Adventure Paddlers Weekend

Tom Haywood on Euthanasia Falls, The Dart

This was the weekend of the annual Adventure Paddlers Weekend organized by Gene 17. This involved kayaking in Devon with a series of lectures on the Saturday night, held at the River Dart Country night. Tom, Joe and I decided to drive down on the Thursday night and get a run in of the Hoaroak Water and East Lyn, before meeting up with Imperial Canoe club on the Friday night.

We were met by a nice medium level on the Hoaroak and East Lyn, two rivers that I had paddled almost a year ago to the day, but in massive spate! This meant we were unable to paddle the gorge section on the Lyn due to it being too high. However this year we managed to paddle it. We also walked up Hoaroak Water, a trib of the Lyn and found a series of interesting drops.

On Saturday and Sunday we paddled a very cold Dart. It was really good to get some of my friends from Imperial down the upper, who had never paddled it before.

Joe Freeman hucking his meat on Hoaroak Water!

Me on Hoaroak Water

Me on Hoaroak Water

Tom entering the Lyn Gorge

Firing it up on the gorge

The Lower Prysor

On Saturday Tom and I headed up to North Wales to meet Patrick Clissold and Tom Laws for some boating action. Unfortunately as usual the water level was very low. Undetered we decided to have a look at the lower prysor, as some of the drops go in low water. The first large fall at the get on is Rheader Du. This intimidating fall begins as a 30 metre slide into a ten metre waterfall at the bottom. After spending extensive time looking at it we decided to leave it for another day.

The rest of the river was a gorge walk with a boat save three really sweet draops into a vertical sided gorge. The first drop is a six metre waterfall into a large cauldron. We all came of this drop buzzing and remarked how similar it was to right angle on the etive. After this followed a really smoothe slide and a further smaller drop. Although the river was far to low to paddle other than these three drops we all felt it was worth it, and it's a new river to tick off!

India 2008

The Zanskar

This summer I went to India for over two months with the aim of paddling some of the best rivers the Indian Himalaya has to offer. I went with Tim Burne, Tom Haywood, Ralph Evins, Tom Laws, Patrick Clissold and Dave Goadby. The Expedition was to be exploritory with the aim of exploring the little paddled Spiti valley region in Himachal Pradesh as well as paddling some of the classic rivers the area had to offer. India is such a great destination for paddling because it is cheap, the logistics of traveling from river to river are easy and it offers some of the best paddling in the world.

Starting in Delhi, we worked our way up through the states of Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh exporing the rivers each region had to offer. There's a few photos here of some of the rivers we paddled, but I am in the process of writing a full trip report with river notes of all the rivers we did, which I will post up here when I have finished.

The Zanskar

The Tsarup Chu

Travelling high in the Spiti Valley

The Tsarup Chu

Locals

Crossing the Guyndi on our probable first descent

The Pindar

The Manalsu Nala

The Tons

The Yamuna

carrying to the put on

The Tons

The Hepste

Sgwd yr Eira Falls

I've just returned from my 15 week kayaking trip to the himalayas and I wanted to get out paddling back in the UK again. While I was away I realised how important it is to document all your kayaking adventures, so I've set up this blog to allow family and friends to see what I get up to when I go kayaking.

Joe Freeman, Mark Flower and myself decided to drive up from London to South Wales for the day and meet Rob Tuley to paddle the Hepste. The Hepste is a trib of the Mellte, a run that all of us, with the exception of Mark, had paddled before. We were curious, so we thought we'd go and explore!

The river felt like a mini expedition due to the walk in across the Brecon Beacons. A really rewarding way to start a river.

The walk in

Mark on one of the slides

The first half of the river was full of nice bedrock slides and ledge drops. Unfortunately the water level was on the low side, so it was all a bit scrapy. Apparently, above where we put in there is also a really sweet 5 metre waterfall! We'll definately come back again to this run when there is more water.

behind the waterfall

Joe on the first kayakless decent of Sgwd yr Eira...

After a couple of kilometres, the river suddenly drops away in the form of the huge Sgwd yr Eira Falls, which has been run, but we decided to portage. Immediately below here are three really nice drops in a gorge, but the fourth is a terminal waterfall landing on rocks. It is possible to run the first three, but you MUST make the eddy above the lip of the final fall. We decided it wasn't worth the risk - was very frustrating! The Hepste then flows into the Mellte a few hundred metres below here.

Overall an exploratory day. We'll be back in to do the upper in higher water.