Good stuff. Thanks, HB.

My all time favorite "day" hike was a night hike from Pink E. Burns trailhead to FS500 on the Pinhoti, t'was summertime, had been raining for days and was raining hard when we hiked, what were normally small streams 6" or so deep became waist deep torrents, we had several to cross, when we came to the first one I went over first to see if we could make it, I did, then one of the ladies came over, I was in the middle of the stream to assist, she lost her footing and went under, I grabbed her and went under with her, I finally got my footing and drug us out...I then pulled out the rope from the bag and we strung it across the streams to hang on to, didn't think some would be able to keep a hand hold on it but we all made it. The back of my truck was full of women celebrating on the way back the other cars, always wondered if they were celebrating a great hike or just being alive.

More advanced food for thought: blog.raymears.com/2014/04/07/swift-water-training-2014/ ; Don't learn this stuff from reading, this is one of those things that you HAVE to learn in the field from someone that knows how. With a tensioned diagonal line and two strong hikers, you can help even really weak hikers across, because once the anchors are established, the current does a lot of the work.

All good points. I spent a lot of my younger years wading & fishing in the James River around Richmond. A lot of times we would not try to cross an area straight across, but rather angle our crossing down stream ( while facing up stream into the current) somewhat so that we were working with the current a little bit. Definitely leave your shoes on. I take my socks off and put them back on after crossing.

HB my reply is not about what you wrote - but the link is stupid and naive and little to do with fording a river. The tips were written by someone who has NEVER forded.

Guess I have to make an another boring video

Good stuff.
Extra tip for those "little" streams.
NEVER jump wearing a backpack.
No matter how used to it you get, it will affect your ability and judgment.
Take it off.
Throw it across.
Jump after it.
This will save you embarrassment and keep your shoes dry.

I thought the article was good.

I was day hiking this winter and had to cross this stream. It looks very easy but I am clumsy, the rocks were icy, and I was worried about warming my feet afterwards. The water was moving much faster than it looks. I don't have any knowledge on crossing streams or rivers so I turned around and found a different route.

TrafficJam wrote:

The water was moving much faster than it looks.

It's a still photo. It's not moving at all.

This is closer to my white water kayaking courses that I was required to take..

http://blog.raymears.com/2014/04/07/swift-water-training-2014/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwsAlklRW4E

there are advanced tips missing from both examples.

I like that zip line crossing at Captain Billy's- i can't wait to do that.

2 words...UL helicopter

One word: swim.

A slightly different word: Drown

<p>Too many words:&nbsp;</p>

<p>Opportunity to retrieve the pint of booze from your pack and stay dry as you convince oncoming hikers to do the same with you.</p>

Odd there is far more to this than "swim", depth and pressure come into account... lets say you want to cross the Mississippi which is a mile wide and full of currents and eddies. I have done 2-5 miles swims, I look before I leap and wrap the pack in a garbage bag... wearing it on the front as a life preserver. As best as I can describe it I swim upstream at a 45 degree angle letting the water push me downstream and across at the same time... if you need a break I hang behind a rock or eddie. The pressure of water cannot be overcome. Hense much of what I do is very similar when learning to get out of Riptide. You cant swim towards shore, one must go sideways or at an angle to the current. I wish I could share with you all what I learned to do kayaking over a dam!

Touch of History ... not so long.
As a younger guy I worked for the state of Illinois as a licensed & certified lifeguard at several public pools in Chicago.

WiseOldOwl wrote:

Odd there is far more to this than "swim", depth and pressure come into account... lets say you want to cross the Mississippi which is a mile wide and full of currents and eddies. I have done 2-5 miles swims, I look before I leap and wrap the pack in a garbage bag... wearing it on the front as a life preserver. As best as I can describe it I swim upstream at a 45 degree angle letting the water push me downstream and across at the same time... if you need a break I hang behind a rock or eddie. The pressure of water cannot be overcome. Hense much of what I do is very similar when learning to get out of Riptide. You cant swim towards shore, one must go sideways or at an angle to the current. I wish I could share with you all what I learned to do kayaking over a dam!

Touch of History ... not so long.
As a younger guy I worked for the state of Illinois as a licensed & certified lifeguard at several public pools in Chicago.

WOO, if you were a lifeguard as a younger guy in IL, you must have been pretty young when you left the land down under.

WOO's right. I only swim in bigger water. On a serious note as someone who has crossed his fair share of streams (we don't have bridges on our trails), people should not fear getting wet. I see too much jumping and hopping. Walk in the muck already... and practice.

One more serious note on the pdf provided by HB: I agree they are good tips. It is missing one thing I think traps a lot of people. Many people look for a calm spot. They also look for narrow places. I look for the opposite. I look for rough wide spots. That may seem silly at first blush, but it is not. Think of the stream as a conduit for water. The amount of water travelling where the water is calm equals the amount of water travelling where it is rough (the water does not disappear and reappear). If it is rough, it is rough for a reason. It is either shallow or narrow. If it is wide and rough, it has to be shallow. Someone may interject that they have seen wide and rough spots that are deep. If that is the case, you are not crossing anywhere. If it is calm, it could be very deep. If it is narrow and calm, it certainly is deep. Again, someone may say they have seen calm, narrow, and shallow spots. I would reply that we are talking fords here and not bird baths. The West Branch of the Pleasant River crossing is an example of what I am trying to express. It is very wide and always choppy, but seldom deep, and is an easy cross. If you have crossed this section, you know what I am saying.

BB is 175% correct. I fish trout streams....you cross at the wide spot where you see the rubble on the bottom. The thin spot has the most water thru the smallest space= force

That is the kind of info I need BB, thanks for the tip!

But I learned early on from Ghostbusters to NEVER cross the streams.

UH so you are very much into marshmallows and carving willow branches with a Swiss army knife.... you are definitive, my kind of people.... don't cross the streams,,, "from the movie"



My dad immigrated twice - once a month after getting married in Manchester to Sydney and again in 1963-64 to America _ I arrived about 6 months after the closing of Ellis about 3-4 years of age at the NY Port Authority - as a child I was very upset with the adults that were in charge and there was a huge terrible moment in coming into the USA at the port. The best part was standing on the top deck of the Holland Line just below the top stack and seeing the Statue for the first time.

Today I am a American. I worked hard got my citizenship & paid for it. $1400 and 8 months in process. Well looking back no regrets.

I have been a British subject by birth, an Australian by home land, and a American with pride.

Good to have you as a fellow citizen WOO.

WiseOldOwl wrote:

My dad immigrated twice - once a month after getting married in Manchester to Sydney and again in 1963-64 to America _ I arrived about 6 months after the closing of Ellis about 3-4 years of age at the NY Port Authority - as a child I was very upset with the adults that were in charge and there was a huge terrible moment in coming into the USA at the port. The best part was standing on the top deck of the Holland Line just below the top stack and seeing the Statue for the first time.

Today I am a American. I worked hard got my citizenship & paid for it. $1400 and 8 months in process. Well looking back no regrets.

Not sure how the thread drifted that way but my story is similarly convoluted. My sister and I are naturalized US citizens, born in Israel. She's a few years older than me so born right around the time of Israel's independence from Britain. My dad served (WWII) in the Royal Air Force stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, repairing engines on British warplanes. Dad was from Vienna, mom from Berlin. You can probably guess the story. Came to the USA via the same famous statue in April 1957, missed all the Ellis Island drama. We lived in the Bronx for a couple of years, then to upstate NY. I forgot all the Hebrew I ever knew, too busy "getting assimilated."

I had two successive US passports mistakenly listing my birthplace as Iceland. This wasn't my mistake, and I considered whether it was a problem or not, and whether it was my responsibility (or not) to have this corrected. I mean, if I'm on a hijacked plane, I'd rather be from Iceland than from Israel. OTOH, if some border guard starts quizzing me about Iceland it could get dicey.

Last time around (last year in fact) I tried to get this corrected and it turned into a major PITA. The State Department wanted proof of my birthplace, in the form of a birth certificate... which I'd never seen or owned. Fortunately I have a few connections in the old country and was able to get a copy. The Israeli embassy here in Boston was no help at all.

Rafe....the only thing here that is 'Straight Forward' are the smiles

Yes an inexperienced College grad discovered that the hard way - his last name was Chris McCandless. He was able to cross once and could not get back when it came time to bug out. Sad - he could have forded that river - he chose badly. [IMG:http://media.outsideonline.com/images/July2011_McCandlessPorcupines_06132011.jpg]