: In summary basic training is good to learn technique but you need experience
: with an old hand to learn to forsee danger, far better to avoid the
: situation than have to see just where the limits to your skills really
: are. I think this applies in any wilderness or outdoor pursuits.

I come from a caving background before I started kayaking, and the commonest
cause of people having epics is that they have no idea of what their own
abilities and limits are. You don't have to be a hard caver to be a good
caver - you just need to know how hard you are, and how hard the trip may
be. I say "may be" because in caving, as in kayaking, you can't just read
a guidebook and know how difficult a trip is - it depends on the conditions
which may change during the trip. To be able to make your own assessments
of a trip, you must be able to read the guide (or whatever guidebook / map
/ chart / etc. is applicable to your sport) and interpret
what you see in conjunction with information from other sources, such as
water levels, weather forecasts, tide tables (yes, there are even tidal caves:)
Once you have interpreted the information for the proposed trip, you have to
be able to make an honest assessment of your own abilities
with respect to the trip, and the possible extremes of conditions you might
encounter. This requires a lot more experience than many people seem to
think.

In caving, many apparently experienced people seem simply unable either to
interpret a guidebook description with the other info to get an idea of what
conditions could be like on the day, or to assess their own ability and relate
it to the trip. I'm sure exactly these same two limitations apply in other
activities - although since I do my kayaking with a club whose "senior" members
are forthcoming with advice to people not to join a particular trip, I've
been fortunate enough not to have seen any epics whilst canoeing (apart from
minor incidents well within the group's ability to cope).

Caving used to work almost exclusively through a club system - it was
really quite rare for people to get their knowledge of the sport any other
way, so they were always likely to be gaining experience with people they
knew, and who knew them, and had a good idea of their abilities.

Nowadays, you can pay people to train you in caving techniques like
ropework, and become technically very competant with nowhere near the
same depth of experience. This leads to lots more isolated groups going
caving outside the club system, with a significant increase in the
numbers of folk who really can't make wise decisions. I see education
and training in at least this sport as being a major contributor to
an increase in the number of mishaps - I'm sure clubs are a better way
for kayakers to support each other, too.

Andy