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At some point in our paddling careers, we all seem to discover at one point or another that our comfort level has changed- where once we bolted through a rapid and breathed a sigh of relief when it was done, we now realize that we could run a rapid like that for as long as we wanted, or at least, until we wanted to rest (at which point, all we need to do is find an eddy and get into it).  Dealing with holes has been an exercise in repeatedly experiencing this revelation- the initial frantic desire to get out eventually gives way to an understanding that hole combat is a mode, just like running downriver, that can be sustained for quite some time if you have to (or want to) do it- and indeed, playboaters often spend as much time trying to stay in the hole as they do trying to get out of it.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that holes can be incredibly powerful, dangerous places to be and until you've got a good bag of tricks that'll allow you to intentionally do things in the hole, it's tough to be sanguine about being in there because without the ability to do deliberate maneuvers your chances of escape are more or less left up to random chance.  Moreover, if you spend too much time without getting air, chances are good that you won't have enough time for random chance to do it's work and you're likely to end up swimming for your trouble.  In brief, the challenge you face is that in the hole you'll be under exceptional pressure and possibly in considerable danger, and not only do you need to be focused and collected, you need to perform.

Reading this article will not give you any of the skills necessary to escape from holes- only time and practice can give you these things.  What this article will do is discuss some ways to approach the problem of what to do when you find yourself in a hole that you want to escape.  It is assumed that you already know how to roll in the hole (if you don't, follow the link for a discussion of this) because without the ability to recover from things that go wrong, worrying about strategies you can use to escape from holes is something of an academic exercise.

Some holes won't give you much in the way of options- it'll be all you can do to get a little air and hope to do enough gyrations in your boat to somehow make it out on luck alone.  This article will not address situations like these because by and large all you can do is hang on until you either blow out of the hole, get magically rescued, or swim out of it.

Another thing to note: hydraulics can be a powerful and violent place, and some of the strategies discussed in this article involve deliberately subjecting yourself to significant violence in order to get out of them.  Be careful.  Practice with smaller holes.

Principles of escape

Without a plan, your actions will be random and so will your success.  Without some modicum of control and a cool head, it's tough to create and/or follow a plan- so your first priority is to get yourself under enough control to recognize what you're dealing with, where you are in the hole, and what you need to do to escape.

Safety first- The art of escape is a process of trying your best options first, until you reach a point where you're desperate enough to consider riskier/more aggressive/less desirable methods... but not until you reach a point where you're too exhausted to survive the risky methods.  Ideally, you want to promptly escape in your boat and paddle to safety, but the sad truth is that we don't live in an ideal world and sometimes we have to be creative.  Sometimes we have to wait for a rope from an attentive comrade, or, if no such rope is realistically forthcoming and you're not getting out in your boat... we go to plan 'b'.

Swimming is a last resort- Whomever said it's better to die in your boat than to swim may be guilty of both hyperbole and hypocrisy, but their point is well taken- swimming should be regarded as a risky, last-resort maneuver, to be undertaken only when all other options are worse.  As a swimmer your chances of injury, entrapment, exposure, and death increase dramatically in difficult water, to say nothing of endangering your rescuers.  That said, if you've run out of options, go ahead and pull that skirt and go- you can always claim that your skirt imploded later over beers. :-)

Flow in equals flow out- No matter what it's shape, if you have a hydraulic, there's water escaping it, and that's your ticket out of there.  If you can't escape by other means, use this fact- drive into the inflow, take your licks, and sometimes you'll discover that it's also the outflow.

Different shapes are key- You interact with the hydraulic by means of the surfaces and shapes you present to it, in much the same way a wing does with turbulent air.  If you find yourself in a stable pattern in a hydraulic (say you're being washed in a series of loops without control), remember that by changing the shape you present to the oncoming water you stand a very good chance of breaking up whatever cyclical pattern you're in.  This is especially true if you find yourself swimming and caught in a sticky hydraulic.  Change your shape in order to change the way you cycle.

Begin with an assumption of success.  No matter how violent or scary the hole, your first operating principle should be that you're capable of getting out of this at the very least intact, and hopefully with some style.  The only time to throw in the towel is once you've emptied out your bag of tricks and nothing's worked, and as you grow your bag, you'll discover that the time to pack it in is a rare one indeed.

Principles of self-defense- In as violent an environment as a hydraulic, it pays to keep your hands in front of you at all times, and to keep your elbows as low and in front of you as possible.  The commonest injuries experienced in holes are to the shoulders, and if you keep your arms defensively positioned you can greatly diminish your risk of this sort of injury.  This means avoid upstream braces (they don't work, and if you brace into the bottom bad things will happen to you and your paddle), duck when you flip (protect that head) and rather than controlling your paddle by moving your arms to and fro, you'll want to control your paddle by keeping your hands in front of your body and moving your torso.

Keeping your head- The first thing to do when you find yourself having dropped into a hole you didn't want to go into (hey, it happens) is to take stock of your situation, form a plan, and begin to execute immediately on it.  Working actively on a plan, with simple goals and a positive focus, will do wonders for your mindset- if you're focused on your goals, often you're too busy to be afraid.

The importance of taking stock cannot be stressed enough- without a plan that recognizes your situation, no action you take will address your situation, save by dumb luck.

Hydraulics

A fundamental principle of all hydraulics is this:  flow in equals flow out.  There's just as much water leaving a hole as there is entering it.  The problem you face is that the water on the surface, the inflow and the backflow, tend to converge on one spot and your buoyancy tends to keep you there, on the surface and caught between the two.  In situations such as these, the trick is to find a way to go under, over, or around the backflow and resume your downriver course... but of course, it's not always that simple.  Sometimes the outflow travels a long ways underwater before crowning up to the surface.  Sometimes the shoulders of the hole are blocked by rocks, et cetera.  In brief, in order to formulate a plan of action, it's important that you understand the details of the problem... which means that you need to know a little bit about the hole you're in.

Things to know about the hole you're in: What kind of hydraulic is it?  This is a question that goes a bit beyond the scope of this article, but the ability to read and understand what's going on in any given hydraulic is vital in making an informed decision on how to escape it.  We will, however, cover a few items you'll want to look for.  For a more in-depth discussion of this, browse on over to a primer on reading hydraulics elsewhere in this site.

Shoulders upstream or downstream?  blocked or open?  Usually the easiest avenue of escape is to work your way to the corner of the backflow and wash downstream.  Probably the first thing you'll want to assess is the accessibility of the shoulders, and whether they provide a viable means of exit.  A hydraulic with shoulders that point upstream will require you to actually travel upstream in order to use this method, while shoulders that point downstream will tend to shrug you off and out relatively easily.  A hydraulic whose shoulders are blocked by obstacles (such as boulders or walls) obviously offers little succor in this respect.

Downflow entry angle? The steeper the entry angle, generally, the tighter the trough will be, and the less space/time you'll have in which to maneuver.  Generally, in hydraulics such as these, more aggressive/vertical tactics (like cartwheeling, looping, blasting) may be required in order to maintain a semblance of control.  Also, hydraulics with steep entry angles can be terribly difficult to roll in, due to the shape of the interface- if the outflow is very deep, it's difficult (if not impossible) to use that water to help you roll- and in vertical pour-overs of this sort, the backflow's current can work against your rolling attempts.  Needless to say, vertical pour-overs can be difficult to manage.

Partial or Full-depth?  A steeper entry angle usually means that the outflow will be deep and possibly slow-moving, or at the very least, inaccessible to you while you're in your boat.  One notable exception to this is when the inflow goes full-depth and is redirected downstream... in which case the hole is likely to be bouncy, violent, and flushy all on it's own, and extra care should be taken to tuck your head and paddle if you invert.

Backflow shape? Distance to boil line?  The shape of the backflow determines a lot of things, not the least of which is where you *won't* be able to go.  Specific things to look for when scouting and when in the hole, however, will be whether the backflow is flat, whether it's elevated or depressed relative to the surrounding water, how much water is flowing back into the hole, how fast it's flowing there, and how aerated it is.  Generally, the more aerated it is, the less purchase your paddle will have, whether you're rolling or attempting to maneuver.  Another general rule is as the distance between the boil line and the crease increases, the likelihood of your being able to paddle out straight downstream (or sub out, for that matter) decreases significantly.

Direction of outflow? If the direction of the outflow doesn't line up with the sum of the inflows, it follows that something underwater was stout enough to change the direction of a lot of water- usually this means that there's a structure or a rock or something impeding the flow of water, and it also means that your chances of escaping in the direction of this structure are exceedingly low- your escape avenue of choice will generally be with the outflow.  Holes backed up by rocks are extremely retentive unless you can work your way over to where the outflow is occurring.

Stable or bouncy? In general, hydraulics that are stable are sticky and do not help you build up any motion in order to get out of them.  These can be the worst sort of hydraulic, sometimes being difficult to escape even when out of your boat... but in the plus column, a stable hydraulic may be easier to maintain control in (meaning that you can try more aggressive exit strategies, or else wait for assistance longer).  On the other hand, some degree of explosiveness can make handling one's boat more difficult in the hole- so while a bouncy hole will generally be less retentive, it will also require more skill to maintain control when you're in it.

Boat choice-  Generally, higher-volume, rounder boats will be more retentive than slicy, lower-volume boats, by virtue of the former's ability to remain up in the crease.  Generally, longer boats are tougher to maneuver and boss around if you settle sideways in the hole, but if you can manage to get an end into the downflow, these boats want to escape- they'll launch right out.  Shorter boats, while easier to maneuver and often easier to sub, will also pinwheel in the crease on end in ways that longer boats won't.

In general, the 'right boat' is the one that complements your skills, or at the very least, doesn't expose your weaknesses as a paddler... while the 'wrong boat' is the one that doesn't give you anything to work with.

Techniques to consider

Surf/blast to the corner- One of the most straightforward methods- use a pry stroke to turn your boat slightly in the crease and dip your downstream edge (if you're in a boat with chines) to allow your boat to carve to the corner.  If the trough is tight, you can use what's referred to as an 'aggressive' carve, where your control/rudder stroke is done behind the boat, on the upstream side.  Using the pressure of the oncoming water against the paddle blade, edge downstream and slice the stern aggressively into the oncoming water, and hold it there- the result will be a carving near-blast maneuver that will elevate your bow and move you rapidly towards the shoulder and freedom.  (note: this maneuver applies only to boats with slicy ends, don't bother trying this trick if you're in a spud or a long boat, it'll just result in a dynamic windowshade.)

Sidesurf on a draw to the corner- A time-honored favorite, this method involves setting a fixed draw on your downstream side, and using the blade as a rudder, allowing the oncoming water to 'draw' you to the corner.  This requires more strength than the surf/blast method, but it works better in boats without chines than the surf/blast method. Often the shoulders of holes are significantly higher than the troughs, which presents the paddler with a difficult ascent to accomplish- in this case, this method should be combined with other maneuvers, such as a windowshade or an ender.  If this is the case, often it's necessary to back down into the pit and try again, by establishing greater lateral momentum.

The Ender option- Often if you've made it near a corner you'll discover that the end of the boat that's climbing up the outflow is also being pushed downstream... which presents you with a potential problem as well as an escape opportunity.  The problem is that as the outside end goes downstream, often the inside end goes upstream... into the oncoming current.  If the boat is too long or you have too little time, this almost inevitably results in a power-windowshading, in which case it pays to grab as much downstream-moving water as possible.  If, however, you're able to recognize the spin you'll find at the shoulder early enough, a sweep stroke to spin the boat parallel to the grain of the oncoming water will initiate the stern.  If your upstream end has enough volume and length to it, the oncoming water will pogo you upwards and possibly out, provided you don't allow the end to shank off in one direction or the other- be sure to stay on that sweep stroke.  Generally, endering out is an effective maneuver only in longer boats- shorter ones, made for rodeo, will often swap ends faster than the bob rate of the boat.

Windowshade and grab outflow- in marginally retentive hydraulics, such as those often favored by playboaters, often all you need to do is flip and you're out- the added drag your torso introduces to your boat will stop it from surfing and start it doing something else, like tumbling or washing out directly.  This method seems to work best in smaller/slicier boats- larger or higher-volume boats may stay in the hole despite added drag.

Carve on the corner- If you've reached the corner but cannot draw yourself up the shoulder and out, one option is to use the chines of your boat to carve your way up the corner and out.  Remember, your boat can carve both backwards and forwards, which can be useful if the corner wants to spin you.

Cartwheel- in tight creases or circumstances where it's tough to surf or blast, sometimes it's possible to cartwheel your way to the corner of the hole, where another method can be pursued.  Plus, cartwheels can be fun. :-)

Screwing Cartwheel- in order to catwalk laterally in the crease while cartwheeling, you can edge your boat as you initiate each end in order to generate lateral acceleration towards the corner you're facing.  If you were to do this in a marginally retentive hole, (trust me) it would result in a quick catwalk to the corner, followed by a screwing exit as you peeled off the corner vertically.  It works by edging your upstream chine slightly towards the corner you want to go to, and by keeping your weight slightly downstream of where you'd want to keep it if you were doing cartwheels in a hole you wanted to stay *in*.  (I learned this, of course, by doing it wrong in the latter type of hole, but have applied it successfully towards escaping holes as well. :-)

The Loop- surf straight into the downflow, and as your bow initiates, reach deep with both hands into the downflow and grab a huge hit of water, as if you were grabbing a basketfull of the stuff. As your bow goes downstream, continue reaching downwards- if you're successful, you'll catch enough of the downstream-moving water to pull you out and under the pile, and you can roll up afterwards. If it doesn't work, at least you know how to do loops now. :-)