Aire Waves: April 2006

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Aire Waves

Leeds Canoe Club Blog. We paddle... lots!
Airewaves used to be Leeds Canoe Club's magazine letting people know what the club was upto. Its quite hard work pulling together a publication letting people know what the club is doing and publishing dates in advance is always hard as things tend to change. Step forth the blog.. Push button publishing for the masses. So here is the idea a few people in the club take it in turns to write up trips and talk about things in the club.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

After last years dick of the year award came in my direction, I have been trying hard to ensure that I don't get it this year too. Now I can stop worrying, a true mate has stepped in to save me. This is the story of how Rolly Mark rescued Bob's throw line. Told by someone who wasn't there (although I was in spirit)

The tale begins with several hours of hard rope training, specifically in the use of the throw line to rescue out of boat paddlers, This was followed by Rolly Marks brave rescue simulation, to allow the newly trained to put in to practice what they had learnt.

Attempt one...
Mark drifts past as Bob shouts, hang on I wasn't ready.

A quick sprint down the side of the river (about half a mile before catching up with Mark and getting a little ahead)

Attempt two...
Throw bag ready, plenty of time, relax, take aim, throw. Oops forgot to hang on to the other end of the line.
Statement form Bob himself "as I threw him the rope I could feel the last few feet of the line, slip through my hands. I yelped like a puppy dog, not because I might loose my rope but knowing I was loosing what little pride I had"

Mark rescues both himself and Bob's rescue equipment. (Late info seems to point at Steve as being the rescuer of both Mark and the Throw line, although the rope took a lot more rescuing than the original paddler)

I his defense Bob stated "if Mark had waited for me to get in to position , we might not be having this conversation "

Excellent, one nominee for the dick of the year trophy, just 4 more peoples mistakes to highlight and I home and dry and award free this Christmas.

# posted by MT @ Wednesday, April 26, 2006 0 comments

Friday, April 14, 2006
Scotland Trip

I started writing this while stuck at an airport and it got pretty long winded 3 pages in word and I wasn't really going anywhere with it. Rather than heavy editing I'm just going to focus on some highlights.
These are the rivers we did,
The Roy (upper, gorge and lower)
The Pattack
Fecklin
Lower Gloy
The Etive
Spean Gorge.

There was an awlful lot of water around. It rained on and off all the time we were there. This made some of the rivers runable when they usually weren't and it also made some of them may be a little bigger than we could reasonably deal with.

The Roy Gorge was as usual excellent. I love the enclosed nature of the Gorge. The feeling that you are really somewhere you couldn't get to by any other means. And also the problems that an incident could cause you. Gill hurt her hand on the upper section of the Roy and I can't help thinking how different a story it would have been trying to evacuate someone from such a place. There was plenty of rolling and swims for all on the Roy.

The Fecklin has recently been dammed and a lot of water taken away from the main rapids. Still it was an excellent paddle. Something for everyone from complex rapids, huge cushion waves to large wave trains. A few people tried split decision, No two people had the same experience. Some people rolled, some swam, Jonny was even pinned upside down in his boat for a while.

The Lower Gloy runs down the side of the A82 and was decribed as an industrial paddle. A torturously narrow gorge with very steep sides and more than a couple of trees thrown in for good measure. 6 of us decided to paddle it on the way back from the Fecklin. I was glad we did. As we paddled we could see the tree line dropping away infront of us very quickly. Most sections of the gorge couldn't have been much than 5 meters wide. Andy had a luck escape from a pinning on a tree. He was intending to miss the tree but ended up getting swept backwards into the tree. Thankfully Jonathan and Jonny were on hand to get him free. The rest of us stuck with our decision to walk around that one.

Etive
Really looking back at this we should have gone somewhere else to paddle. Triple falls had a lot of water going over it. We have some videos of people running these and I will try and get them on the website somehow. I had a minor epic on triple falls, but not as much as Jonny had on the crack of doom. I’m not sure if Jonny got out of his boat to have a look at the drop or not. He ran the 90 degree corner but got slowed down a lot, he then paddled the last drop but didn’t get clear of the stopper and eventually got dragged back in. Because it was so aerated he couldn’t roll and ended up out of his boat. He was then trapped in the stopper unable to get out. Paul threw a throwline for him which did get to him ok but he was unable to see it because of the stopper. All of a sudden he disappeared ( he tucked into a small ball and sank) and thankfully reappeared a few meters away from the stopper and got out ok.
Undetered by his previous swim we got out to look at Right angle falls. A massive waterfall which is about 7 meters in height. Although it wasn’t actually raining (for once) the amount of spray coming off the water fall was amazing down below in the plunge pool were boils rising about a foot clear of the normal water level! Jonny ran the water fall and landed in the aerated water at the bottom. Trying to roll in the mess of water was proving hard as he couldn't get any grip on the water. Eventually he swam, the speed at which he was swept away from his boat into a near by eddy was fast indeed.

Spean Gorge.

Last day of the trip and we head down to spean bridge to paddle spean gorge. Most people have paddled this river at one time or another. Today the level was 1.4 on the SEPA guage. http://www.wheresthewater.com/wtw/ which is nearly medium flows. This made the river very different. Much of the rock banks were covered with water. Much of the fairy steps were covered over but a river wide diagonal wave had appeared which unsettled a few people before either dropping into the large hole on the river or pushing people over to the rocks. Paddling the rest of the river I was looking for sections from last time such as the witches cauldron. I think I missed it or swam in it I'm not sure. But it was certainly up. The 8 foot seal launch from last time much have only been a foot.. if that. The constriction was gone and was replaced with a big poor over. I think Julie had a problem here but I'm not sure what happened as I paddled down after her.

Overall it was an excellent weekend and really upped our game just that little bit more.

# posted by Gavin @ Friday, April 14, 2006 0 comments

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