS, KIS: Keep it safe, Keep it simple 
  The Nature of the Mae Tang river really keeps the guides on their toes. The river is full of Bamboo strainers mixed in with some fatal sieves. I needed to ensure that the guides really took their time and use the self, team, victim principle to ensure their own safety not only during the workshop simulated rescues but also when on the river operating commercial trips.

This picture sends shivers down my spine just looking at it.

The Locals like to build as close to the river as possible.

The extra time spent developing the rescue skills of the guides & safety kayakers really helped out during the trip leader scenario tests. Not only had the guides progressed in their understanding of rescue skills and principles. Their team work had improved dramatically. Having skilled safety kayakers really made the life of the trip leaders a lot easier during the test.

To sum things up. Thailand now has its first IRF certified guides, safety kayakers & trip leaders. The bonus is the fact they all work daily together for the same company. We shared an inspiring week together. New friends were made and the IRF now has active guides in Thailand.

The Participants of the first ever International Rafting Federation workshop in Thailand. 

I boarded my flight home tired and happy. As I sat down I realized it would all be starting again in 7 days time. This time I would not be in the river deep in the jungle but in the high mountains of the Indian Himalaya on the mighty Zanskar river.

Happy paddling, Mark

Swimming, flipping and guiding at altitude

I stepped off my Jetconnect flight at Leh airport and made my way onto the shuttle bus. I noticed a slight shortage of breath which was expected as I was an elevation of around 3500m. A quick thought popped into my head " If I am short of breath now whats it going to feel like when we run flip drills & swimming sessions".

The Zanskar & Indus rivers were to be my home for the next two weeks. During this time I was to run a 6 day International Rafting Federation safety craft, guide & trip leader workshop. Hosted by Tsering Chotak of Wet N Wild Explorations in Leh. After a day of acclimatization in Leh I packed my bags and headed to the Wet N Wild base camp. My first mission was to kayak the commercial one day rafting section of the Zanskar river. During this run I needed to take a close up look at the river in order to plan the course in more detail. 

The Zanskar river is a typical glacial canyon river with big volume rapids and funky eddy lines. The Zanskar was going to provide us with plenty of entertainment during the course.  

Day one kicked off with a typical meet & greet session. The workshop had 9 attendees from India,Nepal & UK. We had a mix of first & second season guides right the way through to seasoned Himalayan guides with a wealth of experience. I did notice an air of nervousness among the team as many of them had never attended any type of formal training course before. To ease the nervousness I wanted to get the team onto the water as soon as possible. As expected the technical rafting ability of the group was perfect as the team could put a boat anywhere I asked. Having run a few courses on big volume rivers before I knew this would be the case. I also knew that safety talks & the technical stuff was where I would need to focus my attention. The end of the day also was the start of 3 days non stop rain. 

The road the Zanskar was closed due to a landslide so opted to spend day 2 on the lower Indus river to allow the guides to strut their stuff on some class 4+. The less rafted lower Indus took the team out of their comfort zone of the Zanskar river and gave them something new to look at. The lower Indus provided us with some long continuous large volume rapids. We paddled 40km with some tedious flat sections, by the time we reached the takeout the team thought we were finished for the day! I then decided to finish the day with flip drills. For those who don't know the standard IRF flip drill it includes a swim to the raft where you must climb in and flip the raft. You must then climb back onto the flipped raft, count your crew, re flip the raft and climb back in. For most fit class 4-5 guides this should not take long. I decided to lead by example and give a demonstration. It wasn't until afterwards I noticed how tiring a flip drill at that altitude was. The rest of the team agreed with me. 

Day 3 was spent at the Nimu rapid based next to the Wet N Wild base camp. During our dry land morning session we took a look into setting up various rope systems and rope work. The outcome of this session was quite simple: all of the guides needed to be confidently able to rig a basic mechanical advantage system in order to tension a rope or to move a heavy load. After lunch we took to the water to cover whitewater swimming and throw bag exercises. Towards the end of the day we spent sometime exploring foot entrapment skills. The team came away from the session with a clearer understanding that not all rescues need to be over complex, a simple approach is often safer and quicker. 

Day 4 started with a few tired looking faces but at least the sun was back out. Today we moved onto the class 3 lower volume section of the middle Indus river. We got to utilize the safety kayakers more. The group got to try various methods of getting a line across the river. We also set up tensioned diagonals & some mechanical advantage systems. The guides were starting to gel as a team and were starting to operate really well.

Day 5 
The sun was out, the road was open so we were back on the Zanskar river. Today was the scenario day. The safety kayakers were given opportunities to rescue multiple panicking swimmers. We also looked at dealing with unconscious swimmers from a kayak. The trip leader candidates were given 1 hour to solve a scenario including multiple swimmers, flipped rafts and all types of carnage including the decision to evacuate or not. The day was completed with a group evacuation exercise. The loose scree and relentless midday sun of the Zanskar tested the patience off all involved.

Day 6  
This gave us the opportunity to re visit any areas that the team wanted to look at. We tackled the IRF written paper and got stuck into the debriefs. All of my debriefs had the same theme, keep up the good work, carry the correct equipment & practice, practice, practice!

By the end of the week the group were tired (so was I) but the team achieved the following and all walked away with  

• 2 class 4-5 trip leaders 
• 5 class 4-5 guides 
• 1 class 3 guide 
• 1 trainee guide 

All of the candidates also gained an IRF safety craft award. 

My next courses will run on 1-5th December on the Marsyangdi river in Nepal. If last years course will be anything to go by it's going to be a blast.

Happy paddling,

Mark