Wales November 2008

From ICCC

People

• Adam "Nepal Ease" Holland
• Rory "Gorge Walker" Fyffe
• Tom "Hey Arnold" Haywood
• Rach "The Fish" Fox
• Chad "Didn't" Sankey
• Ali "Head Chef" Cott
• Robert "Helmet Hunter" Macrae
• Andy "Mother's Ruin" Turner
• Rik "The Moth" Williams
• Holli "Icy Touch" Pritchard
• Jon "Sunday Skiver" Pritchard
• Giacomo "Translator" Perantoni
• Zoe "Do You Want A Fight About It" Huntley
• Joe "Outlawed" Rumer
• Ant "Anchorman" Farrington
• Sam "Mummy's Boy" Davies
• Chris "Umbrella" Zalitis
• Thomas "Tying On Tutee" Hird
• Heike "Hard As Nails" Leutheuser
• Mattia "Up For It" Lion
• Alby "Emo Ears" Roseveare
• Will "Better Than Rory" Eldred
• Chris "Super-Shuttle" Hampsheir
• Paula "Oor Wullie" Volkmer
• Adam "Hat-Fuelled-Ladder" Dumolo
• Sara "Hut Self-Abuse" James

Trip Report

Quote from Rory's email

"Given the events of this weekend I wanted to email you all. Firstly to thank you all for your help, level-headedness and patience last night. I was greatly pleased by the way the whole club reacted. Especially those for which this was their first ever kayaking trip. The team-work, initiative, sensitivity, professionalism and assumption of responsibility displayed last night was excellent and illustrates what a strong club we have this year. The emergency services and the couple involved send their thanks also."

Friday

Owing to a prior (and very funny) commitment for two of the drivers (Rachel and Andy), the buses left late. Journey up with few problems, arrived at the hut at 1am to find all the mattresses reserved. Humph.

Saturday

Adam, Tom, Andy, Rory, Rachel, Chad, other Adam and Robert got up to mission the Ogwen - perhaps the most difficult river yet for getting in and taking out. Tom and the Adams put on at the Scout hut, and arrived long before the rest of us had driven to Halfway Bridge. Mucho faff to get the boats untied, mucho faff driving to the take-out and parking (including a near return to form for Chad). Eventually we put on. The run was fun, big bumpy waves, lots of little horizon lines and weirs with some frantic signalling on the lip. Rachel had a few swims.

But nothing prepared us for the Grade V Takeout. Maybe there was an easier way out, like the path just before the bridge, but who can say? Even the person with the smug hindsight opted for the hard takeout. Where we actually took out involved climbing a 10ft vertical wall plus railings. Andy made the smooth move of getting his knee pinned in the railings. There was also some sort of incident with Rory crotch and another member of the club, while Rachel engaged the force and floated up...

Back in the buses, back to the hut. We arrived back at noon expecting a bunch of miffed non-missioners and rancid cold breakfast, but we found the non-missioners just getting out of bed and breakfast just cooked with us at the front of the queue. Result!

Everybody piled into the buses and went to the Glaslyn for a nice bimble through, well, the Glaslyn valley. This passed off without major incident, although there were a few swims along the way. Tom thoughtfully lead Heike into a strainer, Chris followed but in gentlemanly manner managed to avoid squishing either. Many rocks found.

Most people took out before the gorge, with the more experienced members going to inspect. Rory, Andy and Rachel all talked themselves out of doing it because of how big the hole at the bottom of breaker looked. However, the Adams and Tom ran it without upset. As soon as they got back Ally and a few others were waiting on the bank ready to have a go. Sam then persuaded Rory to get on, and Andy, not wanting to be AMOGed by Rory, got on too, and who else did this?. Robert climbed onto the bus roof and hid, perhaps remembering his last visit.

We went down in small groups. Despite everybody trying to run the centre line on the breaker, Andy decided it would be a good idea to run the nastier right line upside down - thus continuing his record of never running breaker in the correct orientation.

In the mean while, Ally and Rory took swims, with Rory losing both boat and paddles. Fortunately, he was able to recover the paddles, but the boat was firmly pinned. As luck would have it, it was pinned in a very accessible location, so Adam and Tom retrieved it without much bother.

Despite all this, the gorge was at a really sweet level: not too big, not scrapy, and those people who ran it ended up in the eddy underneath Breaker grinning and laughing.

One bus went to the pub, the other went back to the hut. Certain people (ahem) got very drunk on G&Ts whilst preparing dinner in an unusually refined environment. Classic FM??? Propriety was restored when Rory returned to lower to tone to a more traditional level and after a solid Chilli the hut virgins gave an unusually strong performance at their initiation, despite Joe's attempts to inject Cheerios into the proceedings. The usual drinking games ensued.

Sunday

Despite decided to mission and alarms being set, Andy, Tom and Adam all assumed that one of the other two would get them up, and fell back to sleep - so no mission. We all got up and faffed a lot, before driving over to the Conwy.

3 people decided not to paddle - boo! Mind you, it was very cold, very wet and very very windy, so it was perhaps understandable. The top bit of the Conwy went off with a few swims from newbies. Hargreaves Folly was at a fun level, (particularly for Tom's group who ran it blind) and provided many many swims. If you got the line slightly wrong, it was pushing into a very hard-to-exit eddy immediately below the main drop. Still, it would appear all groups got through.

Some people took out at the A5 road bridge, others carried on. Bryn-Bras Falls was at a nice level and the run was its usual chilled-but-charming self. Alby surprised himself by staying up; Ant by swimming. The lead group continued to the end to find the normal (river left) take-out has had a barbed wire fence put across it - so we had to trudge across the field river right... but then the fun began.

Loss of the Outlaw

Joe Rumer had a bit of a swim, resulting in the Outlaw pinning river centre, mid rapid, with no easy access from the bank. Joe tiptoed out along a 100m long, 10cm wide ledge while being showered with s**t from the road above from every west-bound car. Eventually Ally, Adam and Robert located the boat and spent the best part of an hour admiring it and hatching recovery plans. All it needed was two kayaks lowered from the road, two paddlers, two rope men tiptoeing in along the ledge... but we were forced to abandon its recovery due to a) nightfall b) the Outlaw using the cover of darkness to sneak out of the pin, and c) becoming involved in the rescue of a non-IC kayaker from above Conwy Falls.

The boat is currently MIA. The police have been informed. It is dangerous but not armed. If you happen to find a red and white Outlaw on the Conwy, do not approach but please contact us - canoe@imperial.ac.uk.

Incident at Conwy Falls

Whilst one bus was trying to sort the Outlaw incident, the girlfriend of Person A came screeching up, saying that Person A was clinging to a rock just above Conwy Falls - a very bad situation. Having alerted the Emergency Service, those still in kit raced down there to provide whatever assistance was possible until the rescue teams arrived.

It seems that Person A had failed to reach his shuttle at the agreed time, alerting his girlfriend to a problem. He had become stranded on a rock above Conwy Falls.

The chef in the Conwy Falls Cafe heard Person A's whistle and was able to alert people. There were some paddlers in the cafe at the time; they were able to get a rope down to Person A so that he was at least safe from falling into the river.

By this time it was getting dark and raining heavily. The emergency services turned up in force - Police, Ambulance, Fire, Mountain Rescue and Swift Water Response - and closed the road. All that we could realistically do was to stay out of the way, and to provide a group shelter, tea and hugs to those involved - who were clearly (and understandably) very shaken by the incident.

Fortunately, the story had a good resolution - after about 3 hours, Person A was extracted from the gorge by the emergency services. He was uninjured and did not need to be taken to hospital.

Email from the people involved:

"To all in IC Canoe Club,

We would like to say a big thank you to all of you who helped us last weekend at the River Conwy. Weather it was actually down there with Person A, or buying me tea and keeping me company! He realises it was stupid and has definitely learnt his lesson. On the Monday we drove from Conwy back down the river trying to look out for the boat that was lost, we eventually gave up when we got to Betws y Coed as it was getting dark. (After going back to the Cafe to have a look.) We parked up and had a walk around-only to find a car with Person's boat on top! We waited for half an hour for these two guys to get back to the car so we could get the boat back! They had found it at the bottom of Fairy Glen. It was actually not in too bad condition, all considering, only a few scratches, no padding left and bent flip switches. As far as we know they hadn't seen another one.

We are so sorry that you got back so late! And we hope that we haven't scared all your freshers from ever doing canoeing again.

So too Rory, Tom, Racheal, Chris and everyone else, thankyou so much, needless to say it won't be forgotton.

Thanks again"

Conclusion

With this little diversion, we arrived back in London very late - around 1.30am. After some uber-efficient sorting of the buses, we all went home to sleep off what was, for the most part, an excellent weekend's paddling.

Media

• photos from Rik

• BBC Coverage