From the Editor: Trip Reports Made Easy
By Larry Lempert
Several laments have been heard of late that trip reports are no longer being posted regularly, thus depriving club members of a valuable source for planning future outings. It's safe to assume that trip coordinators simply find it too time-consuming to write such reports. (Note: "Trip coordinator" formerly was referred to as "trip leader," but the language was softened out of fear that the weighty responsibility suggested by the earlier terminology would scare off potential volunteers.)
Accordingly, as a club service, I've prepared a template offering a simple, multiple-choice approach that will make trip report writing easy peasy. Just select one of the italicized options whenever offered, and before you know it your trip report will be ready to post. Lest this be seen as too great a flight of fancy, let me assure you that at least one of the choices (and usually more than one) reflects things from my personal experience, and others come from reliable sources.
Sharpen your pencil or dust off your keyboard for the quickest, easiest trip report ever:
A CCA Sunday | Wednesday | Thursday | Weekender | Pickup | hopelessly ragtag paddling group convened too early | not early enough | at just the right time for a run on the Staircase | Little Falls | Little Falls again | Little Falls for the 48th time this year. The gage reading was almost too high | low enough to run a battleship aground | just right. The weather was so hot that our gaskets melted | so cold that our gaskets froze | just right. The trip coordinator was preternaturally insightful | insanely gregarious | drunk | high on something | all of the above.
The participants in this excellent adventure included only a few crazies | more crazies than you can shake a paddle at | at least two people who had paddled before | several parents who wanted to know where their children were | several candidates for office seeking to persuade undecided voters. However, one person was sent home after being unable to define "flotation" | insulting the coordinator's parentage | bringing a PDF instead of a PFD.
We put in before everyone arrived | before everyone had their gear together | after three paddlers drove back to the takeout to retrieve missing helmets | paddles | sprayskirts | PFDs | boats | brain cells. [On your toes—that calls for a choice within a choice!]
Let the record show that, amazingly, we had no swims | a swimfest | two impressive combat rolls | so many rolls that it looked like pool rolling practice. The only injuries, though, occurred when the trip coordinator clobbered the three paddlers who forgot their helmets | a paddler slipped while scouting | a paddler slipped while getting out of a truck | a paddler slipped while sitting and eating lunch | a paddler fell asleep on flatwater and fell from the boat.
We got to the takeout as twilight gently kissed the water | the trip coordinator gently woke up his tandem partner | we realized our sweep paddler had never left the put-in. We were surprised at the takeout to find that this was not where we had left our cars | a sea of mud that claimed three pairs of booties | a rock pile to which a climbing wall would pale by comparison. Everyone agreed that the coordinator should be rewarded with an all-expenses-paid trip to Little Falls | seek psychiatric help at the earliest opportunity | immediately enroll in the CCA’s Trip Planning 101 course | all of the above.
(More) Paddling Humor
One last multiple-choice offering for you:
(a) I liked the above article and would appreciate more paddling humor
(b) I hated the above article and would appreciate, by contrast, some good paddling humor
(c) I don't think there's any such thing as good paddling humor
If any of these apply to you, it would be well worth your while to check out "Mitch's Rules of Paddling," by Mitch Lloyd, in the September issue of the Carolina Canoe Club's Carolina Paddler. Particularly if you chose (c), Mitch will prove you wrong.