"The current leverages the pole against the pivot so current pushed it goes all the way across. You want to stay on the upstream side of the pole, I think."
I am suddenly on my back, still gripping a tree limb, and the force of the water is dragging the loose object (me) UNDER the tree. My death grip on my tree branch continues, even past the time the branch breaksNow, had I stayed behind my rock and let YOU try to cross the river, I would have had a ringside seat to your poor decision, and believe me, I would NOT have done the same.
You would have seen me on my float / raft at the very upstream tip of the pole. I would push out the pole. The current would propel the pole away from me and I would float along behind the pole, using my legs to brace the float / raft upstream of the pole if necessary. I would ride this way as the upstream end of the pole swung across the river, where I would clamber out.
I would then free my end of the pole if the current had not already done so. The pole would then swing back to you, the tethered end now the upstream end. If you wanted you could make your own raft / float, then tether the downstream end, push the upstream end into the current, and duplicate my trip.
Of course, except for the few small scale tests I did, all of which appeared to be successful in proving the concept, there has been no full-scale, real world test of this method of river crossing. Probably there are some details to work out. I suspect you may want to make your raft / float integral with the upstream end of the pole, for example. A friend is intrigued and we will give it a try in stages during the warm months of 2011 in a relatively controlled and benign setting.
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