Is it Safe?

River guide school in Vernal, UT, is informative fun and exciting. I feel pretty good about it. However, this makes me nervous... During training about 2 hours per day of classroom time is a minor addition to the 11 hours or so (6-am to 5:30pm) of on the river hands on learning time. We do the daily canyon run and then we drive back and do it again, flipping our rafts and re-righting them along the way, swimming through rapids, learning skills, giving paddle and safety talks, etc...

All that is fine and well, BUT, we are scheduled to repeat this basic schedule twice the next two days. Here is a link to the Special Weather Statement for Eastern Uinta Basin, UT on weather.com . For tomorrow this site projects a high temperature of 53 degrees F and a low temperature of 34 degrees F.

The guide teachers are wearing drysuits. Students, including myself, are wearing "farmer john" style wetsuits, which have a body and legs but no sleeves. We don't have "bootie" shoes and yesterday and today about half of our students have bare feet under their river sandals. Today I wore two layers of thermal underwear (tops and bottoms) under the wet suit and had a splash jacket over that, water proof gloves (I am the only student with water proof gloves) and 3mm neoprene socks under my sandals. My feet were pretty numb for most of the day and by lunch I had difficulty controlling my level of shivering and I felt the teeth beginning to chatter. I had very weak circulation to my extremities and I borrowed someone's dry sweatshirt, ran a few circles around the parking lot at lunch, and ate half a loaf of bread to stay warm-ish. After lunch we did the trip again and some of these symptoms returned though with the sun out I was able to operate pretty functionally and was able to enjoy most of the trip and communicate fairly normally.

Today's high was 73 degrees F.

I enjoy guiding and being a guide and learning / experiencing things hands on with this class but I do not think we are appropriately outfitted to repeat this trip tomorrow when the high temperature is likely to be twenty degrees cooler. I am assuming that our program's director is strongly dis-inclined to alter our schedule and cancel tomorrow's outing, even if he reads the weather report. I am torn between wanting to go on the trip and politely telling him that I do not think we are adequately prepared for tomorrows temperatures, and then leaving the program. As much as I would like to complete it and I have given up a lot of things to work for this outfitter this summer and I feel more qualified for the job than several of the other students... I think the danger of our party running into hypothermia tomorrow is very high.

Well, I'll figure it out soon enough. Worse case scenario I've got some savings and a little extra coming my way. I could always hang out somewhere and finish writing that book.


Issued by The National Weather Service
Grand Junction, CO
2:57 pm MDT, Mon., May. 10, 2010

... WINTER RETURNS TO COLORADO AND UTAH TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY...

A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL MOVE ACROSS THE AREA TUESDAY NIGHT BRINGING WIDESPREAD PRECIPITATION AND MUCH COLDER TEMPERATURES BY WEDNESDAY MORNING. RAINFALL IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE OVER TO SNOW EARLY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL MOUNTAINS. SEVERAL INCHES OF NEW SNOW WILL BE POSSIBLE BY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON WITH HAZARDOUS DRIVING CONDITIONS EXPECTED FOR THE HIGHER MOUNTAIN PASSES.

WIDESPREAD FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE ALSO EXPECTED FOR MANY VALLEY LOCALES BY WEDNESDAY MORNING. THOSE INDIVIDUALS WITH FARMING OR GARDENING INTERESTS SHOULD TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS FOR WIDESPREAD FREEZING TEMPERATURES. SNOWFALL MAY ALSO REACH VALLEY FLOORS... MAINLY ALONG AND NORTH OF INTERSTATE 70 THOUGH ONLY A LIGHT DUSTING IS EXPECTED.

THE TRACK OF THIS STORM WILL GREATLY AFFECT WHERE PRECIPITATION WILL FALL... HOW MUCH WILL FALL... AND IF IT WILL BE SNOW OR RAIN. ANY VARIATION TO THIS TRACK WILL HAVE LARGE IMPLICATIONS TO THE CURRENT FORECAST TEMPERATURE AND SNOWFALL.