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PostPosted: September 18th, 2020, 7:09 pm 
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Strange question, I know. But does it happen? I was recently researching a rarely mentioned river on our forums. It shares a drainage with another, slightly more well-known river. Let’s call the better known one A, and the lesser known one B. Some time ago, someone posted: “Does anyone know anything about B? Difficulty? Access?” The responses were along the lines of:

“Oh no! What, A’s not good enough for you?”
“I looked at aerial photos, it looks like continuous whitewater. I wouldn’t try it. Maybe in a kayak!”
“I checked the topos, way too much drop for an open canoe.”
“A friend ran it, said it was much rougher than expected, he would never do it again.”

Here’s the thing, I’ve been on a short stretch of B, and studied the aerials and topos of its entire length. It’s WAY easier than A, with the topos showing maybe 1/3 the marked falls and rapids.

I came to canoeing by way of fly fishing. Fishermen are liars of course, so maybe I’m unduly suspicious. It’s possible, no one lied here. The last few km of B do have a fair amount of whitewater, even a km of continuous rapids, but it’s class II-III and the bigger stuff can easily be avoided. Maybe the “friend” was a flatwater paddler, terrified of any whitewater. Maybe our member with the topos is bad at math. I’m not saying there was any intentional deception, but what do you think? I can’t figure out why one paddler would discourage another from a particular trip. After all, if someone paddles your favorite route the day before you, it really won’t affect you (assuming the folks ahead of you clean up after themselves, and I’m betting everyone here does that).

However, the fishing quality along some delicate wilderness routes would be severely impacted if even a few parties per year “kept a couple for the frying pan” each day. That’s why I don’t post about them. So were these just honest mistakes? Or do we have some closeted fishermen among us?


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PostPosted: September 18th, 2020, 11:30 pm 
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Short answer: NO!! This forum is designed to get anyone to out there in a canoe. I won't sugarcoat something or over inflate a route.

But here's the rub for your example. Whitewater is wholly dependent upon levels and seasons. What may be be a CIV in spring could be a CII in summer/fall. It's not so much a lie, rather, an observation based on seasonality and experience. Inexperienced-moderate level paddlers tend to overestimate rapid difficulty. Not an issue in describing to the masses, but one must also consider when they observed such conditions. Don't take moving water lightly, it can change in the brink of an eye and scouting is key!!! When you get good at aerial scouting you can typically nail rapid difficulty based off of satellite imagery, however, this is a hard skill to acquire and one must use HQ imagery and ID what season the image was taken in to get a full understanding.

My rule of thumb: always scout anything described as CII+. You may be surprised with what you encounter, but you can then add a +/- for the rest of your trip based upon conditions.

Fishermen may be 'liars', but the vast majority of user on this forum are experienced and willing to share route details.


Also, mention rivers/routes in your Q's, as you may be surprised who has traveled it.

Suggest Admin move this to General Discussion though,

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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 7:13 am 
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Lying is usually understood as misinformation or a falsehood being put out intentionally, with the intent being to misinform. However, I'd widen the scope of that definition to include those that don't know any better and are posting information that might appear to be credible when in fact it's coming from a questionable source ( the above source being an exception, of course).

To be able to post on a message board... absolutely anybody can do it. Freely available access to all, there is no entrance exam required, there is no swearing on the bible wrt only the truth and nothing but the truth be given, there is no prerequisite citing of references to verify and validate, no screening of posters so that only the experts will comment.

OTOH with time some will recognize that some posters will more be credible than others. Still, it's only a message board and the information sure won't be 100% truthful all the time. But have fun with it, that's what we're here for. Nobody's going to be thrown into the slammer for posting some doubtful info.

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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 9:04 am 
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Never been on a river that ran the same on different trips. My to go river for tripping lately usually is a mellow float with ample time to daydream and watch moose with no great effort required to travel.
The last two years the low water has revealed rapids that require a lot of attention and have wiped out boats. They are usually washed out at higher water levels.

I used Hap Wilsons Missinaibi River guideboook for our trip there. Many rapids had different routes or no routes in the low water we had. Was his book a lie? NO. It was made from his observations at several water levels but not extreme low.

It is actually a plus that a sense of discovery is still a part of remote canoe trips.


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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 9:43 am 
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If I answer "yes," how would you interpret that?


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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 11:44 am 
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scratchypants wrote:
If I answer "yes," how would you interpret that?

Just wouldn't pay attention to you. Same goes for my reaction to what the current President says.


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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 12:16 pm 
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littleredcanoe wrote:
scratchypants wrote:
If I answer "yes," how would you interpret that?

Just wouldn't pay attention to you. Same goes for my reaction to what the current President says.


My point was that if I answer yes, then I am saying that I lie on this forum, so then it would mean that I don't. Paradox - get it?


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PostPosted: September 19th, 2020, 4:27 pm 
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Only when describing my prowess in WW, my one pass portages jogging with a 16' royalex or staring down bears!

When describing rivers or portages that might cause someone problems, serious or not, then a real big "NO bloody way!"

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PostPosted: September 20th, 2020, 7:30 am 
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Not lie, just don't mention what the fishing was like.

Have that over fishing thing in Manitoba and a great pickerel fishery wiped out due to it.

Karin


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PostPosted: September 20th, 2020, 7:54 am 
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Ted, staring down bears is valuable know-how in wildernsss settings... I'm sure the Ontario government can find a way to work that into bear-awareness nature interpretation programs at provincial parks.

The Russians are way ahead of us on this and here's a photo to prove it.

Image

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PostPosted: September 20th, 2020, 1:23 pm 
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Nope. Im more a avoid the question. If i give you an answer its as far as im concerned truth. The nice thing about a form is if i choose to avoid the question i can.


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PostPosted: September 21st, 2020, 9:49 am 
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jeffjclark0421 wrote:
“Oh no! What, A’s not good enough for you?”
“I looked at aerial photos, it looks like continuous whitewater. I wouldn’t try it. Maybe in a kayak!”
“I checked the topos, way too much drop for an open canoe.”
“A friend ran it, said it was much rougher than expected, he would never do it again.”

?


These don't sound like lies to me - more opinions - the only lie here would be someone claiming to have run both and then disagreeing.
Of course your opinion of a certain river might be different than others based on your skill.
For example - I don't have any skill running rivers -I won't even touch a class 1. So my opinion on those to rivers would be similar to the second one above... again not lies - more opinions.

Also - no one lies on the internet!!! :lol:


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PostPosted: September 21st, 2020, 4:38 pm 
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I'm living a f----ing amazing life - by my own design, hard work, self-sacrifice, and dedication. I feel no need to lie, and I feel no need to respond to idiots.

No. I do not lie.


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PostPosted: October 12th, 2020, 12:02 am 
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scratchypants wrote:
littleredcanoe wrote:
scratchypants wrote:
If I answer "yes," how would you interpret that?

Just wouldn't pay attention to you. Same goes for my reaction to what the current President says.


My point was that if I answer yes, then I am saying that I lie on this forum, so then it would mean that I don't. Paradox - get it?


No, there is no paradox :tsk:
Saying that you lie on this forum is a statement that is either true or false.

If it is true, it means that you DO lie.
(so, no paradox. You are just admitting that lying happens, from you).

If it is false, it means that you do NOT lie
(so, paradox. Because you just lied while it being true that you do not lie).

So it can't be said that there is a paradox.
There being one depends on whether your statement was true.

In fact, one could argue,
that your statement was true, because otherwise would be a paradox.


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PostPosted: October 12th, 2020, 12:24 am 
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to respond to post,

i am disposed to thinking that lying is a bad thing. if lying would benefit me (i.e., by keeping fish in a lake i visit) then i would not achieve that benefit by lying.

i would achieve it by not encouraging (directly or indirectly) that the lake gets fished. I'm pretty sure most people here approach it the same way.
Because (I'm pretty sure) most people (here) are disposed the same way.

If you are trying to find out if anyone has lied, your answer has a 99.9% chance of being Yes.
If you are trying to get an idea of how many, by seeing how many admit it, you might want to try another method.
Because admitting lying defeats the purpose of lying.
It also has a bad look lol.

But lies are interesting. That they exist. It could have been that humans evolved just to say true things, for the obvious utility in that.

Lies are a very advanced thing, I think. I get this feeling that lies could not happen except in a kind of accidental way. I mean, long ago, we strung words the wrong way as a kind of mishap -- but then realized "Hey... i could STILL say this accidental thing!" lol.

I cannot see how someone could be inclined to lie without that first accident having occurred to them. Anyway I know this is off topic. My apologies.

Honestly.


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