Rafting the Casbah

Stepping out off at Marrakesh airport I was hit by the warm air. A pleasant change to the blast chilled air of my Arctic winter residence. I was in Morocco to run my first IRF workshop of the season for Berber Rafting Adventures in the Atlas Mountains.

Our drive into The Atlas mountains 

After a short taxi transfer to our hotel the group met for the first time. We consisted of 9 raft guides from the UK ,France & the Netherlands. Over dinner we discussed the groups expectations for the coming week.

This workshop was going to be a residential workshop, we were going to be together non stop for the next week. The perfect ice breaking exercise for a group of raft guides was to have a few beers and chill out.

We all awoke the next morning and boarded Yann's van for the 6 hr drive to the Atlas mountains. We were all instantly taken back with how beautiful Morocco was most of all it was good to feel the sun on our skin.

Our arrival to the camp after a long hot dusty day on the road was an eventful one. Ed, one of the guides slipped climbing down from the roof of the van. The first real life scenario of the course had begun. I now had to clean and stitch his foot up. With some help from James and Nell we manged to get away with using sutures and managed to use lots of steri strips.

Eds foot 48 hours after his wee slip

After an amazing dinner of Lamb tangine I retired to bed for the night in preparation of our first day on the water in the morning.

Early morning coffee hit

After a light breakfast we packed up and drove up the valley to the commercial rafting start point for the Melloul river. Yann our host had informed me that due to a late spring  the rivers were still really high due to the snow still melting. The effect this had on the Melloul was great!  The river was flowing really fast with no eddys with lots and lots of trees in the river making this a great test piece for the guides to prove themselves on.

The high water flows in the area were going to make the course entertaining 

We kicked the day off with safety talks. Many of the guides started of a little nervous but soon managed to relax. Our french contingent were a little skeptical about having to give a safety talk in English but they all managed to get through with no problems.
The British based guides on the course all gave really good informative safety talks in the searing 30 C degree heat with all of their kit on.
My main observation from all of the safety talk was  re occurring, the guides needed to "KEEP IT SIMPLE".
Our rafting guests do not need to be blinded by technical jargon. Later that evening we did a "safety talk in silence" workshop where each of the guides had to give sections of the safety talk with out talking and by using actions only; a great leaning tool.

We cooled of by putting on the Melloul. The Melloul is a short intense trip with plenty of things for the guides to concentrate on narrow canyons separated by tree infested flat sections. I needed to spend 30mins with each guide taking control of the raft. It took each of the guides a few minutes to adjust to the speed of the water and the trees but after this they were all fine. I got to see some really good examples of client care and good raft handling techniques.

The Melloul: a perfect warm up run.

We stopped at the confluence with the Ahansal river where our camp was conveniently situated. A quick lunch stop and 5 minutes warming up in the sun before we headed back up for the 2nd run in the afternoon. All of the guides now noticed that they really had to keep on top of there water intake so we stocked up for the afternoon run. The afternoon run went really well, the guides were starting to settle into there new surroundings. We ended the practical side of the day at the take out looking at how to get a line across the river. I could see that the boys really wanted to get stuck into the rescue & rope work aspects of the course.

Our evening session consisted of a short anchor and knot trying session which was to come in handy for the days to come.

Day 2 started with 2 more runs of the Melloul. During these runs we started to explore the role of the safety kayaker on a raft trip. The kayakers practiced exiting their kayaks into the raft and taking command of the raft mid rapid which was something they had never done before. We practiced towing the rafts along with multiple techniques of taking charge a guide-less raft from the position of a safety kayaker.

Oli taking charge of the raft by vocally guiding the raft down a rapid from his kayak

We ended the 2nd day with the practical rope work assessment. Each of the guides needed to set up a functional 3;1 mechanical advantage system inside 5 minutes. This was a great example of how we need to spend some time investing in the correct rescue equipment. We discussed the benefits of a 5m length of tubular webbing along with good carabineers & pulleys. My advice to any guides is to practice practice when it comes to rope work. All of the guides passed and I wanted to give out bonus points as they were all rigging their systems in the dark!

Day 3 kicked off with a short session on packing for a multiday trip. For the next 2 days we were going to operate the workshop on a multiday trip down the Ahansal river.

                                       

This set up had a very Nepalese influence to it. 

We eventually set off down the river. The high water levels gave us continuous rapids with lots of  testing technical rapids. This really allowed the guides to sit back and enjoy their surroundings. Without knowing they started to relax and just guide naturally which was a pleasure to watch. Our lunch stop was set at the bottom of a class 4 rapid.

                                               

We continued rafting after lunch and entered a spectacular canyon just before we hit our camp for the night. Once at out camp we decided to finish off the day with the throw bag & swim  test. Each guide had to make 2 throws inside 20 seconds, one of the throws had to be a recoil throw. After a few practice throws the boys were on fire. The swim has to be a challenging swim which all of the team agreed it was as the water was snow melt water and freezing cold.

After the guides had all completed their swim and throw bag test it was time to set up camp for the night. Make a fire, sit back and enjoy our surroundings.

During dinner we discussed the role of a trip leader on a commercial river trip. The next day was to be the trip leader assessments. Each of the trip leader candidates were to be given 1 hour to take control of a scenario on the river. It was up to me to create a true to life scenario that could happen on a commercial trip. This could include panicked midstream stranded swimmers, multiple swimmers from a flipped rafts, entrapment and treatment of unconscious casualties. The list could go on and on. 

Each of the trip leaders were really put to the test with some life like scenarios. The guides all loved the chance at a bit of play acting and we got to see some true Oscar award winning performances.

The trip leaders coped very well with the demanding scenarios put down in front of them. The relentless sun and hot weather made life a little more interesting. 

We paddled down the last sections of the Ahansal through the spectacular canyon relaxing in the shade. 

The Ahansal flows in to a dammed lake. We paddled the flat water out into the lake where the water went from a muddy brown color to a deep turquoise. We boarded the ferry with the rafts for the 10km journey across the lake to our waiting vehicle. We had to take advantage of this turquoise water at the takeout by finishing the day off with the flip drill test. Despite having 4 action packed days the guides were still managing to make their flip drills inside 1 minute which was great.

The final day of the course allowed us to complete the last remaining aspects of the safety kayak session and also this involved dealing with multiple swimmers, panicked swimmers, & unconscious swimmers. We also looked at some live bait rescues. After lunch we decided to have an open session where the guides could take a more in depth look  at any subjects they still wanted explore. Being typical guides they wanted to geek out on rope work especially mechanical advantage. We had a short session on the land before finishing the session off with building a high line across the river. The local took the chance to get a cheeky ride across the river. Our high-line now became known as the Berber ferry!

Over the week a few consistent themes came out of the course and they were.

• Keep it as simple as possible.
• Keep it safe always. 
• Actions speak louder than words.(demonstrate with actions where possible) 
• Practice ropework & safety talks as much as possible. 
• Spend a little cash to have the correct equipment for the job. 
• Think professional & act professional. 

Overall it was a great week and we look forward to hopefully running another course in Morocco next year. 

Congratulation & many thanks to 

Yann Coppen @ Berber rafting adventures,James, Ed Patryk,Hugo,Simon,Damien,Oli,Nell 

Happy paddling 

Mark

2015 and beyond

After a successful very busy 2014. 2015 is starting to look like its going to be just as eventful. 2014 was an experiment to see if I could run enough IRF courses to be able to form my own training company and make a full time career out of delivering courses. I am pleased to say that my experiment paid off and I am now in starting to officially create a training company. So the really hard work starts now !

The paperwork to form a company based here in Finland is sat right here next to me. Requests for courses are arriving without any official marketing yet. 

The First major project of the season is to become a training provider for rescue 3 Europe. Finland currently does not have any rescue 3 training providers.The opportunity to be able to deliver rescue 3 courses in Finland is greatly needed as Finland has no formal infrastructure for teaching whitewater safety & rescue. With time to come I would also like to be able to offer Ice rescue technician courses here in Finland as each year people needlessly drowning due to accidents on the open Ice. 

April will see the First workshop of the season. Berber rafting in Morocco are going to host a Workshop on the Ahansal  river from 15th -22nd April This course is going to be run on a multiday decent of the river allowing us to really focus on the training needs of the guides. Berber rafting still have a few places available

http://berberraftingadventure.weebly.com/ 

June will hopefully see Finlands first ever rescue 3 Whitewater rescue technician courses run. Finland has a growing community of kayakers who will hopefully benefit from some training making them safer when they head off for there summer adventures. 

August will be when I head off to India. I will be Running a International Rafting Federation Guide training program on a 10 day Zanskar expedition for pureland expeditions .http://www.purelandexpeditions.com/. This will be an opportunity for those with no formal guide training to be trained on a classic 10 day river  expedition.

Once the Pureland guide training program is over I plan to spend some time training the local Zanskar guides we really had a productive workshop last year. Hopefully we can build on last years course and create some worthwhile training for the local guides.

 I have spent the past 2 fall seasons working alongside paddle Nepal. Paddle Nepal are one of the largest rafting companies in Nepal employing over 30 full time guides. Each of the 30 guides Now has an IRF qualification.  March 2016 is the date that has been set to run an IRF instructor workshop in Nepal. By setting the date for March 2016 this will allow us to plan and run hopefully a well attended highly successful workshop run by myself and Jim coffey.  

The Importance of good safety kayakers

I am not or dont pretend to be a great kayaker I have run my fair share of scary stuff over the years. I have also had my fair share of swims and confidence meltdowns. What I do take pride in is the fact I know I am a solid safety kayaker when working on commercial raft trips.

Good days & Bad days in Iceland


Lots of people make the common misconception that if you can kayak you are already a professional  safety kayaker. This may not  be the truth.

Many potential rafting customers are now approaching rafting companies and asking if safety kayakers are present on their commercial trips. The need and demand to have professional safety kayakers is raising all of the time. But what makes a professional commercial safety kayaker ?.

Nanu Gurung of Paddle Nepal 

As with most things in our industry it come down to the big 3

Training
A solid background of professional training is going to go a long way.
Solid training will give a safety kayaker the tools and skills to be able to deal with any arising situation in a professional cool, calm & collective manner. This in turn will also increase the safety kayakers confidence on the water.

The International rafting federation safety craft workshop is the perfect place to gain such training. The workshop consists of the following training and assessment elements.

• Personal kayak skills assessment on class 3 whitewater or class 4-5 whitewater
• Commercial trip management from a safety kayak perspective including river running signals, communication & positioning 
• Throwbag skills test 
• Ropework  and mechanical advantage test
• Safety kayak specific customer safety brief 
• Personal swim test
• Dealing  with unconscious casualties from the kayak
• Exiting a Kayak in a rugged environment
• Taking command of a raft from your kayak including vocal commands and pushing /towing a raft 
•  Exiting your kayak entering a raft and taking command of the raft whilst in a rapid 
• Dealing with multiple panicking swimmers Accessing an upturned raft from your kayak and re flipping the raft.

The whitewater rescue technician qualifications from rescue 3 international  will also equip Safety kayakers & raft guides with the relevant set of skills to be able to operate safe rescues in a whitewater environment in both during daylight & darkness.

The rescue 3 & IRF systems are both globally recognized awards so each guide or safety kayaker holding these awards should have an identical skill set.

A wilderness or advanced first aid certificate is an absolute must for any guide working in the outdoors with commercial paying customers.

Experience
As with anything in life. A task carried out by somebody with experience of the given task is going to complete the task much more easier.Compared with someone who has never carried out the given task.  So what experience does a safety kayker need in order to be a true professional?.

• Personal kayaking experience and the ability to control your kayak in a variety of conditions & situations is a must. A Proficient safety kayaker should be confident running rapids whilst having 1 or maybe 2 swimmers holding onto his or hers kayak.

• Operating river experience.  A sound knowledge of the river in all water conditions is also a must. A key skill of a professional safety kayaker is to identify potential hazards and flipping spots for the rafts and to be able to communicate them to the rafts in a clear way  . Knowing that on a certain level that feature x will be a nasty hole or a protruding rock with pin potential will allow the kayaker to pre position them self in a place where they can help the rafts in a quick manner should a problem occur. In my earlier days I was taught that a good safety kaykaer should know their river that well they should be able to run it backwards with their eyes closed alone . A bit far fetched but true in a way!

Binod Gurung of Wet n Wild explorations, lardo rapid Lower Indus India

• Experience of working within a tight team of guides also plays a key part. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow guides will make the life of a safety kayaker much more easy in the long run. Knowing that in high water guide x normally flips in a certain rapid will give you the time to be prepared for the possibility of a flip with swimmers as a result of this. knowing if a certain  guide sometimes struggles to climb back onto an upturned raft after a flip will help you to offer them assistance if they need it. The same applies vice versa the raft guides need to be confident that the safety kayaker is going to be able back them up and deal with swimmers or a flip should they occur or that the correct signals are given when running a river in higher than normal conditions.

Notice the safety kayaker on hand to assist with any help if needed. Kali Gandakhi river Nepal.

The age old saying "There is no substitute for experience" is age old for a reason !

Judgement
Finally without experience or the correct training your judgment will be impaired. The ability to make snap judgement  decisions based on  training & experience is one of the main skills of a good safety kayaker. The ability to decide which customer to help first in a scenario with multiple swimmers could potentially prevent somebody from a nasty injury. The decision to give a signal to a raft to avoid a large pour over that could flip the raft is a key judgement decision. The decision keep a little distance from a panicking swimmer until they calm down a little before you commit yourself to assisting them with a tow from your kayak is always a key judgement decision.

This Triangle brings together the big 3. Solid training & experience combined will allow you to make better judgement calls.


Hopefully this has given you more of an insight into safety kayaking. see you on the river
Mark.

Kali Gandaki with Paddle Nepal

Travelling around the world with a raft guide has definitely taken me down a few rivers in Nepal, Iceland, Finland and New Zealand. Oh the carnage stories, don't we just love them. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy rafting but mainly because of the chilled atmosphere on the overnight trips, beautiful beaches and so on. If I happen to be in a funny state of mind and decide to go rafting, for me it definitely isn't about the big whitewater, continuous rapids and full-on action. (Mind you, I have done the epic Karnali river trip in the far western Nepal but I have never been so sick, nervous and excited at the same time!)

So it happened that some time ago I found myself by the put in of Kali Gandaki river. I finally joined a 3 day trip with Paddle Nepal. To be honest, I was supposed to go last year already but I chickened out. This year I definitely wanted to go, just for the great  experience (did I mention those beaches and camping?) and to see the boys working on the river. Never mind the rapids! How wrong was I..

Boys started to load the bus who knows at what time in the morning  and we took off around 7.30. We had a 3 hour drive ahead of us to the put in but with a tea stop on the way and a comfortable new bus it was no problem. 

We all tried to pitch in with packing, pumping and loading the rafts and preparing lunch. Boys put together awesome lunch by the riverside and we were either cooling off in the river or under the tarp. 

Finally it was time to get kitted off! How about that face..Yeah, doesn't look I am too convinced yet about the trip. 

Team GoPro! Some good footage they caught with their cameras. 

Here is Mark styling through his safety talk and demonstration.

I might be biased here but I do like his safety talks! At the end of everybody's got it I hope as actions speak louder than words. 

We obviously had safety kayakers with us even though most of us managed to stay inside the two rafts. Dinesh, Suk and Nanu took good care of us with Rajip and Mark guiding the rafts!  

On the first day we paddled for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Our trip was in early October and due to the late monsoon the water level was still quite high. You get almost straight into the action as the biggest commercially rafted rapid Little Brother is waiting for you after only about 15 mins. of paddling! There I was with no choice but to decide to go through with what I had started. We stopped to scout the rapid even though I didn't even want to have a look. Mark convinced me it was going to be fine and I trusted him. It might not look like that on the picture above! 

Believe it or not I was actually the first person to give an excited shout in the middle of the rapid because it was so much fun! The picture above proves it. 

After the Little Brother comes of course nasty looking Big Brother which we portaged around. It went relatively smooth as boys did a great team effort to move the raft across and over the rocks with our minimal help. 

Kali Gandaki, one of the holiest rivers in Nepal, begins its journey from the Tibetan border at the Nhubine Himal Glacier where it flows southwest through the Mustang region and then south cutting through one of the deepest gorges in the world between Dhaulagiri (8167 m) and Annapurna I (8091 m). It is one of the major rivers in Nepal and and a left bank tributary of the Ganges in India. 
The Kali Gandaki gorge is a part of very popular trekking route, Annapurna Circuit. 

The gorge and its deep walls are truly an amazing sight to admire from the raft. Looking at the bridge in the picture above even I definitely felt more comfortable in the raft than I would be on the bridge! 

We were off the river after 3 pm and this beautiful campsite was to be ours for the next night. You can see the bridge on the background of this photo still, we were told it would be an hours walk at least to reach it from the camp. Frisbee was played, tents and shelters were put up, kitchen was set up and in no time we had hot drinks and snacks waiting for us. 

Here are Dinesh and Suk preparing dinner like true river chefs. 

Simple candle bags illuminated our first nights camp to give a relaxing feeling after the first exciting day on the river. I slept soundly for 9 hours under the tarp listening to the river (the sound of the crickets was deafening at times though). The Good Morning rapid that can be seen on the picture was waiting for us the first thing in the next morning. 

This gray langur was the only one we spotted by the river this time but entire troops are commonly seen on the trips. 

Seems like this bunch was having good time and it was only the second morning. Anybody out there who used to watch TV series Lost? :)

No really, they were a great group of people to raft with for 3 days. 

Besides company safety kayakers we also had some experienced kayakers joining us from Scotland, Germany and Austria. 

Nanu, always smiling and alert should there be any swimmers. 

Like here..Anyone see the hand of God? 

No safety kayaker needed here though. The crew was on it straight away as he went for a swim in the middle of the rapid. Looks like Rajip is a little hesitant though..:)

Upon scouting this rapid we decided to run two lines as the main line had a high chance of some OBE - Outer Boat Experiences! Those of us who wanted to stay in the raft simply avoided the line and the adrenaline seekers went for it. 

This was all that us spectators got, no OBE, just some legs showing off. 

Here is Jange, the man behind the oars in the gear boat. He was making sure our food and other supplies got safely down the river. Mark said if I was to be too nervous during the trip I could jump on the gear boat with Jange but by the second day I had already forgotten this option as I was having too much on the paddle raft. 

Here is Rajip's team, screaming for fun or catching flies? 

After a full day of paddling and lunch between we finally arrived to second night's camp. The same procedures followed as the first evening and soon we were enjoying hot drinks with noodle soup this time.  

On the second camp Ghita, a lady from the local village, comes down to the beach to sell us thirsty rafters cold beers, rum and Coca Colas. She had some chocolate as well but the time I realized this it was already too late. Definitely felt like I would have deserved it. 

The second day we still had some tasty rapids to tackle before the flat section and the paddle out to the dam. By now I was excitedly looking forward to the rapids and was rather disappointed when they ended. 

In my opinion time went way too fast and it would have been fun stay longer even on the flat section of the river as we had lots of games and swimming going on. River still being at medium high level after the monsoon we were soon at the take out. 

Everybody had a chance to try kayaking also during the last hour. 

After couple of hours paddling in the morning and we were off the river carrying equipment to the bus, eating lunch and getting ready for one more adventure: the 5 hours class 5 bus drive back to Pokhara. Want to thank the Paddle Nepal and their team for making it possible for me to join this adventure! After the nervous start I can honestly say I enjoyed myself and would do it again. 

All photo credits belong to Tommy Giordano! 

Miia