River trekking

River climbing, river trekking, river tracing or mountain stream climbing is a form of hiking or outdoor adventure activity, a traditional sport in Japan and popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and, in some ways, similar to canyoning or canyoneering. River trekking is a combination of trekking and climbing and sometimes swimming along the river. It involves particular techniques like rock climbing, climbing on wet surfaces, understanding the geographical features of river and valleys, knotting, dealing with sudden bad weather and finding out possible exits from the river.

River trekking in different countries
Japan
Japan and Taiwan are the most popular destinations for this sport.

The most famous 100 mountain streams to climb in Japan can be found by looking up 百名谷.

Taiwan
This sport is popular throughout Taiwan, where it is generally called river tracing (溯溪). The Hualien and Yilan areas are the most popular destinations for river tracing.

River tracing is a popular activity among the people of Taiwan. Accomplished river tracers may start from the mouth of a river. Several wilderness survival skills are needed, such as rock climbing, swimming and camping. However, there are different levels of difficulty, so beginners can take part. For beginners, it is advisable to choose an easier and more relaxed route, which can be completed in half a day. With safety equipment and an experienced coach, a participant can gradually master the skills needed to walk upstream. Sometimes it is necessary to swim through deep pools or climb up waterfalls. With a life vest, a non-swimmer can river trace as well.

Hong Kong

Nine Big Rivers
The Nine Big Rivers (九大石澗) are the nine rivers that are most popular among river trekkers in Hong Kong. The Nine Big Rivers include:

Romanization Hanzi Location
Tai Shing River 大城石澗 in Tsuen Wan
Wan Chung River 橫涌石澗 in Tai Po
Ng Tung River 梧桐石澗 in Tai Po
Wong Lung River 黃龍石澗 on Lantau Island near Tung Chung
Sheng Luk River 雙鹿石澗 in Sai Kung
Man Cheng Po 萬丈布 in the west of Lantau Island
Lotus River 蓮花石澗 in Tai Lam Country Park
Ngon Sam River 昂深石澗 on Lantau Island near Great Buddha
Ping Nam River 屏南石澗 close to the border between Hong Kong and mainland China

Philippines
In the Philippines, River Trekking is just gaining its popularity especially with the introduction of Mapawa Nature Park in Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao on one of their must-do activities. There are five challenges in the river which includes swimming, rapelling, jumping and sliding among others.

The particular nature park was featured on GMA 7’s now defunct reality show Extra Challenge.

South Africa
The South African version of river trekking is called kloofing and has gained a similar following from both an informal recreational and commercial point of view.

Rating of difficulties
As river trekking has a certain level of risk, experienced river trekkers or hiking groups have developed rating systems about difficulties on different rivers. The ratings usually are various from 1 to 5 stars, even though a few rivers can be more than five stars because of their extreme difficulties. Such ratings are largely subjective, depending largely on river trekker’s own experience. Therefore, different people or hiking groups would give different number of stars on the same river. According to Hong Kong Adventurer, an English Website about hiking and river trekking in Hong Kong, difficult scale of different rivers as:

Number of stars Description
1 can be handled by normal healthy persons
2 not too easy
3 fairly difficult
4 difficult, absolutely not for beginners
5 very difficult, very demanding in term of strength and skill

Risks and dangers
River trekking has certain level of risk. There are occasional accidents in river trekking, including falls from steep cliffs or waterfalls, drownings, exhaustion, or getting lost. Risks that should be prepared for include the following:

Flash flooding poses a serious danger. Sudden changes in weather, like rainstorms, can cause rapid rises in the level and speed of the river water. Also, the number of viable paths and climbing areas inside the river valley could be reduced suddenly in a very short period.

Visibility can be limited by rainy or misty weather. Low visibility may come in too quickly for trekkers to adapt to. Therefore, a torch (flashlight), preferably a head-mounted one, is a must for river trekking.

Steep cliffs inside river valleys require a certain level of rock-climbing skills. However, because of the humid environment inside river valleys, some rock surfaces can be wet and some rocks may be loose despite appearing solid. To deal with wet climbing conditions, professional river-trekking boots are strongly advised.

Equipment
Generally common equipment is:

Ropes – There must be at least a few meters of climbing ropes or ropes in the team to help the teammates support each other through the deep pool or rock wall. Generally, it can be divided into a main rope, an umbrella belt (sling), a sling, and the like.
Upstream shoes – each brand has its own design, more thin bottom to increase the adhesion, the sole slip can use similar rubber and shading to increase the friction; or make a coarse cloth sponge, then add fine nails before and after, The function is to fix the foothold on the sliding moss rock surface, the upper is permeable and breathable, and the fishing shop and the mountaineering company or the sporting goods store are sold. The price ranges from several hundred yuan to more than one thousand Taiwan dollars. area).
Cold-proof clothing (preventing cold clothes) – Long time involved in the river, body temperature is easy to lose, you can wear cold clothes to keep warm. However, the winter jacket is not necessary, and it is easy to hinder the action in the technical climb.
Helmets – After the rain in the valley, the water flow may cause falling rocks. The sharp falling rocks may fall silently without warning, and even in good weather. It is necessary to protect the head when climbing in a more dangerous terrain or falling off.
Traceability will wear helmets for climbing to prevent falling rocks. A qualified climbing helmet is tested for impact in the above conditions and is CE certified (EN12492) or UIAA certified. The helmet must have one of two certifications. The helmet is a life-saving gear, and the skateboard cap is recommended for leisure upstream.

Life jackets – Lighter streams have an embarrassing danger. Casual nature or short-distance creeks are lightly loaded on the river, and life jackets are worn throughout. As for the technical climbing or traceability nature of the river, because the life jacket is easy to hinder the action and even lead to the danger of climbing, it is often replaced by a backpack with a floating effect (but prior training is required).
Additional protection:

Kneepads – Climbing up the river, falling down and knees are prone to injury.
Long sleeves – prevent scratches.
other:

Swimwear
Sweat-coating – Avoid sloping heavy or absorbent clothing for physical activity.

Tool
As a climbing climbing tool, in the past, he was wearing a straw in the underglaze bag (especially on the felt bottom), but nowadays river shoes and mountain walking shoes are common (it is also a tool for mountain stream fishing). In both cases, even slimy wet stones are not slippery.

Tools common to rock climbing include helmets, harnesses, carabiners, ropes (zile), slings (snling), descent devices such as Eight ring, harkens and bolts.

In addition, general mountaineering such as topographical maps and climbing maps typified by mountain and highland map (Shobunsha) are used for normal mountain climbing, but a dedicated map called a backward travel map is used for climb up climb. The backward diagram is a schematic diagram showing the positional relation of the topography and artifacts in the lake, the branch of the tributary, the waterfall etc. along the ridge line, and although the distance and direction are not accurate, it is not a rigid measurement chart, It is very handy to keep going straight back.

Other than that, it is common with climbing tools.

Notes
However, climbing climbing is also dangerous.

There are many scenes going on wet rocks, rocks with moss membranes and the like are very slippery, accidents that slip at the place that seems nothing seems to hit the body and occurred with considerable frequency, arms · There are many accidents that broke the shoulder, ribs and so on. When climbing a wet place, an accident that it slides down, falls off the head, hits the head to the rock and dies easily. There are also cases of accidents that struck the head and lost consciousness and drowned in the water of Shirasawa.

Also, there are many risks due to the topography of Sawa, so you should not judge only by the difficulty level of the climbing route. In Sawa, dangers are hidden outside climbing. In the mountains the weather changes suddenly and there is heavy rain, but there is a danger of being attacked by flash flood water while it is good there, so you have to hurry and escape to the ridge line. In the case of a mountain area of ​​3,000 m level, snowy rivers are often left in summer as well. There is a danger of collapse at all times because the snow ridge of the rainwater where the water flows under is always gouged at the lower part and has a snow bridge shape. Sawa is, of course, a concave geometry narrowed against the ridge, so the radio wave condition is bad and the field of vision does not work well in many cases. If there is no ability to read the map firmly, there is also the danger of getting lost.

It is general and safe to adopt a method of having experienced people go along with climbing up to the beginning because it is quite dangerous for inexperienced climbers to suddenly challenge. It is better to read oneself climbing books and climbing climbing special issue of mountain climbing magazines etc, but it is not so much with letters and pictures alone but it can not be explained, as there are many things difficult to understand, It is general and safe to take the method of learning and having the experienced person accompany him to climb up rain. Especially for avoiding danger, it is better to learn about examples of past accidents with climb up.

Considering the situation that occurs in the event of a fracture / distress, unless it is a good veteran, basically it is better to avoid a single line in climbing climbing.

Because the naturalness in the valley is high, it is attractive that there are many creatures inhabited. However, danger of toxic organisms, poisonous plants, blood-sucking animals and the like is not small, so care must be taken.

As the trend of the 2000s, the number of accidents caused by water accident death has also increased as actively entering water has increased. This is because the know-how of river behavior technology based on hydraulic science is not accumulated in climbing climbing derived from mountaineering technology, so some of the introduction of safety management technology from experts such as kayak and rafting is partly It has begun.

Source from Wikipedia