Paddle and Oar rafts!
Almost always scouted, Hance has a must-make move, and a horizon line, and big munchy holes to avoid. It can be a source of acute worry, and makes many at least subconsiously nervous during their first week of their trip before they get there.
Then once you get through it you get this really cool feeling of, "Wow, that went well. I can figure all kinds of stuff out I thought was scary and get through it fine."
Successful runs through Hance also give boaters confidence that they can probably figure out anything on the rest of the trip. That kind of moment is one of the great aspects of running rivers.
Other challenges you face in the outdoors share aspects of that. It's only by challenging yourself to try and figure out how to do something you think is scary that you get the confidence to do it. Thus, the more time you spend doing cool stuff in the outdoors, the more happy, confident, and effective of a person you will become everywhere else in life.
All river trips, in essence, are wilderness therapy trips. There is a lot more to rapids than "the wave was big and it was fun." There is this whole psychological space you pass through over the course of a week or day of getting to and getting through one.
This video has attempted to illuminate that process. The story of Hance does not begin at Hance. "Hance Day" usually starts with a calm and scenic morning, proceeds through geological and psychological transitions to leave the boater, after Hance, somewhere that looks (and feels) much different than where he or she found him or herself just a few hours earlier.
8 сен 2024
