Join the LCCC

To apply for membership, first please read carefully the following waiver:

1. LCCC distributes the 1989 American Whitewater Affiliation safety code. Member acknowledges having a copy. LCCC advises members to study safety advice in the most current American Red Cross version of Canoeing and Kayaking, in the Appalachian Mountain Club's River Rescue, by Les Bechdel and Slim Ray (Boston: 1989), and in the Journal of the AWA, and to take a clinic on river safety and rescue.

2. The literature discusses common dangers, but on the water perhaps nobody will recognize the danger. Hunger, fatigue and weather weaken perception and judgment. A little imagination suggests dangers not ordinarily discussed, such as car wrecks, solvent fumes while working on boats, back injuries from portaging, rattlesnake bites while scouting, and so on. There are more risks inherent in the sport than the club can itemize.

3. People make errors in judgment and execution. Boats collide, perhaps because somebody loses control or doesn't look. Lead boats signal a following boat into a bad route through a rapid. Rescuers throw ropes errantly or pull a pinned boat into a worse fix. CPR cards expire. Somebody fails to tie a canoe down to a car. LCCC regards such events as errors of strategy or execution made in a sport, and it wants to limit liability for the consequences. Each member must anticipate the errors of others and take appropriate precautions.

4. The club can't expect members to hazard their families' financial security when they volunteer to coordinate trips. Coordinators' only reward is esteem, and the club believes their only penalty should be loss of that esteem. This waiver therefore excludes liability for setting bad examples, advising erroneously, misjudging a participant's readiness for a trip, or otherwise falling short of the coordination the club hopes for. Coordinators are not certified by any outside agency; any coordination standards the club may adopt are exhortations, not guarantees.

5. By joining LCCC the member assumes the risks of death or injury mentioned here or in the literature and those inherent in the sport. The member waives claims which may arise against the club, its members, officers, servants, agents and trip coordinators, for death or injury to person or property, including claims of vicarious liability and claims arising from civil recklessness or any degree of negligence. Not waived are claims against an individual who causes injury intentionally or with criminal recklessness and claims among driver, owner and passengers of a motor vehicle for injuries ordinarily covered by insurance.

6. LCCC adopts the AWA code's declaration of an individual's responsibility for his or her own decisions. Only the paddler knows his or her own health, strength and preparedness. Each experienced paddler has at some time declined to put in after arriving at a river or lake shore even though others did, or declined to run a particular rapids even though others did. LCCC disavows the AWA code's characterization of a river trip as a "common adventure" in which participants "share the responsibility for the conduct of the trip."

7. This waiver shall be broadly construed in favor of protection from liability, as members are mutually relinquishing possible claims in exchange for protection. Protection extends to guests who have signed the club's waiver. Only formal action at a club meeting can relax the liability limits. The limits apply among members even on private boating trips and after membership is discontinued, unless the persons involved agree otherwise. Anyone may start a new club with different liability limits