Listener K.C. Gandee, a whitewater rafting guide from Bethel, Maine, tipped us off to lingo from his world. Dead-sticking is when the guide is doing all the paddling and no one else is. A lily dipper is someone who barely paddles while everyone else works hard. Dump-trucking is when the raft nearly capsizes and everyone in it gets thrown out. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Whitewater Rafting Lingo”
We got an email from Casey Gandy, who lives in Bethel, Maine, and he’s a whitewater rafting guide.
And he applies his trade up on the Hudson River in the Adirondacks, and he sent us some great whitewater rafting slang.
Have you ever been whitewater rafting?
I have, in Ecuador.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I’ve gone a couple of times, but I never heard these words, one of which is dead sticking.
Dead sticking.
Dead sticking is when the guide does all the paddling while the rafters relax.
Okay.
And then there’s also lily dipper, which is when you want everybody paddling together and there’s one person who just barely…
Ineffectual, barely wetting the surface of the oar.
Yeah.
And then the other term that I could completely relate to is dump trucking.
I mean, you can practically picture this.
It’s when a raft nearly flips.
Oh, everything comes out of it, right?
The whole load is thrown into the water.
Yeah, yeah.
I had that happen when I went.
Did you?
I still remember now, 20 years later, the look of panic in my friend’s eyes as we were nearly standing end on end, and in we were going there.
I guess it’s sort of like tombstoning and surfing.
I learned that one in my surf class.
That’s when your surfboard comes up straight.
Yeah, straight up.
We’d love to hear the language of your hobbies and professions.
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