Raft Flips in Fowlers during high flow South Fork American River May 27, 2023

Fortunately everybody was OK, and the only thing that was lost during this trip was some of the flipped boat’s oars. this is how it went after the recording stopped. So there were two people in the boat that flipped. The first person managed to get to shore and saved himself, while the second person kept going down river. Our boat picked up the second person just a little ways down the river. The guy that saved himself walked way up the river, and swam across it, and eventually made it back to his boat. The camera person stayed with the flipped raft and beached it. one of the guys from our crew went up to the boat they had flipped and met up with the camera person, and when the guy who had swam had eventually made it back to his boat. The three of them piloted it, and we all met lower in the river and regrouped.

[@Adventurewatersports1989]

Thanks for delivering knowledge

[@raine0acid]

i think you should get the human before the raft, but hey thats just me lol.

[@jbooth170]

Never swim into trees! Unseen branches underwater can be fatal hazards. In stead, stay calm, breathe, and look for a safe self-rescue eddy downstream. I know it's scary when you are in the water, and your first instinct is to grab anything near the shore. But if you get pinned by a branch, you might never get out. Stay calm.

[@boblatkey7160]

Thank you father, I probably wouldn't survive without you.

[@d0novn]

moral of the story, dont flip at fowlers rock.. whew! that can be scary if you arent great at swimming!

[@timlasko8239]

Wow. Please take a swift water rescue class if you’re going to be running trips like this. Swimmers self rescuing on trees was really hard to watch. Very lucky everyone made it home that day.

[@aroofthemountain]

yikes! those are some dangerous swims. 'specially the current goin into that meat grinder. cool everybody good. it almost looked like they flipped on purpose. i didn't see the oars moving to charge the hole. is the line left side of the hole or can you hit that hole straight up charging? thanks for the vid! peace.

[@thenewfire]

I love how that guy in the right middle never once listened to the guide. Dig means do nothing and backwards means paddle forward. Exactly why more guides are switching to stern frames.

[@agarcia6585]

Many things did not go well during the recorded portion of the swim.
1 - the swimmers themselves swam into strainers ... a big no no! Swims should have been covered in the safety brief ... there was one wasn't there?
2 - the paddlers on the left side did a pretty good job but the paddlers on the right basically didn't follow directions.
3 - the boat captain is asking for directions instead of giving them.
4 - the boat captain is giving verbal directions to a swimmer rather than pointing toward safety. Safety brief anybody???
5 - there was no clear handover of control of the boat when the boat captain lept onto the retrieved boat, they can R2 it. Probably a better choice would have been to put two paddlers onto the boat and then with the four remaining paddlers go after the swimmers.

[@berrycrawford5579]

How did they get their boat back?

[@lomaricawildernessexpediti5257]

So, it started with the other guy making it to the other shore, then walking all the way back up river, then swimming across, then coming all the way back to us, then him, my dad, and our friend piloted the other boat. And then we met up at the bottom

[@dacheif847_toneysolos]

@@lomaricawildernessexpediti5257what level/classification is this

[@panchocamacho9927]

where is this river?

[@weaksause6878]

Cool California

[@7phyton]

ENE of Sacramento. Very popular river.

[@dacheif847_toneysolos]

What level is this ??

[@FearBeyond]

ii/iii no clue how this happened

[@weaksause6878]

Its class iii
Guesstimate cfs around 5000

[@timlasko8239]

Looks like 5-7k

[@lukefranco68]

Whole program was whack

[@CaptHappy-xe3yg]

What a shit show.