Planning Is Easy

We brewed more tea and poured it into one litre measuring cups. Barry Blanchard. The Calling: A Life Rocked by Mountains.

You might think you have experienced cold winter nights but, unless you’ve lived in Calgary, Alberta in the early 1990’s when the arctic cold fronts blow down from the Canadian north, the temperatures plummet to minus 40 Celsius and the scant snow underfoot becomes so dry and hard that it squeaks like Styrofoam under your snow boots, you have not really known cold. It was on such a night, that I first learnt the benefit of pausing and brewing up when circumstances seem dire. Doug Scott was on a world tour recounting, among other stories, his heroic crawl down The Ogre in Pakistan after falling and breaking both ankles. In Scott’s stories epic adventures were interspersed with mugs of freshly brewed tea. The ritual of tea making a necessary adjuvant to the otherwise haphazard risk management strategies employed by brash young climbers intent on making a mark in the high stakes world of high altitude alpinism.

I’ve been working my way through the lessons and courses available through Online Sea Kayaking (OSK) and thinking a lot about risk evaluation, planning and leadership of kayak groups. I’ve also thought a lot about what I now call “the Five Islands Incident.” Not ruminating, which is mostly unproductive; instead thinking about what is the best way to approach such paddling situations in the future.

What I’ve come to realise about the Five Islands incident is that there really was no “risk assessment” as most outdoor leaders would define “risk assessment.” There was a plan, but no risk assessment. A risk assessment has to identify potential hazards, the likelihood of encountering the potential hazard(s), and the consequences of such an occurrence. Once you start thinking about hazards it’s virtually automatic to then begin thinking in terms of risk mitigation strategies. No sensible person says “Well, I might die but what the fark; after all YOLO!’

PC: Nick B.

I’ve thought a lot about what risk mitigation strategies we could have implemented in the Five Islands incident. Certainly, a more thorough assessment of the paddle plan was indicated: how often was the feature completely closing out, how big were the swells, how long was the period, was there lateral movement of white water towards rocks or reefs, which way was the water flowing, if a paddler was overpowered by waves or capsized where would they end up and could we effect a rescue, was there a possibility of paddling through the feature one at a time while maintaining line of sight with the exposed paddlers? Is paddling through one at a time even the best option? Could we position one paddler on either side of the feature to act as a lookout/rescuer? Did each individual in the group have the necessary skill, fitness and ability to manage a bigger than average wave? Was the risk even worth the benefit?

PC: DB

These are all the things to sit and discuss with a paddling mate over a mug of freshly brewed tea, but that’s not practical on a day out sea kayaking – nothing would get done. It seems imperative however, that paddlers who talk about having “completed a risk assessment” have actually assessed risk not merely planned a route. Planning is easy the part. It is execution which is hard and the only thing that really matters.