North Wales Feb 1997
From ICCC
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Trip Report
Well, this weekend's rain has just conspired to give us not only one of the most challenging weekend's canoeing - but also one of the most expensive. It had been raining all week and was destined to rain more.
Going up with two cars and a big bus wasn't likely to be a cost cutting option, but Jools losing another pair of the purple Prijon paddles, on the gorge on Saturday was a grand arse. Surprisingly, most of the rivers were quite low ( the River Conwy only at 2 on the gauge, and the Glaslyn quite low). Frank and Rob showed improvement on the upper section of the Glaslyn, whilst Jools tackled the gorge with more enthusiasm than control.
Food in the pub was OK and not too expensive, I suppose. Not much interest in beer from the boys either, although strangely plenty of interest in the backwards ladder climbing game.
The 'Breaker' in the Glaslyn Gorge
The nightmare begins
Next morning we saw the results of sustained rain throughout the night. the LLugwy had broken its banks in a few places. We assumed the Conwy to be really up. The scout party (Ross) found the Ogwen to be up to a paddleable level at 8am, but on arrival three hours later the level had risen considerably, and was inspiring 'The Fear' in most members present.
Today's paddle looked to be an excercise in proving adrenaline to be brown and to accumulate in the back of your wetty. After checking what the rest of the river looked like below the Gun Barrel (it's that fast!), it was decided that this was probably just about at the limits of most of those present, although many would argue this afterwards. The alternative was to sit in the tea shop all day. With retrospect, perhaps more would have chosen that option.
Setting off, Piers and I took the foolish step of running the Gun Barrel, in the Topo Duo. Hmm. Not the rapid to be getting to grips with the duo on, and was correspondingly unsuccesful, the big waves at the bottom munching us very efficiently. So after a very painful swim and false start, we set off again, but with Jools in the front of the Duo but not before some comedy rope rescues.
The casualties mount
When confronted with the next tricky section near Bethseda, Ross chose the most obvious route - he followed a local down. However, the local was a duck and was obviously more adept since this drop claimed one more swim. Most subsequently negotiated the alternative branch of the river, with much more succcess than I had expected although Colin was rather less lucky on the other branch and went down with chipped teeth and blood on face. End of the day's paddling for him.
Eventually we made it to the start of the hard bit - Fisherman's Gorge. Lots of water pouring down a boulder channel made for a very technical and intensive descent. This certainly took it's toll on the boys - Jez and James falling early (although I did land on an upside down Jez, rather prompting him to get out).
Having realised that we were actually in control of our rather large Topo Duo, we ran most of the length of this section with very few problems - the Topo sheds pins very easily. However the number of drops meant we had to make a mistake somewhere.... only three more little drops to the end, too.
Collecting up at the bottom, Piers, Ben, Ross and Adam had run this section unscathed, but the swim count was now up to five, once an exhausted Neil had demonstrated his inability to paddle roll several times.
Whilst sitting about waiting for Jez and James we had time to wave at a passing Mountain Rescue helicopter. Seemingly satisfied they carried on looking for whatever they'd come out for (hopefully not us!).
It all starts to go horribly wrong
Ben paddled down and ran back up with a continous supply of paddles. Ben then fell foul of his final pursuit neatly placing his paddles on river left and embedding his boat in a bush on river right. Adam also swam on the next section to his great annoyance, Jools had finally bowed to his fear after a very impressive paddling debut and walked, whilst Jez, James and Neil all decided to join the observers-only group. This left Ross and Piers and I in the Duo, and after a change of paddles (mine seemed to have gained an interesting kink in the middle of the blade) we paddled it with great skill and finesse (ask anyone who saw us - but that's no-one).
A terrible [censored] up with Ross's car keys then meant another hour before the bus could be moved down to pick up those waiting and their kit.
Could it possibly get any worse?
Our thanks to Frank, Rob and Piers for standing in the rain and strapping the boats on must be recorded here. At least their efforts were sound, unlike Neil and Ben's work with the Freefall and Vortex which Ross collected from various abandon-ship locations.
This was discovered as we stopped at the M40 services at Stratford - the Vortex hanging halfway out of the trailer, and the Freefall entirely absent. Contacting the local police we couldn't say much except that we'd come down the M54, M6, M42 M40 to get there, and couldn't say when it had gone - although the Vortex looked like it hadn't been in it's rather unstable location for long.
So the net kit loss this trip?
- Two paddles (one Prijon, one bent Ainsworth P800)
- One boat (Freefall. Very expensive.)
- Other injuries - Bruising (everyone), and a dynamic facial for Colin.
On the positive side, the club has tackled its most demanding river to date and fared surprisingly well. The Ogwen is by no means a trivial river to paddle which has shown up areas which the club should concentrate on improving.
Poor swimming excuses from this trip -
"I got stuck upside down in a hole for ages" (Adam)
"The Duo landed on top of me "(Jez)
