http://professorpaddle.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8105&PID=39411#39411

Sorry I didn't see Dave's post.

Just for perspective - The Tacoma Narrows Bridge deck is 187-1/2'
I know different kind of landing but it shows how freaking high that is



Edited by Tobin - 22 Apr 2009 at 9:40am

WOW.  That is awesome!!

There seems to be no photos or video available unless you buy the movie.  Lame.

whoa! the pic of the falls at the link Ryan provided was overwhelming when thinking of a human in a plastic boat going over it.

with the frequency in which the water fall record is being broken, one might think the sport is experiencing an evolutionary outburst. Yet the gene pool remains in tact?

Wow. According to the word I got, he paddled away (with a broken paddle), skirt intact around cockpit, no head plant.

Certainly a discussion for another thread.

I see it as a class VI means unrunnable or never been run. Once its run it gets dropped down into the V scale. V.1 - V.10.

I would say that would be a V.10 meaning its been run but the next dropping might be death... same with sunset!

I think that much like climbing the scale of V should be openended.  meaning that just because something harder gets run other things are not down graded, but rather new ratings are brought in to make it scaled and proportional.


Heck you could even toss in a few more letters for sub cats. V.7c
would that be granite falls?

lol

...continuing with this off topic theme, why not simply increase the class rating (VII, VIII, IX) and finish it off with U? Obviously people are figuring out just what kinds of punishment, albeit swift, the human body can handle. And I don't see this trend stopping. Man wishes to see himself in as many flashy and fascinating ways as possible. Consider mirroed ceilings and disco balls. 

kayaking isn't like climbing where it's a open ended scale, I think that kayaking can't have a true "difficulty" rating because drops like palouse falls do not take long to do, like the critical move only takes 1/2 a second, whereas on a climb it is critical move after critical move, not to belittle these paddlers acomplishments in running these huge drops, but I think kayaking at this level is almost more balls than skills. so the rating might not be for the actual difficulty (we know it's class V) but for the mangle factor...

Continuing off topic though sort of continuing Kiwi's point...

One of the problems I've always had with the rapid rating system is that it conflates two completely different things - difficulty and consequence.  Why is that?

Damn right, it only took one try for Rob to find the "clean" line!

The only whitewater achievement that's occurred recently that is maybe more significant than Sunset Falls is Palouse. Wow! That both of these drops were successfully run is truly amazing and says as lot about the onging progression of the sport. My only regret is that I was not present for either of these historic feats which both occurred here in Washington. Congratulations Tyler!

I think the V.X system has some value, but I don't believe that it should be drawn out very far. For me, V.1 is "standard" class V, V.2 is V+, and V.3 or more is V+ with add'l difficulties such as a hike in, multiday, mandatory sketchy drops etc. With this system I don't see much use for V.4 or V.5, although I suppose those ratings could be used describe a runnable but extremely dangerous section, eg Dingford.

It would be interesting to see Tyler's take on rating the difficulty to waterfalls. If you've run many 50-100 footers, it's probably possible to break down the difficulty of different falls and give them ratings over a wide range. The fact of the matter is that a "big-drop" rating system would only have relevance to the people actually running those drops (not me). Therefore, I don't think it's worth the effort to try to make "official" rules or guidelines for this type of open-ended rating system.