Wales October 2003

From ICCC

People

• Tim "Big Fish" Burne
• "Calamity James" Pratt
• Theo "Glogg" Petre
• Ruth "Hot Lips" Loeffler
• Alexa "The Contortionist" Batten
• Sophie "Sleeping Dwarf" Gore
• Ralph "High Maintenance" Evins
• Joe "Cannonball" Nunan
• Robert "Ladder Genius" Macrae
• Ella "Quick Dip" Bonnist
• Nick "Fix-It" Farren
• Mark "(Don't follow my) Leader" Flower
• Emily "Directionless" Davies
• Amie "Mrs Poke" Young
• Chad Sankey (Man of Mystery)
• Alice "Fryup Virgin" Grogan
• Harry Wood (aka the BinLiner Monster)
• Claire "Oooh, that tickles" Browne

Trip Report

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind howled though the rigging and the waves lashed against the hull. The captain came up onto the deck and he said "Crew, crew, gather round crew. I want to tell you a story". And it went something like this:

After the drought, the rain came. And the intrepid paddlers were prepared, having organised their Fresher's Trip for exactly the right weekend. So there was an air of excitement as we congregated at stores, joined by a crack team of new initiates, to head up to Wales for the first time this year.

To everyone's relief, there were boats & kit for everyone, and the minibus was soon on its way out of London, closely followed by the van, whose drivers appeared a little lacking in the sense of direction department [more on that later]. Ruth & Joe disgusted everyone with a very involved conversation about human dissection, proving once and for all that medics are a bad idea. Our cross-country detour to pick up Ralph's boat (apparently "quite near" Oxford) clearly didn't agree with the minibus, which gave up on us in the middle of nowhere. Seeing smoke pouring from under the bonnet, we suspected the curse of the Postman Pat van and feared the worst. Luckily Nick managed to trace the problem to a loose fuel filter cap, so we were soon enjoying tea and cake chez Ralph.

We eventually arrived at the hut around 2.30am, where a wonderful surprise awaited us: the dodgy ex-NHS mattresses have been replaced, as have the hobs. Oh, and Alice was there. After some chilled out drinking in Halloween costume, by the light of a pumpkin that Tim had lovingly carved, there was a mass migration to bed at about 4.30, whereupon we discovered that plastic coated mattresses make horrible scrunchy noises. But they don't have horrible stains.

Since we had a massive contingent of whitewater novices, we decided to steer clear of any raging torrents and paddle the Aberglasyln on Saturday. Much faffing at the put-in, with Alexa doing various contortions to put on very small wetsuit (though she was pleased with the eventual "slimming" effect), and Claire carelessly throwing her boat into the middle of the lake. We eventually got everyone on the water for a bit of a skills session followed by a gentle poddle down some easy grade 2 with little incident, though Ella took a few swims (just testing the water temperature, apparently), and several people required assisted unpinning from rocks, with Joe seeming particularly useless at self-extraction.

Apart from Rob, all the spooners decided to watch rather than run the Gorge, so we felt duty-bound to provide some entertainment. Mark took a rather unconventional centre line down the Breaker which his group sensibly decided not to follow, Ruth took a short swim after running it backwards, and James carelessly smashed his paddles in half just above. Meanwhile, new-boy Ralph stole Poke's thunder by throwing in a casual (though accidental) freewheel on the lip. Oh, and Rob had a few swims throughout.

Since there was lots of enthusiasm for more paddling we decided to squeeze in another river - headed to do the Llugwy from Miner's Bridge. Emily was left in charge of the shuttle, clearly a mistake as she drove about 10k past the take-out, so by the time we finally got on the water it was beginning to get dark. A short run down to Betws-y-Coed took us through a couple of nice boulder gardens, which got the better of a few peoples route-finding skills, whilst Alice took a brief swim on a "ripple".

Stopped off in pub in Capel Curig for a few pints on the way home, leaving James to chauffeur an advance party back to the hut to get started on the chilli. Sadly, his bad luck with breakable objects continued, with some boats rudely bouncing off the roofrack and smashing one of the back passenger windows. Luckily were able to skilfully repair it using duck tape and bin bags before the torrential rain started, and had time to light a fire, start the chilli, and sample some delicious cocktails before everyone else got back.

In RobT's absence the mystery vegetable count was a little low, but the chilli was greatly enhanced by Harry's contribution of a catering-sized tin of TAT. This had duped him by masquerading as chopped tomatoes, but was eventually revealed to be red pepper puree Turbo-charged Swedish mulled wine (only 1/3 vodka) turned out to be an ideal accompanying beverage, and also ended up the dirty pint during the evening's single game of circle of death. Apparently this tasted "mmm, pretty nice", but that's coming from Theo who'll drink pretty much anything except lighter fluid. James' smashing spree continued with the untimely death of a mug With such a huge number of hut virgins to initiate, action soon switched to the ladder, with El Presidente giving a superb demonstration. Nearly everyone made it up, though some with more than a little assistance. For the boys Rob took the crown, with a masterful shoeless ascent, and Amie's frenzied dash was the envy of the girls, though I think she might have broken a few rules. Twister was duly played, with some girly lip on bellybutton action from Ruth and Claire.

Next was the highlight of the evening: a firework display. Some initial ignition problems (due to gale & torrential rain) were neatly solved by Theo's genius idea of using hot coals, and our pumpkin looked very scary with sparks flying out of its head. Meanwhile, Sophie had fallen asleep in a near-pefect imitation of RobT's normal pose: hood over head, sat up, with drink in had, - just missing the lit fag, but I'm sure she can work on that. At about this time, the idea of an early-morning Colwyn run was suggested, and a 7am start enthusiastically agreed on, in the wake of which the drinking started to distinctly peter out.

I'm far too lazy to get up at 7 on a Sunday, so here's an account from James "The Colwyn was lapping against 7 on the gauge and it proved even more steep and continuous than I remembered, though we portaged the drop with the grippy stopper. And the damage caused by the gorge speaks for itself!" After jinxing themselves by assuring the creek-boaters who they met at the top of the Gorge that "we've done this loads before in high water", the boys had an eventuful run, with Theo realising that a G-force is about as suitable as a coracle on grade V, and Tim taking his first swim in 4 years, writing his boat off in the process, and immediately wishing he'd not enthusiastically resurrected last year's muppet points system.

Their return to the hut prompted everyone else to start getting up, and novice fryer Alice supervised by Nick rustled up a lovely brekkie. Curious knocking noise was traced to the poke room, where Amie had been accidentally trapped for a few hours when someone wedged a mattress across the door. Original plans to paddle the Twymyn had to be scrapped as it was now about 1pm, and someone had a ferry to catch, so we settled for the Llugwy instead. Ralph, apparently keen not to get his hair wet led a mass wuss-out from the male freshers, and they went on a walk instead; the girlies were far more hardcore. Fast murky brown water took us to Cobden's Falls, which we inspected thanks to Theo perceptively identifying the last big eddy above it. Most people went down the far left, though there was some confusion amongst Tim's group about which way left actually was! Sophie took a swim halfway down, and Mark picked a very strange line - I think contact lenses have actually make his ability to route-find worse. The section below Pont Cyfng was actually pretty fun in high water - fast, with lots of waves and a nice grade 3 rapid. Sophie and Ella kept Theo & Harry busy with a few swims apiece, and Amie pulled off her first whitewater roll after slamming sideways into a stopper. Quite a long run, so by the time we were of the water it as dark, and the rain had returned. Those wearing drysuits were elected to tie boats on the roof, then it was back via Llangollen and one of the worst chippies I've every been to, arriving at college just before 1am. All in all, a great start to the year - cheers to all involved especially the drivers and organisers.