Freshers Trip 2008
From ICCC
Our first trip of the year took place on 25th-27th October
People
- Andy 'Pushy pushy' Turner
- Rory Fyffe
- Rachel 'Chocolate Fiend' Fox
- Holli 'Roll-up' Pritchard
- Oliver Walker
- Alistair Cott
- Charles Hudson
- Judy Fonville
- Tom Haywood
- Antony Farrington
- Joe Bibby
- Michael Eichenberger
- Joe Rumer
- Harry Wood
- Jonathan Pritchard
- Alexander Herriott
- Sophie Gore
- Chris 'Primarché Chic' Hampsheir
- Lars Kjar
- Derek 'Han Solo' Wong
- Sam 'Whole, Brian, with a W' Davies
- Bjorn Ericsson
- Ben Hoare
- Giacomo Perantoni
- Joe 'Chatty' Freeman
- Julia Barrott
- Jim Pullen
- Terry 'Flexible Friend' Chambers
- Mark Wardle
- Alexa 'Sinking Feeling' Batten
- Dr Robert 'Chewbacca' Tuley
- Rich - Mark's mate
- Robert Macrae
Trip Report
Friday
Rory made the textbook error of dispatching 2 people (Andy and Rachel) without financial responsibility to Tescos for the shopping. They returned with two trolleys full of alcohol and a few other things along the way, Two tins of Quality Street are a must for future trips! (Andy: believe it or not, it was Rachel who insisted on buying that much beer!). Shopping took longer than expected, with the second bus leaving the union at around 7.30pm. A mostly uneventful drive followed.
Upon arriving in the Lakes, we took a minor detour through Backbarrow to inspect the Leven - this may have spooked a few of the Freshers because it was absolutely stonking, with possibly not enough room to make it under the bridge.
We then proceeded to Spark Bridge, where the drinking continued until the wee small hours.
Saturday
The early-morning missioners got up and out at about 7am to run the River Sprint. This is a low-end Gr4 river just outside Kendal - certainly worth a go again.
The gauge was lower than the guidebook recommended (perhaps the only river in the lakes without enough water in it?), but we put on anyway. The first 2km or so was gentle Gr2, although with a few trees in places. The first main feature was S-bends, run by most (although Rachel looked at it for too long and walked). Mark W ended up running part of it backwards. A few more features, yadayadayada, and we made it to the end. A fun run!
Over at the Lune we found that the buses had arrived there about 1.5 hours earlier than expected, so despite Alistair's calisthenics we found a whole load of very cold looking freshers. A few of us ran Low Gill, a tiny trib right at the put-in. Most managed this OK, except Sam, who forgot to paddle, got his playboat stuck in a hole and swam - oh well!
We proceeded down the Lune, with all the new beginners on the river organised into many groups. It was initially at a medium/high level, which predictably prompted much swimming and rescuing, though Jon stayed dry. But the heavy rainfall was not letting up, and during the course of the run the river swelled to high/flash flood conditions. Features were completely submerged and replaced by alpine-style monster wave trains. Chaseboating became increasingly ridiculous with Tom and Jim corralling two near takeout just in time to watch another two canter by. The river had risen probably by at least a metre - enough for Rob T to take everyone off the river. One group made it to the bottom, but lots of people had to either walk across fields or be picked up by the bus.
Joe and Harry's group were accosted by a farmer ('Geroff moy land') whilst walking out. Jim deserves a diplomacy medal for placating the farmer. So that in the end he allowed us to walk out, albeit by a longer route, to a foot path. Interestingly while there is an access agreement on the Lune the farmer claims the BCU have never contacted him about it.
Driving back to the village hall, we encountered some flooded roads including one puddle which proved fatal for Alexa's car.
Saturday night saw the usual usual things happen - chilli consumed, drinks drunk - what was a bit more unusual was that the River Crake decided to join us. Well, perhaps not the river, but at the very least rain started to flood in from outside. Some losers went to bed at 9:15, when the electricity meter stopped working, but most stayed up to the small hours again.
Sunday
This morning's mission was to Barbon Beck. This is a continuous gd 3/4 spate trib of the Lune. It was just the select group of RobT, Jim, Tom and Mark that got on. It turned out to be a really good run at that grade, with most stuff read at river level via eddy-hoping. Unfortunately, the main drops had trees in them, resulting in a big river-left portage, lowering boats down on ropes and then seal-launching along a 20ft slope into the exit rapid from the grade 5. Everyone thought this was great fun, but Mark's (Alexa's) paddles didn't cope too well, resulting in a comedy swim. Jim finished the run with a bit of a trashing and swim in the final rapid, a walled-in very sticky boily-hole. His boat took ages to get out and the river had a good munch at the out-fitting whilst it was in there. He also lost his paddles, which he assumed were gone for good.
The rest of us drove over to North Yorkshire for the main paddle. It took us a while to get out of the Lakes because the Leven had flooded the road - the footbridge just below Backbarrow was in the water, the weir above it was Death On A Stick and there was no sign of the bridge arch on Backbarrow Bridge itself... perhaps we'll leave it to another day!
We met in Ingleton to run the Greta, not to be confused with the Greta or the Greta. We put on beneath the weir, which is apparently unportagable Gr4.
This is an excellent Freshers' river, mostly flat with Gr2 rapids and a good sprinkling of small playspots. The overnight rain had not swollen this river to unreasonable proportions (had chance to die down, or perhaps fell further West) and so the beginners, those who weren't too traumatised to get on, enjoyed a more controlled paddling experience and even some sunshine! Judy developed too close an interest in trees and there were a couple of weirs towards the end, but nobody seemed to have many problems.
Jim and Terry left while there was still daylight to look for paddles and lucky Jim found them wedged downstream of the hole, which was nice.
Failed to find a chippy, so it was a service station BK for the journey home. The first bus made it back to SK at about midnight.
Media
- Photos - Harry's are on there now
