Glasgow Uni Canoe Club

Things which happened to me last term

2012-01-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

Since not much has been posted on the blog recently here is an account of the rivers and stuff I’ve done with the club and people from the club over the first term of this year. Obviously other stuff did happen but if I wasn’t there then I can’t really write about it, hopefully someone else will. It’s been a pretty busy term which is probably why my exam at the end of it went badly!

Wet west: We went to it. A really good group of Gucc headed up this year and had a good weekends paddling thanks to excellent organisation of the SCA (well worth my Grandmother’s scorn for missing my cousin’s wedding). On the Saturday an impressive number of people got on the Morriston and Harry took one for the team with a good underwater beating. Sunday was a bit more subdued on the Garry as everyone was feeling the night before! It was good to mingle in the Scottish paddling community, even if Fraser did nearly punch someone from Dundee.

Freshers’ trips: We decided to be nice this year and not just throw freshers down scary rivers, we even had a flat water introduction. The flat water was Loch Lomond and we went to wallaby island where we saw Wallabies, this was the highlight of my life!

The second freshers’ trip went to the Teith (basically flat water), the biggest hazard turned out to be water bourne bacteria and parasites – unlucky Holly! After the teith one foolish and irresponsible member of the club decided to pass the rest of the afternoon by paddling Bracklin falls on the Keltie. This turned into a demonstration for the freshers of ‘how to swim off a seven meter waterfall with rocks in the bottom narrowly avoiding a massive siphon’.

The next weekend was spent doing the lower orchy twice, on Saturday it was a nice friendly level on Sunday pretty high so a reasonable amount of carnage ensued.
North East weekend: A beginners’ weekend up in Nethy bridge which went really well with miraculously little ffaff leading to rumours that Emma has a deal with Satan. Stayed in an awesome bunkhouse and did the middle Findhorn low on Saturday and a bit higher on Sunday so really good for learning and progressing and what not. Bumped into Dundee on the river but Fraser controlled himself.

Intermediate trip: Upper Braan; never done it before was nice, quite alpine in a not sunny sort of way. Had a couple of swims but all dealt with though my driving was very poorly received.

Mach: Surf kayaking weekend which I couldn’t go on but I understand some good surf was had in between the massive levels of drunkenness. However on this weekend Rupert and I hijacked a mountaineering club trip and went paddling up around Spean Bridge. Did Pattack, Arkaig and Abhain Gulibhinn. The many miles walked with boat was character building!

Beginners’ trip pre Christmas: Did the Avon near Edinburgh which is quite nice if cold and snowy (not that this is a year round feature obviously). Don’t think we got the hang of the get out though as we had to climb through a very private looking yard over a pretty big wall.

Stuff paddled not on club trips but with club people: The Tilt-Brilliant river, the 9km walk in almost adds to enjoymet by adding to the sense of adventure. The Leny- A lot! The Keltie- one of my favourite rivers in the world including a partially successful attempt at Bracklin. The Etive- had a day when a load of us did it at a really good level, great fun with plenty of carnage! Mousewater- an excellent river really close to Glasgow which I’m ashamed I’ve not paddled before (shuttle did take longer than hoped though). Kinglas (rest and be thankful)- lived up to all the hype even if we didn’t do it high enough to be considered real men! The middle orchy- a couple of times on 5 on the gauge the guidebook does not lie about the mind altering bit! My paddles did slightly snap in half though which was a shame. The Carron- Possibly a first decent? Probably not but it’s not in the guide and asked around and not found anyone who’s done it yet, pretty good 3/4 fun with one very definite portage. I might even get round to writing up a guide for it sometime. (there were quite a few swims in there too!)

Seal pups, cuboards of lost kayaks and how to not cause carnage; a year in the life of a ‘typical’ fresher with GUCC.

2011-07-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

I Joined the club in September as a Fresher, yey!

I’m an art student so this post will probably involve more pictures than words. But I have been told only to post up ‘fluffy’ pictures. Here goes.
Admittedly I had done a little bit of boating before I came up here including a bit in Scotland.

My course has been pretty busy this year but I’ve managed to get out paddling a little bit, although not as much as I’d like. We’ve had lots of trips out and about in Scotland, we went to the French Alps for two weeks, there’s been some canoe polo and even a couple of slightly tipsy nights out in Glasgow.

One of the things I love about paddling white water is going out and exploring new rivers. Revisiting classics like the Etive is fun too but there’s something special about going somewhere new and as great as the rivers in the South West of England are it’s nice to get out and explore new ones.

I’ve managed to tick of a fair few rivers that are new to me with GUCC including that I can remember:
Allan (watch out for seals and water nymphs)
Middle Orchy (eventually)
Upper Orchy
The lower Etive
The upper upper Etive
Dalness section of the Etive
Braan (watch out for seals and Ben http://vimeo.com/26364705)
Tilt
Caddick lane
Fyne
Moriston
Garry
Tay
Spean gorge (will only paddle this from now on when there isn’t snow about)
Leven
Minnoch
Connonish
Gyr (on the alps trip, watch out for French seals)
Durance gorge (also on the alps trip)

Once this year I even saw the legendary Chris Bell look scared. (Albeit whilst climbing)

There has been a fair amount of carnage this year. I lost some kit on a river for the first time. A boat and paddle on the Allan which accidentally fell into the river whilst we were inspecting round the corner and is certainly not funny. The boat was a red dagger CFS called Raspberry, if you see her in the North Sea on her way to Norway let me know. Personally I think she has found her way to a secret cupboard of lost kayaks. She will be missed. My new boat is a ginger Dagger Nomad who’s still awaiting a name. She is not nearly as well behaved as Raspberry was.

Towards the end of the year I seem to have also remembered the nasty habit of swimming. Twice! That will have to stop, although both times were on account of me spotting some seal pups lost amongst the maelstrom of swirling dangerous white water and getting out of my boat to rescue them. Ahem. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with having a misbehaving boat or being a wuss and pulling the gay bar. Contrary to what other people in the club think, swimming is BAD.
Generally GUCC seem to try and break or loose at least 3 boats a month, any less than that and its considered uneventful. I’m impressed that I’ve managed to write so much without offending anyone. Art students aren’t very good at that.

The canoe club is a great way of meeting people and generally they‘re a great bunch of people. Maybe one or two could do with drinking a bottle of port more often. One of the best things about the club is the large amount of ginger people. That’s very good as ginger people are better than normal people.

Things to do next year:
- Paddle with Paddy, the only ginger in the club I haven’t paddled with.
- Don’t loose any more kit.
- Don’t swim as much.
- Man up and paddle some classics, ideally the Kinglas, Nevis, Falloch and Coe before I potentially move back down south.
- Find a river that’s as good as the Dart.
- Generally behave myself about as much as I have this year. Impeccably.

Written by Ezra

Alps 2011 - the Tom perspective

2011-07-18T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is a quick run trough of what I can remember happening during this year’s Alps trip, there may be a few mistakes in terms of which rivers got done when and in what order the days happened. Hopefully a few other people will join in on the old blogging lark and a combination of posts should give a vaguely coherent record of the trip.

We had a total of two weeks set aside for the trip, taking away the two days either side for driving and a rest day that left nine days of paddling – good shit.

The trip did not start well with the trailer lights not really working. Despite the advice of the GUSA travel convener to ‘just stick your hand out of the window’ we decided it was probably worth getting it fixed, so we went for a trip to Cat’s house. By a process of cutting wires and sticking them back together in different orders Cat’s dad managed to get the lights working while Cat’s mum gave us tea and scones, it was awesome, which is why I propose we don’t go to the Alps next year and just stay at Cat’s house for a fortnight instead. By this point we were running at the limits of our schedule and had to haul ass to Dover.

Many, many hours later we arrived at the campsite and following the erection of Cat and Emma’s scaled up version of Blenhim Palace masquerading as a tent we went for a play on the slalom course, this lead to the first swim and a shoe beer for Arran.

Day one proper saw the compulsory first river being the Sunshine run on the Durance, which was low (the Rab wave was more of a Rab hole) followed by the upper Guisane which was also low and full of rocks. After these two fairly uneventful runs we decided to squeeze in the lower Guisane before six. This didn’t happen and as we thought we’d better wait at least a couple of days before engaging in criminal activity we got off before getting into the guts of the run.

Day two began with the Briancon gorge which was low and had building works blocking the slide on the barrage – the highlight of any Alps trip which was a shame. Next we actually managed to get the lower Guisane done. It was on the lower end of the scale but still really fun and quite technical with a lot of rock dodging. Noteworthy incidents included Fraser being upside down and lacking paddles before recovering and Dan having a bit of a swim (another shoe beer). For the final action of the day we had a wee jaunt down the Gyronde, it was low but a three river day’s a three river day.

The following day we headed up to the Guil as there was more water up there than in the Briancon area. We started with the upper gorge section which was fairly high and had a few fairly meaty holes on it, a fun river which was only slightly ruined by Sean pissing in my mouth off a bridge. Emma had a swim as well which lead to a shoe litchi and passion fruit gay juice.

Day three of Alps trips traditionally ends in carnage, which raises the question why I decided to run triple step, a drop with a large cave half way down. However despite assembling literally everyone in kit with throw lines for me to spend ten seconds running one drop no carnage occurred and I managed to wash the brown colour out of my shorts before anyone noticed. After watching a few rafts run down, also with no carnage, we left disappointed.

The next day saw us heading to the Ubaye. The gorge looked a bit easy so we didn’t bother and went and ran the upper instead, a really long fun bouncy stretch of river in the sun. In the afternoon we ran the racecourse section with a little help from an utter lad of a French raft guide who was soling it at the same time as us. This was a very cool bit of paddling with a bit more volume that the runs we’d done up until that point and a truly awesome bit of scenery at the end as we paddled into the entrance of a huge gorge under a Roman bridge.

By the time we got back to the campsite Emma’s car was making some concerning noises so the next morning a recovery van came and took it to a Toyota garage in Embrum who in testament to the work ethic that France is famous for, took only a week to fix it! So with only one vehicle we were forced to stay close to L’Argantier. Fortunately a bit of rain had picked the levels up so we hit the Onde followed by the Gyr. The Onde saw Kieran looking slightly concered for the first time despite having been paddling less than a year (not that concerned though) and the Gyr had swims for Ezra and Harry. Ezra’s boat had to be retrieved from a barrage and Harry’s came back full of stones but otherwise all was well. For a quick last run we did the Gyronde back to the campsite. Nothing happened that evening.

Saturday was a rest day which gave us a chance to recover from the events which did not happen the night before and sort out a hire car to replace Emma’s for a couple of days.

Sunday saw a return to boating but I can’t remember exactly what rivers we did. I think we did the Lower Guisane in the morning (Cat manned up) and quite a high Gyronde in the afternoon. The lower Guisane was made interesting by the nose of Sean’s boat almost completely falling off and the Gyronde caused Kieran ever so slightly more concern. The evening’s entertainment involved boat welding.

A return to the Guil the next day saw good water levels yet again. We ran the upper gorge again, this time with everyone getting on. Kieran at one point had an expression which looked border line scared, but this was probably just my imagination. After this we ran the lower section of the middle Guil from ‘le tunnel down’. This was pretty cool and we felt quite proud of ourselves until some crazy Germans turned up having paddle the whole of the Guil from Guardian Angel down and made us realize how futile and pathetic our paddling achievements really are.

Tuesday was Sean’s last day, so in celebration Sean, Ezra and I along with some strange people from Bath Uni, one of whom kept calling himself Dragon, went and did the Durance gorge. This sounds impressive but it was not. It was really low and not very hard at all but none the less a pretty cool place to be and a good day out. While we did this the rest of the group ran the Onde and some tree related incidents occurred. Cat also caused some poor unsuspecting boy from Newcastle to fall in love with her before cruelly breaking his heart. That evening we waved a teary goodbye to Sean and Dan sobbed pathetically all night.

On the last day the weather was crap but we soldiered on and went and ran the Briancon Gorge. Yet again it was low and smelled of poo but this time we made friends with a crane driver half way down which made it all worth wile. Callum and Arran had a swim each and were given a good shoe beering. By the time we’d had lunch everyone was too cold and wet to be arsed with another river so we went back to the campsite and stood in the shower until the rain stopped. That night we dismantled Cat and Emma’s mansion and they were sent to stay in Dan’s tent to make them realize what its like to sleep in a tent which does not cover a medium sized French parish.

The next morning saw most of our lives take a turn for the worse as we had to leave the Alps. Our journey home involved driving, some ferrying and fun games involving listing rivers which start with every letter of the alphabet. Emma, Gregor, Fraser and Dan stayed out for an extra couple of days before driving back in the car which had been speedily repaired by hard working, sober French mechanics. From what I’ve heard their journey involved, trespassing, nearly getting kidnapped and eaten by dogs, public drunkenness and Dan freaking people out in Paris by waving at them a lot.

It was a good trip.

Terrific Tummel

2011-07-17T05:05:00.000-07:00

This trip was one with Ross Barnie and Kieran McAllister, both of whom have suffered a few trips with terrible weather recently, so it’s about time that we got a beauty of a day. With the sun quite literally beating down on us, the car was packed, and our course set for the Upper Tummel. On the drive up the side of Loch Tummel, we had a rather entertaining encounter with a herd of cows...though at one point I was worried about the safety of my wing mirrors.

Arriving at the Upper Tummel, Kieran and Ross both agreed that my proposed shorter run of the upper section as it cut out two kilometres of flat water for a single grade 3 river at the village of Tummel Bridge.

The Upper Tummel consists mostly of small and medium sized drops without anything too technical about them. The exception to this is a grade 4 rapid about half way down. Z-Bends is a two piece spectacle and has a tricky entry, a sharp right turn before encountering the main drop ending in a plunge pool that shoves you river left into a slightly undercut cliff face. Unfortunately, with only three people to work with, we decided to give it a miss and take the river right portage – the worst part about that decision is that I still haven’t paddled this section, and Ross has....urgh!

The last rapid that we took is a grade 3 sitting river left. This rapid, both gentle and fun, is a wonderful way to end the river, but bungling the walk back to a good filming point meant that I managed to fall into the rapid with my camera running. Bit of a fail to be honest.

Seeing workers at Clunie Dam, we decided to skip the easier sections of the Lower Tummel, instead getting on shortly above the first grade 4, S-Bends. Ross and Kieran jumped out to double-check the line on the rapid while I was running it. Nothing eventful happened here, though Ross’ line wasn’t as good as his previous one had been - considering how much better a paddler he is now, that's pretty bad. Kieran, despite a good initial line and an attempt at a bow rudder was shoved onto the rockface and spent some time trying to get out.

Next was the Linn of Tummel. This grade 4, two tier rapid is all about the entry - provided you make the right entry, you'll be fine; screw it up and you're on the rocks. Once again, I demonstrated the correct route, and much as last time annoyed Ross by making it look easy. When Kieran and I were set-up for some safety, Ross took to the river and, despite being utterly terrified, mostly styled it. The reason for this 'mostly' is a bit of a Burning Man pose that I missed at the time, and could have been problematic had his line not been almost perfect. Kieran, having had a great day and knowing we were likely to return two days later opted for the better part of valour, only tackling the drop without the worry of the run-in.

With our day complete, we paddled back in the blistering heat to the picnic site, where drinks and snacks awaited our successful return.

Low Low Lugar

2011-03-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I decided that I'd quite like to explore some new rivers, in the hopes of finding one that the canoe club doesn't do normally, but is in fact, a classic.

To that end, I compiled a list, and some of those rivers were looked at as possibilities for this trip: the Lugar; the Ayr, and the Middle Doon.

The guidebook says that if the get-on for the Lugar looks paddleable, the rest of the run will be too: this is a lie. If the get on looks runnable, the rest will be a scrape. I imagine that if there was more water around (if "Where's the Water" shows the Ayr as on high) then this might make a good trip. As it was, we often had more fun on the flat bits than on the rapids, as we had freedom to move.

The entry to the river was quite fun, with a sliding wier that everyone ran and enjoyed (and I think Stephan went back for seconds), unfortunately, this was the best we were going to get for quite a while.

Whilst I found the other rapids combersome, I had nowhere near the same issues as Peter, Stephan or Ross (though as their kayaks are either heavier, or more prone to pinning than my Mamba, even that doesn't say much). The river did provide two positives: Elspeth is now less afraid of river (I'm not going to call this white-water) paddling, and Peter has now had a swim-free river trip!

The last rapid on the river, even at this level, I'd say is worthy of a grade 3- rating, and would probably be 3+ if more water went through it.

At roughtly 8km long, that this river needs more water was a lesson learned the hard way, but in the end we had an enjoyable day, paddled a new river, and learned the merits of having a little more water in the area.

Intermediate Weekend

2011-03-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

When the Intermediate Weekend was announced, I was sceptical of its ability to separate those who are beginners going on intermediate, and those who are intermediate and looking to up their game. And it turns out I was both right and wrong on the same count, for while not all of those invited to take part in the trip were of intermediate standard, those who weren’t at least had the mentality to get down to business and paddle.

Without bothering to list all the times that faff bothered various people, or the intricacies of the drive to Fort William, the debates on where to go, or the facilities in the hall, I shall jump right to the get-on for the Spean Gorge: a good intermediate river, with two advanced rapids.

Our newly elected commodore, Harry Brickell, was feeling the worse for wear (we still don’t really know why), and decided to get off within the first 100m of the river. This particularly cold March morning then decided to press the matter home with some snow after we’d tackled a couple of warm-up grade 2 rapids.

In this section, the only people who were being watched over closely were Kieran (who’d only ever paddled one river before), Ameila (who hadn’t paddled rivers in a long time), and Peter (who tried valiantly to win the award for most swims two years in a row). However, all of them were having a good time of it, and though Amelia in particular was nervous, Amy was keeping a close eye on her, and providing ‘encouragement’ when necessary.

Eventually, we did have a swimmer, and it was Peter. With a loud shout and some cursing he used up the breath he had for a roll and began our swim count...however it was soon joined by many, many more.

We reached the first named rapid of the Gorge, “Fairy Steps”, and here Kieran at last succumbed to a swim, joined by Callum and others. I feel part responsible for this as I was leading him down, but I don’t think I could have picked a nicer line. That Ross rolled following Kieran’s line may mean that they were, in fact, slightly off the one that I’d picked out.

Anyway, this introduced a number of our 18 paddlers to how cold the river was, and many more were to discover this first hand as we moved into sections of the gorge with weird, twisting eddy lines in the middle of the flow. Kieran, Emma, Stephan and Callum all succumbed to these at various stages, and the day was still getting colder, with snow piling on.

Ezra and Tom both ran the grade 5 rapid “Headbanger” (I’m sure Chris would have if he hadn’t escorted Amelia and Louise off the river earlier as it was too cold for them) and both styled it. The later grade 5 “Constriction” everyone walked. As Tom described it, “Constriction is in fact highly unrewarding, highly dangerous, flat water.”

By now most of the interesting stuff on the Spean Gorge had been paddled, and it was a long paddle to the egress point. Normally this is a nice, relaxing stretch – but with the extreme cold and continuing snow, we were trying to race through this – so it was far less enjoyable than normal.

The get-out was ridiculously cold, and it was a race to pack the boats and get back to the hall (with all thoughts of a second river swiftly forgotten).

Saturday night’s snow swept away all chances of another river in Fort William, so it was a race back down to Glasgow in the hopes of paddling the Middle Orchy.

Passing by foot high snow drifts, it was evident that ‘cold’ would not adequately describe any river we were to paddle. Upon arriving at the Orchy, only Tom, Harry and Amy were in a mood to paddle, jumping on at Sore-Tooth, planning on heading down to Witches Step. The minibus headed down to Witches Step, and once there, Stephan, Dan and Arran decided that they’d be up for running it a couple of times. This led to Arran’s one swim of the weekend. On their second run, they came down with the main group, and with six successful drops by the side of the central rock, it was time to pack up and go home.

This marks a GUCC first for 2010/2011, with Amy’s discovery of a set of paddles at the side of the river, we returned with more kit than we set out with.
So, with 17 genuine river swims, and 1 gimpy swim from Gregor, this weekend almost rivalled the North East Weekend for its carnage.

Roll on next year :)

Paul

The Awesome Awe (yes, I know it's an overused joke)

2011-03-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've been asked to lead a club trip, so it made for a nice change of pace, what I wasn't expecting was for my back-up to be someone I'd never paddled with before (in fact who had never paddled with the club) and Ross!

So first thing in the morning, we three (well, more Stephan and I), discussed where we should go: the Upper & Lower Orchy; the Nith; the Middle Etive (which I veto'd); the Lower Tummel... The list was a lot longer than I'd expected, but in the end, the Awe was the decision, and based on our day, it was the right one.

After loading up the boats, we set for the Awe, with the sun shining and the skies blue as far as the eye could see...until we arrived at the river when it began to rain and hail. Running the shuttle, Breffni and I got help from Alex and Haydn of Strathclyde Uni Canoe Club fame, which dramatically improved our return time.

Once we were on the river, the weather settled, and we headed down. With Ross doing safety for the first time, and with neither Stephan or I having paddled the Awe in nearly three years, we took it slow. There were times where we got out and inspected a rapid to make sure it did what we were expecting: sometimes we stayed there to indicate a line; sometimes we noted the line and went back; and at least once it was a false alarm entirely!

The first real rapid (I think it's called Magnetic Rock) was where most of the interesting stuff happened. Breffni and George both got tangled in some rocks, but wrestled their way out (George doing probably the strangest roll in history!), Peter found himself upsidedown on top of a rock, and flipped himself back up, only to capsize and start the swim count for the trip. Shona got a very good line through the rapid, much to our delight, and from this point onwards it was mostly plain sailing.

Everyone on the trip did well, and even tolerated the two races that I set up (which were actually disguised ferry glide training). George deserves a mention for his....interesting?....roll on one of the first rapids of the river. Breffni deserves one for trying to pick her own lines, Shona for going from two swims on her last trip to zero, and Peter gets one for putting a cone on SUCC's minibus. Oh, and thank you to Stephan and Ross for helping with safety.

All in all, a good trip.

yon trip

2011-02-04T02:21:00.000-08:00

Sunday the 30th marked the first club trip of the year where we weren’t affected by ridiculously high water levels, instead, we had the exact opposite problem. Low levels meant a trip to the Upper Tummel, in a hope that the compensation release would provide with a bit of h2o induced fun.

[STANDARD CHAT ABOUT FAFF, PACKING THE BUS AND DRIVING]

Due to lower levels it gave some new paddlers the chance to lead the trip down the river. An improvised safety talk lacked the usual fear inducing quality that has become a staple aspect of previous ones; mainly due to the fact this one was done via interpretative dance. Harry was our leader for the day with Gregor assuming his usual role and driving from behind. The first few slides eased us into the day without any problems and we started the long scrape down the river, our only respite from this were the HUGE stretches of flat water now and again. The first test came at Z-falls, a gnarly, double drop rapid (rumour has it’s called Z-falls because Anton Immler’s left leg was in the shape of a Z last time he tried to run the rapid and swam).

Ben set up camera after the first drop and we all cautiously negotiated the first drop, safety standing idly by as we styled it one after the other. The second drop (more of a chute) was survived by most, apart from the cruel beating it imparted upon Euan R. Some say that it’s been so long since Euan swam he’s forgotten how to, and that last time he did actually swim he was plucked out the river by a Diplodocus. Other members of the group (Anthony) were so shocked this had happened they ploughed down the rapid to get a close look, almost landing on top of Euan – classic crazy, French guy! Everyone was back in there boats and we continued down the river until something of an equally amazing quality happened. Sean, only on his second river trip, went off a ledge, caught an edge and tipped in. His paddles popped out from under his boat and we all feared the worst. Yet with a hip flick Shakira would be proud of he rolled himself back up, so quick I question whether he actually got his hair wet.

The last slide provided no victims and everyone had a play around in the hole at the bottom of it. This resulted in two further swimming incidents, one from myself and Anthony chipping in with another. Both as equally gimpy as each other.

An enjoyable day was had by all, we made the best of the levels we had and Euan got to remember what it felt like to have to dry himself after a days kayaking, something he hasn’t had to do since they used the hides of a woolly mammoth to dry off.

fradizzle

Quite the day out

2011-01-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

A few of us decided to go out for a paddle on Saturday which turned into a pretty eventful day which I feel should be recorded for posterity. It was such an eventful day that I’ll probably forget some of the events but I will try to remember the best ones.

We set off from Glasgow in the pissing rain with the intention of paddling the Ducharay water but as we got nearer and it kept raining and the roads were flooding we decided it’d be too high so changed our plans to go and paddle the Monachyle burn. Upon arrival we discovered that it was humping and flowing largely through a veritable arboretum so we ran away. The plan now changed to an intention to paddle the water of Ruchil. We got there to find it looked huge but probably paddleable so began heading up the Glen. The road was however covered with patches of thick ice with deep grooves cut into them where water had been flowing. This proved unfortunate as Ben got the wheels of his car stuck in the channels leading to him needing to be pushed and towed out. At this point we gave up ad decided to go and do the Knaik instead. (Oh, in between the Monochyle burn and the Ruchil the boats all fell off Ben’s roof).

The Knaik was also at a level which would have made Noah head off to B&Q in search off Gofer wood to construct an ark but we felt it was worth a shot. We were forced to abandon this plan by a large puddle which made shuttling impossible. Having more or less exhausted any other rivers in the Central Scotland section of the guidebook we went to the Allan Water which I am reliably informed never gets too big. We got on, paddled down to the first weir and got out to inspect. It looked munching but runnable. Chris, Mark and I ran it first and got on fine. Around the corner was apparently ‘nothing’, which is entirely accurate if ‘nothing’ is the new word for ‘big hole’. To my horror I spotted a group of baby seals getting worked in the hole so without a second thought for my own safety I threw myself into the midst of this churning maelstrom and began hurling the poor creatures from the hole to freedom. Chris joined me in this effort and together we saved them all. We were both forced to swim and I remained in the hole for a while longer while out of my boat and checked the river bed in detail for any Seal pups we had missed. Chris and I lost a boat each and I lost my paddles but it was worth it to save those adorable little creatures. Some would say we were heroes that day but I’d like to think that any other decent, seal loving person would have done the same thing.

Happy in the knowledge that the seal pups were safe Chris walked back up to his car and drove down to the bottom of the river in the hope of catching our kit while I walked the rest of the river to see if any had been caught up. The rest of the group paddled on. Further on down the run the river split into two channels where the flood water ran across a wooded field. The main channel was nice and clear with no trees, while the new channel was full of trees, Sean chose to paddle through the trees. This resulted in him swimming, his boat getting pinned and him being forced against a branch clinging on with his head just above water. Ben ran to his aid and the two of them shared an embrace so tender and poignant that it made the Lassie films look callous and unemotional, before Sean and his boat were pulled to safety.

Meanwhile at the get out, the police had taken an interest in goings on and had come over to have a chat with Chris, Harry and Gregor. Mid way through his description of the lost kit Chris spotted my boat floating past, dived into the river on live bait and began swimming after it but ran out of rope and the boat ran away, he was then pulled back into the bank where he continued his interview.

Due to the fact that the river was flowing so fast and eddies were few and far between those left on the river were having to get out and scout quite a long way ahead to find the next eddy. It was during one of these scouting trips that Ezra’s boat and paddles slid into the river and floated away never to be seen again (except by the sizeable crowd next to the weir in Bridge of Allan who seemed quite entertained by events). It is important to note that no one at all finds this funny.

That night I spent the evening trying to impress girls with tales of my heroic seal rescuing. It did not work.

Freshers' trips Part 1

2010-09-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

On the first weekend of term we had two consecutive beginners' trips. In a break with tradition both days were nice and sunny and we didn't give anyone hypothermia. We are very pleased with our neew recruits so far, they seem to have a high standerd of chat and everyone seemed dead keen out on the river.

Saturday: Lower orchy and Awe

Two river days on freshers' trips are practically unheard of, but this was one. We began with the lower orchy which gave us plenty of opportunity to go through breaking in and out, ferry gliding and facial injury (amber's nose got a bit friendly with a sharp rock). After this we headed off and had a quick (interupted by many swims and Chris going hypo) blast down the awe. Swim total: 16

Sunday: Teith

The Teith is shit

2010-08-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Dragon Weekend
As part of a long held annual Gucc tradition (started last year), we had a nice little trip to Wales for a paddle at the National white water centre, Canolfan Tryweryn. Unfortunately it would seem that the environment agency think that stopping people’s houses getting flooded and making sure they have water to drink is more important than kayaking so there was no dam release on the Tryweryn on Sunday and we had to paddle the Dee.

Anyway the minibus left Glasgow on Friday at some point and began the very long drive south, I was not on it as I was already in Wales, which was good as six hour bus trips are shit. The bus arrived at a campsite which had already told us we weren’t welcome but then let us in anyway because they were nice, not like the bastards at Ty’n Cornel campsite last year. On Saturday morning we arrived at Canolfan Tryweryn to find they have introduced parking charges, an outrage. A few of us, along with some pikey from Bath uni, had a quick blast down the top section before meeting up with everyone else to paddle the section from the centre down to Bala. This is a very nice little jaunt mainly grade two with the odd grade three most of the way down. We only had one swim, which is so unusual on club trips as to be almost spooky. At the end of this section is Bala Mill falls, a nice (only just) grade four. Only Louise was man enough to paddle the leet at this point with everyone else taking the easy option of running the falls. Louise did well making up for her swim at this point last year and everyone survived despite Fraser almost running it upside down.

In the afternoon everyone got on and ran the international section, a fun and short 3+/4-. No swims occurred and all was well, we even survived the rafts. After a walk back up to run it again we headed back to the campsite and then out to sample the nightlife of Bala. The night life of Bala was so good that we were back at the campsite by 10p.m.

On Sunday we drove over to Llangollen to paddle the Dee. They charge you to paddle the Dee, which is a joke and makes me ashamed to be Welsh. We got on above Serpent’s Tail where we had the odd swimmer but nothing major before heading on down to have a play at the slalom site by the old mill. The river didn’t really have all that much water in it but it was fun enough. After this everyone else had a really long drive home, I didn’t.

An Alpine Adventure: 2010

2010-06-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

An 11am meeting at the main shed saw Glasgow University Canoe Club set out for our annual trip to the French Alps ahead of time. A horribly long drive, with as few rest breaks as possible, saw us arrive in l’Argentier la Bessée late in the evening. Quickly pitching our tents, we headed for our reward: our first proper meal in France.

In the morning, we faffed around a bit, moving tents and generally recovering from the journey down, before heading to the Lower Durance and paddling the Sunshine Run as our first river. As ever, the first run of the holidays claimed a paddler: Emma. After some lunch we returned to the campsite, and a few brave souls descended on the slalom course…soon to be chasing Fraser’s vacant kayak down it. Just as we were having dinner, the lucky sods that’d gotten to fly across arrived.

Day two saw us return to the Sunshine run, this time it was Michael who ended up swimming, as he and TomTom collided while surfing. This one was unpleasant as he ended up having to jump back in the river to reach where his boat had drifted to. The Upper Guisane was next on our hit-list of rivers, and it proved great fun! Running significantly higher than normal, it presented a manageable challenge for the Alpine virgins in the group. Arriving at S-bends (the one named rapid on the river), there was an increased sense of trepidation than normal, and our group (Alpha Squad) had bank support set up as a precaution. Seeing the steps being taken, Emma opted for the better part of valour, and walked round the rapid. Everyone in Alpha Squad got down successfully, with Bravo Squad close on our tail. They all got down the rapid alright, but some instructional confusion caused Harry to capsize and swim, while Sean’s over-zealousness to rescue him saw him drift into a tree, jam his paddles in said tree, capsize and swim clear, followed by some of his outfitting. Seeing the carnage unfolding here, TomTom and Mike stayed behind to assist in the clean-up. Everything was tidied up in short order, and we continued down the river, arriving rather abruptly at the weir, which sucked Emma back in and capsized her…only for her to manage her first ever river roll! Tom’s cheering, along with Emma’s beaming smile at this turn of events, lasted the remaining stretch of river.

Following the success of the previous day, Ben decided that we should try and get three rivers done in one day. To this end, we headed to the Gyronde (in the hopes of paddling the Gyr and the Onde afterwards). This did not happen. Within a few hundred metres of the get-on Amy capsized and swam. While attempting to get across to the eddy I had slid into, Emma capsized, and despite another successful roll, she capsized again and swam. Just after being sent up to get the bus keys and stop the other group from getting on the river, I saw something else bobbing past: Fraser’s airbag…closely followed by Gregor’s kayak. Eventually everyone was located and collected, and most of the kayaks pinned in places where they could be retrieved on a second run of the river – but Amy’s kayak had drifted past me half-an-hour earlier. Upon returning to the camp-site, and confirming Edinburgh Uni had seen it go past, Mike, Harry and I jumped in the minibus to retrieve it before it went into the lake at the bottom of the valley. Mike’s freakishly good eyesight spotted it pinned on some rocks only a few kilometres below the slalom course, and after some near-off-road driving and some ninja-rope tricks, we were driving back, victorious, with Amy’s kayak. A major welding session took place that evening, with Fraser and Amy both repairing their kayaks, and Gregor popping a dent out of the nose of his. In fact, despite the sheer level of carnage, the only casualty was Fraser’s airbag and left shoe!

After this day of carnage, another three-river day was planned: this time the Middle Clarée, Lower Clarée and the Onde. This was scuppered pretty quickly, as the Middle Clarée put off all but two of those allowed to get on. The Lower Clarée proved to be a nice warm-up river for Cat who had arrived the previous evening. Cat and I had been on this river once before, and remembered it being a twelve kilometre long drift, and though this time it was easy, it wasn’t quite that easy. At the end, discussions were had about where to go, and it was decided to return to the slalom course and do training. When we arrived, it started to rain, so rather than getting on the river, we decided to play volleyball. This was great fun, until a block by Sean caused Fraser to fall hard, leading to a hospital trip and some bad news: he’d broken his foot.

With the water levels dropping slightly, we realised that the Brianҫon Gorge. Arriving there, and seeing the cacophony of water ploughing through the barrage, only a few brave souls decided to take on the challenge. A successful, no-swim run, and we decided to head back to the Upper Guisane, where Emma’s weir stuck again; this time causing her to swim. Still having time left for a short river, the convoy made its way to the Onde, onto which only seven of the group got on, two rolls and a swim halfway down encouraged two of them to get off. This tightly packed day left everyone shattered, so we had our meal out. We went to Guillestre, to a small restaurant called Chez Antoine, and the meal was amazing!

The following day was our rest day, which normally means only one thing: go karting! Unfortunately, as this was not a weekend, this was not an option. In the morning, Tom Jenkins decided that he didn’t want a rest day, he wanted more kayaking, so set off with Leeds to do the Lower Clarée and the Gyronde. In exchange, we got Mike, who had battered his head on some inconspicuous section of the Upper Guisane the previous day. Since go-karting proved to be an impossibility, we headed to Brianҫon to explore the castle…though this proved to be on too much of an incline to be practical for Fraser. Ben and Sean organised a barbeque for the evening, with one part of it being used more as projectiles and stink bombs than as food. Anthony arrived late at night, completing the group.

For our seventh day, and as a post-night-out paddle, we headed on what could only be classed as a mini expedition, paddling the Lower Guil and Lower Durance (23 kilometres worth of river) in one go. We headed back to the camp-site to watch the slope jam, only to discover that it had been postponed due to high water. Instead we played Leeds University at volleyball, and despite our previous efforts in hospitalising our good players, schooled them.

No two days of kayaking can be productive, so we spent forever messing about the next morning, before finally making our way to the Upper Guisane. Only the section to S-bends was paddled before Anthony swum, going down most of the daunting rapid out with the protective cocoon of his kayak, catching the whole thing on head-cam. So that was hospital trip #2 – though at least it only led to some pain killers. This was also the evening of the Boat-o-cross, for which we had three entries: TomTom and Mike in the Intermediate Mens, and Amy in the Intermediate Womens. TomTom could have won his race, if not for an unfortunate eddy-line capsize, followed by an even more unfortunate encounter with a rock (which led to hospital trip #3 and another set of crutches!), while Mike and Amy each finished about half-way up the field. Undeterred, Mike then went on to win the Inflate-o-cross, celebrating by revealing nearly all in a mankini. A poorly thought out party spoiled the atmosphere generated by the event, but pizza from the usual hut made up for it.

The following morning, a number of people were suffering from hangovers, but we managed to set off at a reasonable time for the Guil. The ‘Cripple Car’ went to hospital for TomTom, while the other car and minibus went to run some rivers new to (nearly) everyone present. This proved to be an absolutely excellent day, as the first river (Upper Upper Guil) was a pleasant bimble, while the Upper Guil contained a somewhat more manly gorge. After the kayaking, we headed back to watch the Slope-Jam on the Fournel, but arrived just after it finished due to lack of confidence driving along a seemingly endless road up a mountains face!

Our final day of boating was definitely the grand finale that the group had longed: starting with a successful return to the Gyronde, and concluding with a hardcore run of an impressively high Gyr (with a fourth ‘red herring’ hospital trip thrown in for good measure).

Number of rivers paddled: 18
Number of swims: 14
Miles travelled: 3096

2010-05-26T03:54:00.001-07:00

Paddling with the Dark Side

This was mainly a Strathclyde Uni trip but Paul Walker and I were allowed to tag along for a paddle and Louise and Alison were recruited as wielders of photographic equiptment. We set off for the Moriston in the Walker mobile and the drive was long, fortunately I discovered The Pigeon Detectives on Louise’s ipod and it turns out that they are awesome. Our car arrived about half an hour before everyone else due to our superior ffaff busting abilities which gave us a chance to check out the river and for me to become progressively more terrified. By the time we finally got on the river I was whimpering like a little girl and had lost pretty much all man points.

The top drop is usually pretty eventful and so it proved for us. I had a roll at the bottom after a fairly unimpressive line, Gordon remodeled the nose of his burn, Chris had a swim for which I think he could fairly claim a deck pop as a contributing factor if he wanted and I think someone else had a swim? Paul Walker however took arguably the line of the day, grinding perfectly down the left hand slab. The near beating he had at the bottom detracted somewhat but all in all a top notch piece of paddling.

After this there are a few rapidy things before the next main drop. As long as you get some sort of boof off this drop you’re fine, apparently if you do not you spend quite a long time in the bottom of it. Everyone was fine on it, maybe a roll or two but nothing major. Form here the next rapid has two options, go left of go right. Some went left, others went right, all were fine. The river then flows through a narrow bouncy channel and it is here that Gordon swam again and broke his very shiny, very expensive helmet. The top section ends with a pretty big ramp down into a wave/hole and out into flat water, it was good.

Paul decided he’d had enough at this point but the rest of us walked back up for another run. I can’t really be arsed to write out the whole run again, but by far the most noteworthy event came on the second drop. Steve decided to drop off it doing a Demshitz style bear claw with his hand. This caused him to capsize and swim and his boat to get very pinned on a rock. We sent Steve out to get a line on his boat, which looked painful but then again it was his fault. After a bit of a play around with prusik loops and a Z pulley we got the boat free. This was all captured on film, which I imagine would be quite embarrassing.

After finishing the run we drove down to run the lower section of the river. I was not going to get on until Dave Martin told me to man up, which I’m very glad he did. The top drop has a very manly left hand line or alternatively an easier set of little drops down the right. Most of the group took the right, I chickened out and got on below (I’m really not sure why because it really isn’t a very difficult run but there we are). After this is a rapid called the gutter which is quite frankly brilliant, it’s a really long steep rock slide with a hole half way down which flushes through nicely. I ran the second half of it backwards and Haydn had a bit of a gimpy swim at the bottom but otherwise all was well. The last two rapids are a bit more continuous than the others on the river but pretty straight forward as long as you have enough speed hitting the holes which are at the bottom of both.

After walking back up to the cars and loading boats we got The Pigeon Detectives back on the iPod and headed for Glasgow. We arrived back at about one o clock in the morning feeling absolutely buggered.

Photos and possible video to follow.

BUCS Canoe Polo

2010-04-30T04:40:00.001-07:00

Gin, cider, sunshine, polo balls and cowboys and indians.....

We left Glasgow on firday night in a classic GUCC rush with just Cat and myself trying to pack everything onto the newly renovated mini bus roof rack.

After picking up cath and booze then Ali, Ali and Brian in Lockerbie we were off.
5 hours after leaving the shed we arrived in darkest doncaster pumping the tunes on the ipod and were greeted by Robbie from Scumdee who had saved us some camping space, which was good as it was past midnight by the time we and rachel arrived and we got tents up and cracked open our first cans of cider.

We made it a sensible night and went to 'tent' before 1am 'super excited' for our first game at 7.20 am. (Which is just one reason why Sus is far better than bucs!)

Getting up in the morning was not good. Who ever suggested playing polo at stupid oclock in the morning outside in the freezing cold was a moron.

However finaly all the team of fab GUCC Ladies were on the water having our first rather sleepy pep talk from Brian who had come along as our Ref/coach/pink panther.

First game was against st andrews so in true Sus style we spanked them 6-0

Bacon rolls were our well deserved prize and we were back on the water again as the sun came out mid morning to play Cardiff. Another stunning game and we beat them 3-0.

We might have gotten a we bit cocky after that as we decided that a lunch time booze run and a quick pre match G&T was a good idea, which may have aided us in us loosing our next 2 matches to Birmingham 1-2 and then lancaster 2-3.

On a possitive note, we played pretty well and all enjoyed having a diffiult match for once.

Thinking we were done for the night we started planning showers and drinking when brian told us we had another sodding match at 7.pm. 12 hours of polo is really pushing it but we manned up and beat manchester 3-0. We were far too nice to them and didn't push them in cos none of them could even T-rescue properly. Shame really :P

Fiiiinnnaly we lined up for our free dinner. This was a big mistake. Total crap, not worth even writting about, but we got takeaway pizza with Dundee which fixed all grumpy hungry people :)

To celebrate the beautiful sunny day and our 3 wins we got dressed up and headed out to the amazing tent of Dj "One more Tune". Despite the crap music, crap D.j and hilarious dancing we had an awesome night. Some brilliant moves were busted, a lot of gin was drunk and our GUCC pants got a well earned outing :)

On sunday we were treated to a lie in and had our first match at 11 when the rain had just stopped and the sun come out to cheer us on. We were playing Bristol to decide 7th and 8th place and after a bit of an "I'm about to vomit in the lake" warm up we played them and beat them 2-1 in one of our best played matches of the tournement. The horrific hangovers obviously didn't damage our performace, confirming my age old theory that if your not playing polo drunk or hungover then you are doing something badly wrong!

We hung about after our match and supported dundee who had been our adopted boys for the weekend and ex member Charlies team from London who ended up wining the b team competition.

After a final Girly portirait we got on the bus for the long drive home. The rain kindly washed all the sand off the polo boats for us as we drove up north and gave us one less job to do back at the shed. We stopped for a gourmet MacDonalds in Penrith just to add to the healthyness of the entire weekend. We crossed the border with Caledonia pumping out the speakers and Brian looking happier than he had all weekend to be back in the promised lands.

After dumping all the kit in the shed and hanging it all up neatly where it belongs. (as everyone should do :P) we headed home. Waking up with a very husky voice on monday i don't think i was the only one having trouble getting out of bed for uni.

Frigging awesome weekend tho!
Thanks to Ali Dicker for coming along and joining the team, and Brian for being our Ref and to the one and only bus driver Miss Catriona Dykes for her heroic effort to get us home before midnight. :)

As many folk as possible should come along next year. Wil be banter :)

Amy
xxx

A Tale of Two Halves

2010-03-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

Canoe Club trips are (almost by definition) going to have delays. These are accepted by all organisers as an inevitable event – but this trip is going to put all others to shame with the insane vastness of hold-ups caused!

8:30am, nothing but a concept to many, and I (Paul) was still waiting outside Euan R’s flat while he searched for a phantom karabiner, when who should text but the fourth person in our party: Mark Mulrain could no longer come. When Euan finally arrived, having given up his search, we discussed this ‘man-down’ problem, and I suggested we invite Ben. Always up for kayaking, even given only moments notice, Ben agreed. This was going to work out after-all, but Euan then remembered his keys were still in the Stevie…so we went there, only to discover it was locked until 10:00am. This was getting us no-where, so we stopped off at Ben’s flat, collected his keys, then finally collected Fraser (who ironically had actually arrived on time), and headed to the shed to pack. This was done at break-neck pace, Ben was collected, a food stop was had, and we were still out of Glasgow before 10am…good job!!

A long banterous journey, with Ben doing everything he could do to ruin the music stored on Frasers iPod, and Euan trying his hardest to gross the car out, saw us arrive at the get on for the North Esk.

And it was here, at the get-on, where the first beating of the trip happened: when it was discovered that Mr Richardson hadn’t packed spraydecks for him or Ben.

It was eventually, after a long arduous debate that would put even Tolkein to shame, decided that Euan and I would run the river first, with Ben and Fraser running down the bank, and then we would swap over, and they’d get on the river at whatever point dwindling daylight would allow.

Thus began our tale of two halves.

Euan and I had a rather uneventful trip down to Rocks of Solitude, where Euan decided that Gregor’s “Hero line” from previous weeks was the way to do it…unfortunately no beating followed this mess-up. My (somewhat less planned) line worked surprisingly well, and we continued our fun, yet simple paddle down to the get-out at the Fish Ladder.

The second half of the tale consisted of me (Fraser - note the change in author) and Ben’s fantastic descent of the river. Nothing of any note occurred until we reached Rocks of Solitude, bar the fact that Paul Walker’s deck is tighter than Scrooge and needs the super human powers of at least 2 people to fit on which materially contributed to our impressive amounts of faff.

First real rapid up and our Steve Fisher style “fully trained safety crew” were in position for a heavily anticipated swim from Ben. Alas it did not occur and therefore it was my turn to navigate this grade 6++ rapid. After fitting the deck that must have been designed to fit round a yoghurt tub, not the cockpit of an H3 (or the Mamba for which it was bought), I embarked on this terrifying run. With huge amounts of style and grace/luck and clumsiness I survived all the drops until being cruelly sucked back in by the bottom hole after a short battle/teasing from the river. Unfortunately for Mr Jenkins I must inform him I did not receive a beating, no matter how much it may have been deserved. After being flushed, a spectacular roll attempt/“quack” and a hero dive from Euan I once again decided to bail, gimpy I know. The worst part of this swim meant having to stretch what was basically a swimming cap over the cockpit of my boat, again.

Fraser on Rocks of Solitude

After experiencing the freezing cold water you would think I would be less likely to want to return to it, yet after watching Ben run the infamous President’s corner I decided to come out the eddy and fall over. That was it, no brace, no reason to fall over. (If you are intrigued to find out more about this ridiculous capsize, Mr Walker has attached below the video he took from his newly acquired iPhone – I can think of better ways to spend the money....) Running this rapid on my head resulted in not much really, apart from a knock on the head...my own stupid fault really.

The Infamous Stupidity....

Finally what could be regarded as the most spectacular event of the trip occurred and caused my final swim, although I shall regard as a “technical”. There has been much speculation as to what occurred here but for once and for all I shall lay the matter to rest. Paddling along I heard the cry of baby, looking up I saw it tumbling through the sky. Doing what any self respecting boater would do I reached out and grabbed the baby, moments before a certain death. In doing so I slightly unbalanced myself and due to other imbalances (such as my helmet being squint etc.) I was unable to overcome this and I fell under once again. I held the baby above the surface of the perishingly cold water and then pulled my deck so I could reunite baby with the adoring mother on the riverbank. This all occurred before Ben turned around to see me swimmingly along, this is the truth. Paul’s reaction to this amazingly heroic story was “What was the baby called?”....pillock. We then floated down to the get out at Fish-ladder falls.

Euan descending the final rapid

Our tale of two halves complete, we decided to reward ourselves for our kayaking efforts by heading to McDonalds on the route home…meaning Fraser (yep, it's Paul writing again) and Ben had been there twice in two days, the fat b****rds.

All-in-all, an excellent day and an excellent river, but next time we should probably take the spraydecks.

Tip Top Tummel

2010-02-21T15:06:00.000-08:00

The Tummel is one of our clubs most paddled rivers, so I was enthused when I heard that instead of heading to the normal section (the Lower Tummel), we were headed to the Upper Tummel, a section which neither myself, nor most of those on the trip, had ever done.

A surprisingly quick boat loading session (where Ben decided he was leading the river in a play-boat), a slightly mutinous food and music stop, and a pause for a cry of utter dismay when we saw that Loch Tummel was frozen over were our only delays before arriving at a PWL Upper Tummel.

Here we had a first, as Marissa managed to successfully swim before the start of the trip...ominous, considering the recent spate of high carnage trips.

Yet things held together well, with many little drops and chutes leading us down towards one of two notable rapids on the river: Z-bends. This nasty rapid seemed to be in a good mood however, with only two swims, both noteworthy. Anthony’s for his refusal to be beaten by it, returning to style the rapid, and Fraser for the unfortunate way in which he was caught out: despite landing upright, he failed to paddle away quickly enough from the hole at the bottom and was summarily capsized.

This lovely, scenic and bitterly cold river carried on with its shallow rapids for some time before we saw the horizon line to flat water marking the end of our trip.

The last rapids were...interesting. The gradient increased greatly, causing difficulty for Bex, Marissa and Dan as this was either their first river trip, or their first in many years. Bex unfortunately caught a rock, capsizing and hitting her head (though avoiding a swim). As those who had already run the rapid checked to make sure she was OK, Fraser paddled down...and also capsized, though his led to a swim. Now it was my turn to jump on the ‘safety’ bandwagon as I went and rescued Fraser, boat and paddles before they all ran the last (and best and biggest) chute on the river.

Finally, order was restored, and it was time to tackle the final rapid. This is possibly the most fun water slide I have done in a long time!! Unfortunately, here, after all the rapids had been paddled, and the trip was pretty much over, Marissa decided to round off her day as it had begun: with a swim. Bex and Dan joined her as they successfully ran and in succession swam at the chute, joining the ranks of the days swimmers after all the rapids had ended.

A short climb revealed the minibus, and a headcount proved we hadn’t lost anyone. Only eight swims, and we were off the river before five!!!

Whoever said PWL rivers are a bad thing?

Paul

Love is in the North Esk

2010-02-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to make up for my pathetic level of singleness on Valentine’s Day I organized a trip to the North Esk, which is a very long way from Glasgow. We left at seven thirty which is a very painful time of day if you have been in the Hilton getting poor until three o clock that morning. We made good time despite the inability of the club to have a trip which does not involve stopping to pick up food on the way and managed to meet up with various parties who were meeting us at the river. Having got on the river we found even more people to paddle with and I still have no idea who they were.

The river starts off fairly shallow and rocky with a few little grade 2/3 things on it and we had relatively few swims, most of which were my fault. On one occasion I got in Suzan’s way and pushed her in and on another I gave the instruction ‘Go right of the rock’ without specifying which rock (seemed pretty obvious to me but Ally’s using it as an excuse for a swim). There were a couple of other swims on this section which were not directly my fault but they’re not really that interesting.

After a while the river flows into a very sexy gorge which is where most of the swims took place. I caused one of these again by getting in Ross’s way and pushing him in, and because he had no air bags in his boat took quite a while to get rescued. After a couple more swims Ross started to look a bit hypothermic so we fed him chocolate and gave him some man hugging which warmed him up a bit. Swims from pretty much everyone else also helped add to the fun of the day. Probably the best rapid in the gorge is Rocks of Solitude/Triple step (depends which guide you read) and is a fairly tricky grade 4 with two small stoppers leading into quite a big stopper. Chris went first and absolutely styled it in a playboat which made me very excited. I don’t think everyone else appreciated just how well he’d run it so looked a little puzzled by my excited wooping. Others were less successful with quite a lot o backloops and quite a lot of swims.

Gregor’s line was noteworthy as it was rubbish, however he got through it the right way up.

Just after Rocks of solitude is a little constriction where everyone felt the need to paddle into a wall so we had five swims here. After this there are a couple more small drops where we had yet more swims before the gorge opens out into a shallow rocky river again with the only real feature being Fish Ladder falls which is one of those rapids which is fine if you get the line but looks pretty painful if you don’t. Chris ran this blind, Euan and I chose to inspect before running it and everyone else decided not to do it, probably put off by the horror stories of Amy swimming down it the last time the club had a trip to the North Esk.

At this point the fading light forced us to give up on paddling and walk back to the bus, an event which is becoming commonplace on club trips it would seem. Upon arrival at the bus we discovered that Aberdeen had written ‘AUCC rule’ on it which is both unimaginative and as we know from SUS untrue. On the way to pick up the cars from the get in, Ally ate my cereal bars, this is unacceptable and he will not be allocated a space on any future trips.

- Chris Bell with his love rock.

I should also note that not all swims are listed here in detail so here is a rough estimate of who swam:
Fraser: 4
Suzan: 2
Ally: 2
Gregor: 1
Harry: 1
Ross: 6
Gregor’s friend Jen: 2
Gregor’s friend Neil: 1
Random old guy in a spud: 8
Random guy with Sweet Rocker: 6

Epic...

2009-12-06T04:33:00.001-08:00

There are days when what you believe about yourself is brought into doubt, days when you are driven to places within yourself and without yourself which change your perception of the makeup of reality both spiritual and material. Days when you understand what it truly means to survive and appreciate the fickle nature of life. This was not such a day, it was more the sort of day where you lose perception of your fingers, grow to appreciate car heaters in a whole new way and come to understand the importance of daylight in a human’s perception of their environment, but it seemed quite epic at the time.

It was a bit nippy and we went to run the middle Orchy, which was at a pretty nice level. Alison had never been on a river before but we figured she’d pick it up as we went along so we set off in the hope of the first no swim club trip of the year. Hopes of such a feat were dashed at big rock, in fact this was so far from being a no swim trip that I will only be mentioning swims of particular merit or note.

Upon arrival at chicken shoot Chris ran it blind in a playboat, because that’s what he does. Others in the group took the less manly approach of inspecting it. Rachel had an unfortunate hand mangling incident which would prove an issue for her driving home later. Sheep trolley gorge claimed the odd swimmer. Ali even went for what I thought was a bit of freestyle action, turns out that actually her deck had popped and she was just sinking.

Easan Dubha saw Chris get out of his boat to inspect it, well either that or to stretch his legs, anyway he didn’t die so that’s all that counts. Saw tooth was looking a bit meaty but everyone kept out of trouble and we didn’t have any hole beatings, which I always find secretly disappointing.

I sat at the bottom of rollercoaster shouting ‘get left’ and pointing a lot to try and get people to avoid the bottom hole. No one at all listened but at least I got a good view of Ali’s deck popping again. Before we got to end of civilization Louise took a funny turn, I diagnosed a migraine combined with being cold; the mighty NHS later diagnosed concussion. Louise did not hit her head at any point during the day, but then I’m not a doctor. On end of civilization, Alison took her first proper swim, and what a swim it was - man points were duly awarded. However she was not deterred and we continued into the rapidly fading daylight to Eas a Chathaidh where we all fancied a walk. We got back on but by the time we reached Witches step it was actually night so we got off above it and walked back to the cars, Chris ran it on the basis that it was easier than walking.

Getting changed and tying boats onto roofs in the dark and pouring rain is neither easy nor fun, I would not recommend it.

Tom.

North East Weekend

2009-10-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is only the second such weekend ever to happen with this club, and like the last one, this was an outstanding success!! When I found out the scale of the trip, I was unsure whether or not it could be done, with a total of thirty-five people involved over a two day weekend, could our shed provide enough kit in the right sizes for everyone? Well, in a testament to Welsh organisation, we managed to escape from the seemingly inevitable situation where too many big people were on the trip to fit in the club kayaks, and managed to have one of the minibuses packed and away in under an hour. We’ll forget the fact that the other bus took two hours to pack…

After a quick trip to ASDA for supplies, and to a chippy in Bridge of Allen for food, we were off, up past Perth and towards Nethy Bridge. The bus journey was pretty chilled out and relaxed, with Radio 1 providing the majority of our music as we had made the school-boy error of forgetting both tape-deck and FM transmitter. Luckily, the music on the radio was good, and all was forgiven for that day. Arriving at 11pm, we were given a small tour of the bunkhouse, with Narnia, the Hobbit Room and the Drying Room drawing particular interest. An hour later the other minibus arrived, instantly breaking into the keg of beer which we had left alone (our second school-boy error of the day). After a small celebration of everyone arriving successfully, everyone went to their respective bunks (Tom and Caity in the “Someone got Lucky” room), and tried to get a good nights rest before the next days paddling.

The morning saw a rush to get food and drink before we got on the river. No, I lied, that was what was meant to happen. In reality it was another morning filled with good intentions of leaving by 9am, but as normal, we were about half-an-hour behind our hopes, and left for the Middle Findhorn’s uppermost get-in, arriving around half-ten. After a quick photo-shoot for the Lansdowne (where Ben was his normal camera-hogging self), we ran the shuttle and got onto the river.

Our group led going down the Findhorn. The first rapid took longer than almost any other due to Harry’s set of repaired paddles disintegrating, and Cat having to run back to Rachel’s car to get another pair for him.

The next few rapids saw the number of swims in our group increase up into double figures, before we even arrived at the bridge that signalled the normal get-in. This point under normal circumstances would have taken about twenty minutes to get to…it took us over an hour! At this point, despite the steady swims, our pace increased all the way until Wall of Death, the first of two main rapids on the river.

Here was the first introduction to lines for the beginners, with Ben on the bank showing them where to paddle, and myself and Sean demonstrating and waiting at the bottom. Yet despite the ominous name, this rapid claimed none of the beginners – not one swim!

Unfortunately, Carnage Corner was not going to let us away so lightly. When we arrived there, everyone decided to run it, even those who had walked at Wall of Death. Three people swam there, our highest count for any section of the river, and we dropped from three freshers who had not yet swum, down to two. Adding insult to injury (quite literally), three people swam at the get-out, dropping our number of dry freshers to just one.

After getting out and packing up some of the kayaks we began the process of waiting for the other group…and waiting…and waiting. It was after six before we saw them again, walking down the road, having got off the river not wanting it to be dark while on the river.

Returning to our fantastic bunkhouse, a club meal was cooked by Louise and Christine, with Euan and a couple of others getting in the way where they could. This went down as well as any free meal ever has…with extreme alacrity! The pasta was followed by drinking games and discussions of the events of the previous day, as alcohol always helps the excuses flow.

The following morning, the litany of alarm clocks once again roused the bunkhouse and a cleaning frenzy followed. In a testament to club efficiency, we found ourselves at the banks of the Findhorn before we could decide what river we wanted to do. Then, in an equal testament to club faff, we spent almost an hour running through the possibilities of which river to paddle, with many being the “chosen river” before the Spey emerged triumphant.

The Spey caused relatively little carnage compared to the epic on the Findhorn the day before, and everyone who had been in my group made their target of halving their swim count. Unfortunately, there was a swim by Callum, who had been the only fresher besides Harry to not swim on the Findhorn. However, the best was saved till last as Peter, swimming only a short way before the get-out, discovered he had swum to the wrong bank and wound up on an island, and had to swim across to our shore. These events were caught on film.

Everything that happened on this weekend, from the fantastic choice of accommodation, the epic (maybe even record) number of swims on the Findhorn, to the brilliant beginners who joined us, made this one of the best weekends kayaking I have been on in years!!

Paul

Swim fest on the Etive

2009-10-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

I would like to begin by apologizing for the fact that this article/post/whatever it is may not be fully accurate in the exact number and order of swims, it’s just that there were so many that I don’t exactly remember but it should total roughly fourteen.

It was the first intermediate trip of the year so John, Michael, Euan, Gregor, Paul, Paddy, Sean, Mark, Rachel and myself headed for the only place there might be water, Glen Etive (Ali was supposed to come but was too hung over). Had something interesting happened on the journey I would tell you about it, but nothing did happen so we’re going to start at triple. The first swim came after the second drop after Paul had a minor back looping incident. The second drop also necessitated (not sure that’s even a word) a roll from Rachel, Mark and possibly Gregor. The third drop didn’t actually claim any swimmers but Mark needed a T rescue after a cavalier pencil straight down the middle approach to the drop.

Upon arrival at letterbox Sean decided to run it before we’d had time to set up bank safety, he swam and we laughed. I can’t believe that there was only one swim here but I can’t remember any more so we’ll have to move on to Ski Jump where no one swam. Then came Crack of Doom. Paddy went first and swam. Gregor went next and was so determined not to swim that he ran the very shallow rock slide after it on his head, then he swam. I think Sean was the only other swimmer at this point.

On the way down to Crack of dawn Gregor swam, causing me to shout ‘swimmer’ in a very unnecessary, high pitched way. At crack of dawn many of the group, instead of just seal launching, threw their boats in then had to swim after them, but we won’t count those as swims. Just around the corner was an unnamed rapid of absolutely no size or consequence, which caused carnage. Mark, Gregor and Paul all managed to swim while Michael, Paddy and I all had to roll (maybe Rachel did as well, I don’t remember). Rock slide went well, no swims.

Only John, Rachel and I were brave/ foolish/ drunk on a sense of invincibility enough to have a go at right angle. John went first and despite a roll at the bottom was fine. I went next and decided that it was time I chipped in for the swim count after boofing, capsizing, rolling, capsizing and finally not rolling (I lost a shoe in the process, so if anyone finds one it’s mine). Rachel pulled off a spectacular face plant which blew her deck, one more swim.

After running corner falls Rachel, John, Michael and I walked up to run the Allt a’Choariainn. Rachel had clearly developed a taste for both face plants and swimming as she did both following a spectacular upside down landing off Speed. Next came Extacy, Michael rolled and Rachel swam. Only Michael and I did pinball and remarkably there were no swims just a lot of rock smashing. We finished the day with Chasm which Rachel ran straight into a rock and swam.

I’m sure I’ve missed a swim or two so I would urge anyone who’s swim was not mentioned to come clean and post it on the forum in the appropriate place.

Boating in Bala

2009-09-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

So it’s the middle of the summer - with too much sun and not enough rain, the solution: head to Wales?

Day 1:

We met at the main gate at roughly 2pm on the Friday, everyone on time and not a hint of faff to be seen or heard. The shed also went without a hiccup and we left Glasgow ahead of schedule, hooray! Everything was going just dandy until we entered Wales and discovered the campsite was closing 30 minutes before we got there, not a good start. So a quick rethink was the plan and the front of bus crew found a nice wee campsite beside the main road. After a chat with some very friendly owners we were in!

Day 2:

An early start saw us at the river at 9:30. Plan of action was too paddle the easier section first as a warm up before moving on to the knarl up top. Michael and Rupert were up first, having a play on the wave at the bottom of the top section. But then something happened to a paddle which really isn’t all that important so we will skip that part. Anyhow, seeing as we had only 10 and a half paddles between 11 of us Michael braved the bottom section C1 style. This section was really quite enjoyable and had its moments with a tree pin from Mark and Louise. However, soon we reached the portage of Bala Mill Falls! After a quick inspection a few of us ran it. It was fairly uneventful as everyone kept their hair dry and pride intact.
The top section followed and Suzie, Louise and Emma assumed camera duty while the rest of us paddled.

Day 3:

A second early start saw the group (along with Daisy’s boat) at the side of the river once again. This time the river was much more fun! Incoming kayaks were not constantly pushing others out of crowded eddies. The first run of the day went well, with Emma joining the crew and suffering a “wee upside-down moment”. Mark followed suit, but finished off with a lightning quick roll. In fact, come to think of it, Tom also had an embarrassing moment at the café wave – though the truly awesome surfing in the lead up almost made up for it. We had so much fun that we ran it a second time and truly blasted it down! We also made a much faster run of the bottom section than we had on the Saturday.

The Welsh kayaking experience was very worthwhile despite the eddy queues, rafters and sign on to the river rule. The river was awesome and a good weekends boating was had by everyone. So a big thanks to the Trip Sec (Tom), the drivers (Michael and Cat) and the rest of the paddlers for a great trip!

Euan R

Allt a' Chaorainn - god that's hard to spell!

2009-05-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

Again this wasn’t a club organized trip (because I didn’t organize one) but as club kit was being used, I think it’s worthy of blog space.

Sean, Ben and I met up on Sunday morning, loaded Sean’s car up with kit requested via the excellent new kit request icon on the forum which should be used by all, and headed off in search of thrills, spills and an amusing photo incorporating a pint of beer. Unfortunately we had no beer or pint glass, so thrills and spills would have to do.

We had intended to meet up with a few of Ben’s Aberdonian friends, but when we heard that they were doing the Awe we went to the Etive instead. The Etive looked rather large and manly so due to my woeful performance on it the week before in low water, we decided on the Allt a’Chaoruinn which I’d wanted to do ever since I saw a photo of it before coming to Glasgow. After a walk in through a holly bush, we were ready to hit the water (and quite a few rocks as well).

The first rapid, Speed, did exactly what it said on the tin, just with a rather rapid deceleration at the bottom as you ploughed into the opposite wall. Sean even went for a bit of aerial action, pulling off a barrel roll onto his head.

Next up was Ecstasy which went without a hitch other than a couple of circuits of the tea cup eddy half way down on my part.

Pinball was next which Ben and Sean decided to give a miss leaving me to deliberate whether to go for the conventional right hand line or the left hand line which had opened up due to the high flow. I decided on left. I then changed my mind and decided on right. The lead in to the rapid was surprisingly tricky with some fairly sticky bits, a good warm up for an awesome rapid. I pulled right as I came off the first drop, then right again to round the pinball rock before hanging off a high brace as I came off the final chute practically horizontal but just about upright. This was followed by some over excited wooping before we dropped through ‘Chasm’, which is possibly the most fun thing you can do with your clothes on (or at least with seventeen layers of neoprene on).

We finished the trip with a bit of bridge jumping, because that’s what they do on all the best kayaking videos, followed by a nice chat with some friendly fishermen.

Tom.

Thursday night outings 23rd & 30th April

2009-05-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

Thursday 23rd April, Balmaha, Loch Lomond: BBQ, beer, boating and barfing all down the side of the GU bar when we got back (well done charles)

Tom testing his new paddle for the Alps...

Al, about to bear hug Sean.

Thursday 27th April, Lock 27, Woop Woop!!

This was a really nice evening despite the bottles of buckfast floating past as we paddled about. It was really sunny so nice and warm (maybe not for Sean who now probably has viles disease from swallowing so much water).

Not photos yet folks, pork?
xx

Upper Tummel and the road to the end of the world!

2009-04-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

So this wasn't a Paul Walker organized trip but its going up as a blog any way.

Once upon a Friday Ben, Christine, Stuart (Ben's mate), Sean and I wanted to go paddling. So we set off from opposite sides of Scotland and tried... with difficulty to meet somewhere in the middle.

After a few hours of high tec roof bar instillation and a hundred phone calls later we met at the upper Tummel. When I say upper i really really mean it. you just keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going.

Was a really good river with lots of wee rapids on to slide off and then a big 4+ in the middle.
Stuart and Sean ran it with style and i sat in the pool at the bottom pretending to be responsible.

Would be a great fresher river if it wasn't sooooo far away as we could scare them all shitless making them watch the safety run the waterfall.

The rest of the river was fun wee things like the start, ending in a big long slide which was triple the speed I expected it to be!

Awsome day out. Got pretty expensive on petrol though.... not helped by taking the accidental scenic route on the way home...

Amy

BCU Student Safety Course

2009-04-22T04:19:00.000-07:00

The BCU Student Safety Course is designed to give good paddlers, the skills and the confidence to allow them to lead a river trip appropriate to their level. For myself, Euan and Hibby, this meant training to lead beginner and intermediate trips (for people who are not pushing their bounds) on rivers up to grade 3/4.

The organisation of the safety course went amazingly, with Euan confirming his booking the week before, and Hibby securing his place on the second day of the course! Hibby also managed (while being in charge of sorting accommodation) to get the days wrong, believing that the course ran Friday to Sunday as opposed to Thursday to Saturday – since he hails from Strathclyde University we view this as standard behaviour.

After a 4:30 get up, and surprisingly little faff, we drove past Fort William to the car park in Roybridge, arriving almost precisely on time…as anyone who kayaks is aware, this is an astonishing achievement, especially considering our record for this trip. However, organised faff had us driving 50 miles back the way we came to Kinlochleven. Here we spent the rest of the day explaining why we had bought the specific items of kit we had, and learned some rescue techniques, before getting thrown (in one unlucky persons case, literally) into some lovely cold water and putting these new techniques to practical use.

That evening, as everyone else made way to their lovely warm bunk houses and hostels, the three of us drove the minibus to the car park at Spean Bridge, and prepared to sleep in the minibus. The owner of the Commando Bar made us park in their car park as it was private property allowing us to drink…and then he invited us to a lock in! Legend!!

Many pints (of Carling, Cobra and allsorts) later, we three stumbled out to the minibus to our beds. With all discomfort washed away by the alcohol in our systems, we passed out relatively quickly: though not before Euan shoved me out the minibus to lie sprawled on the ground, or before Hibby could make a drunken phone call to Emily.

9:00. Thankfully, I avoided a hangover: Euan and Hibby were less fortunate. A short, fast and windy drive to the Arkaig saw Hibby suffering more and more from the drinking the night before, to the point where it seemed more like genuine illness rather than a hangover.

At the Arkaig, we were split, with Euan in one group, Hibby and myself in the other. None of us played a major part in leading this trip though. At ‘the Main Event’ (the solitary grade 4 rapid on a grade 2 river), Euan ran it fairly successfully, though had a roll near the top; I stayed upright, but ended up running the rapid on the opposite side from where I intended; and while Hibby decided he liked the trees…he changed his mind when they ensnared him and caused him to have a swim.

Me at the 'Main Event' on the Arkaig

A quick calculation showed we still had time for another river, so we set course to the Upper Roy. An exceptionally long and windy road saw Hibby stop the bus and get out again: by this point I was starting to believe his tales of genuine illness. We kept the same group, and this time I had a chance to lead…though to my disappointment none of the harder sections. This could have been a no-swim river for everyone, but Hibby decided that after walking round the grade 4, he’d swim underneath it anyway!

After this, we returned to Spean Bridge and the Commando Bar, and though there was no lock in, it was just as awesome as the first night. This time it was the curries that were worthy of attention…they were AMAZING!!!

The final day of the course saw us heading further north to the Pattack. Awkward access precluded a second river, but this one was worth every metre. While Euan had led the Roy the previous day, Hibby and I got to lead this. Finally we were required to use the new skills that the weekend was for. The grade 4’s once again proved interesting. The first one, a small drop with the potential for a huge hole, was styled by everyone. Even Hibby dodged a swim. However, the second grade 4 (a long gorge) caught a few people out. David (from Napier Uni) suffered for using a playboat, managing three rolls after back-loops, before the fourth finally caused him to swim. This gave some unexpected chase-boating practise…before Hibby decided to miss some strokes and swim too.

David on the Pattack, right before his backloops

Hibby on the Pattack, astonished that he's not swum...yet.

Me on both the Grade 4's on the Pattack

Before going, I admit I was somewhat sceptical about the benefits of the course, and only my desire to get on some more rivers kept me going. It was definitely worth it!! All three of us (and everyone else on the course for that matter) left having learned something new, and gained plenty of river and safety confidence.

So for any intermediate paddlers out there: GET ON THIS COURSE!!

Happy paddling,

Paul

The Etive Strikes Back

2009-04-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

On a beautiful and dry morning, five paddlers set out for Glen Etive, as the only river likely to run. En route up the west coast, river after river was running lower than we'd ever seen them, so it seemed as though another Paul Walker low Etive was on the cards.

However, upon arrival at the Etive, we discovered that although low, it was not as dog low as anticipated.

Triple falls went slightly better than expected, with no swims, bur yet Euan once again mucking up the third of triple (at the time saying it was his most hated rapid).

Me on Triple

Moving on, Letterbox provided no real obstacle, but before we reached Crack of Doom, Euan lived up to the reputation that Paddy's boats have aquired over the years, and got pinned in a seemingly impossible position.

Euan's awesome pin

Neither of the Cracks' provided any hassle....aside from Sean backlooping, which is apparently par for the course when in a Stretch, and Emma waiting for one more T-rescue.

Me at the Crack of Doom

Ski-jump, with its daunting horizon line actually caused no problems at all...yet the Great Waterslide, arguably the most fun of all the rapids on the Etive was met with hilarity as Sean lost his paddles down it, and while in persuit, I ended up traversing it backwards. Thankfully, due to a slight change from the norm, Euan had the splits in his boat, so Sean got to use them and (with a fairly red face) collected his paddles at the bottom. Not satisfied with the lack of coordination already displayed, Euan once again decided to abuse Paddy's former boat....this time plowing it head first into the cliff face!!

Euan battering his boat at the Great Water Slide

Finally, after what seemed like an endless trip, we arrived at Right Angle. Sean immediately jumped out to inspect, and while I talked Emma through the way to handle the 24 foot drop, Euan gave it a go....and boofed it. Suffice it to say, he swam, climbed up to the top of the fall, and lay there for a while.

Trying to look cheery

I dropped down to collect his stuff, and in an uncharacteristic display, not only failed a high brace, but didn't pop my deck while upside down and rolled! Score!! After convincing words from myself and Sean, Emma gave the drop a go. Two roll attempts followed, but a second bow rescue staved off a swim. Sean followed so that he had completed the river too.

Sean's run of Right Angle

Climbing back up to check on our wounded comrade, we found him walking about, if not altogether painlessly. After a quick discussion, we decided to head back, and advised Euan to check into a hospital....he reluctantly agreed at the time. By the time we returned to Glasgow, he was somewhat more willing.

Unfortunately, the hospital discovered that Euan had suffered some spinal compression and fractured one of his vertiba, this will prevent him kayaking for some time, put him off the river Etive for the time being, and definately added to the injury list caused by this beautiful river...

On the bright side, Emma and Peter are both advocates of the Etive after their no-swim trip.

Peter and Emma at the end of the day

Till next time,

Paul

Down the Doon

2009-04-15T15:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday a small group of us (Euan, Nick, Rupert and myself) took a departure from the normal north westerly or easterly river trips and went south of Glasgow into Ayrshire to paddle the River Doon (aka the Ness Glen). This river runs out of the Loch Doon dam through the Ness Glen gorge, straight over a small weir followed by a quick succession of rapid sections for about a mile.

The weather on that day was pretty overcast, but it was reasonably warm (although a bit breezy when standing by the Loch getting changed) and decent paddling weather. On heading down from the road to the river we were told by a nice old couple that the river looked "sporting", which we didn't really know what to make of, but hoped it boded well. After getting in above the weir we decided to give it a miss as there was some nasty looking metal underneath it (which from reading this has apparently taken the end off at least one boat), and started up proper just below it. It didn't take long to reach the first major rapid which we all navigated safely and were quickly onto the next. The next section saw my first swim of the day when I got pinned on a rock (which became a bit of a recurring theme for me) and the water coming over the back of my boat sent me under - I blame this on the low footbridge that I hit with my paddle just beforehand and made me lose control, but the other swims weren't so easy to pass the buck. The river was pretty shallow and narrow all the way down the gorge, so it was easy to make my way out, but my boat and paddle were a bit harder to reach and Euan bravely went in to fetch the paddle. At the next, slightly larger, rapid (I may be getting the ordering mixed up) we got out to have a look for the best route first. Then Rupert showed us the route not to take, before Nick showed a far nicer line and we followed over without any incident. Following that I had a couple more swims and pins (I had to be helped out of one pin by an old man walking by who gave me a shove with his walking stick), one of which was particularly gimpy when I just hit a log and went over, but everyone else made it down fine. This section of the river was great fun as there was always something to do and the rapids were challenging, but not too intimidating. There were a lot of low bridges, branches and obstacles to look out for, although that added a bit of character to the river.

The worst bit of the day was the next half hour (probably far longer than, but I kind of lost track of time) paddling almost flat water to the get out. I'd recommend for future trips to the Doon to get out at the bottom on the Ness Glen section and potentially just walk back to the top along the footpath, that is unless you really enjoy dull paddles, scraping your boat along shallow sections and weaving in and out of overhanging trees and bushes.

Overall it was a great trip and it's definitely a river I recommend again. Swim count: 3 (all me).

p.s. sorry there are no photos.

Twin Tays!

2009-04-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

After a surprisingly small amount of faff at the shed, we were good to go. Euan, Charlie, Emma, Caity and myself set off to the Tay. However, we decided to try a new section (to me anyway), from Taymouth to Aberfeldy.

The get-on was mainly faff free and generally uneventful (aside from Euan giving the gatehouse staff an un-holy view). So we were off.

Getting on at the loch, and paddling under a bridge, we decided to practice some eddying....unaware that even the slightest breeze turned this arch into a horrific wind tunnel!

Realising our mistake we moved on, and approached the Chinese Bridge Rapid (the only one on this section). A wholly uneventful run of this led us to decide to run it again, and then head to a more interesting section.

At this point, we discovered we had made a fatal error....

This left me to run (quite literally) the shuttle from Grantully to the SCA get in, leaving time for Euan and Charlie to make what they believe is the first descent of one of the Tay tribs (hereby known as the Allt Cheuan).

Getting onto the river (once I had died of exhaustion a couple of times and realised that kayaking isn't really exercise), we carried on down the Tay, and did some more training.

As the Boat Breaker approached, we pulled over to the side so that Caity and Emma could get off and celebrate a trip with no swims.

This left Euan, Charlie and myself to run the slalom course and play at the bottom.

All in all, a highly successful trip:

No swims, 1 bow rescue and 1 renewed river roll.

However....one last bombshell struck:

Euan's left shoe was still at Taymouth. Gutted!

A Tale of Two T's

2009-04-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

An 8:30 start is never good: even less so when no-one on the trip shows up, and you don't have a phone to contact them!

Slightly discouraged, I collected the minibus and headed to the shed, and started to sort out the kayaks for the trip. After I'd hoisted all the boats onto the roof, Euan arrived, very upset that I'd abandoned him at the gate (sorry Euan). At about 9:30, we finally got through to Daisy, who thought the trip was off as I hadn't responded to her text (never ever lose your phone if you're organising a trip is the moral I walked away with). However, we three musketeers finally gathered together and set forth for the Tummel!

Upon arrival, we found that the dam was only releasing compensation flow, making the river low but runnable. Soon however, we discovered that this river was not just low: it was Paul Walker low!! By the time we reached Sawmill, much of the riverbed had been repainted orange and two shades of blue.

At the Sawmill, we had our one and only pin of the day, as I found myself precariously perched on a rock halfway down. The only up side to this was, with me blocking the bad route, Daisy and Euan had no choice but to take the clean route straight down the middle. Five minutes of faff later, and I pulled myself off with Euan's paddle - to everyone's great disappointment (including myself), there were no photo's of this truely spectacular pin.

S-bends and the Linn were extremely uneventful. Everyone manages S-bends perfectly. At the Linn, I got the autoboof, Daisy missed out and submarined, and Euan made his own boof.

One short paddle swapping trip to the get-out, and we were off to Tully!

At Tully, we ran the rapid once, and then proceeded to play in the holes at the bottom, before heading for a chippy in the sun at Aberfeldy.

A montage of the best photos of Tully

The whole day could be summed up in one word: FANTASTIC!!

Terrific Tummel

2009-03-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

The day started in the usual manner for a Tummel trip, with a walk to the get on...

...some playboating...

...and some games of Giants, Wizards and Goblins!

Steady carnage ensued throughout the first half of the trip, with numerous pins and swims in unusual places.

Arriving at S-Bends, Cath and Amy style the first section...

...and Sean decided the second part was too easy, so ran it with his eyes shut!

Chris meanwhile, decided Euan was making it look too easy....and promptly jumped on his boat.

Susie, always wanting to go one-up on Sean, decided to run part of this section backwards...

Next up: the Linn.

Chris made the route look easy in the Crazy, while Paul decided to ignore the guidebook and hit the Rooster Tail.

After contemplating the rapid for a few minutes, Christine runs the rapid without swimming, and is closely followed by Euan who manages a similar feat.

After that, it was just a wee flat water paddle to the get out.

All in all, an awesome day with enough carnage, rain and sun for everyone!

Paul

Falls of Dochart From a Few Moons Ago

2009-03-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

A few photos here from the Falls of Dochart, taken earlier in the year, featuring Cat and Chris Bell. This short 500m grade 3/4 blast cuts right through the middle of Killin, and makes a great spot for carnage hungry tourists to watch! Photos by Eve.

Eve.

Still Sunny and Still Tully!

2009-03-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

With the weather still great came the inevitable low water boating options. Saturday saw a group of us head to Grandtully on the Tay, where suprisingly, it was actually quite a good level. Very much a beginner orientated day, it gave the group a chance to work through their 2* skills, and give the rapids at the end a bash, generally to much success!

Ben leading the group in a ludicrous warm up!

The group at the start of the paddle, and Caity taking an unfortunate swim.

Sean tearing it up on Tully's premier playspot...

Christine, Susie and Emma getting to grips with Tully rapids.

Taking the left line round boatbreaker.

It was also the first time Simon's boat had been used since his tragic death in September, with the club donating money to the Anthony Nolan Trust for use of the boat. The plaque is a fitting tribute to Simon Triger, and through keeping the boat, hopefully Simon's memory will forever live on in the club.

Paddy.

Sunny Day In Glen Etive

2009-03-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

Another week, another midweek trip, this time to a suprisingly sunny Etive for this time of year. Only armed with camera again, I snapped Ben and Colin on a low, but not too scrapey Etive, then onto the Allt a Chaorainn where we met up with a few boaters from SUCC. Not content with ending things there, a bit of Topo Duo action followed...

Ben reaching for the boof on the 2nd drop of triple.

Colin dropping off Letterbox

Ben approaching the Ski-Jump horizon line

Right-Angle fun and frolics!

Colin on Speed, literally.

SUCC's Haydn bouncing down Pinball

SUCC's Murray in Chasm

Topo-Duo anyone? Would be rude not to!

Not a bad day boys. Not bad at all.

Paddy.

Tales from Tully

2009-03-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

The group (me, Daisy and Euan), met up early and made a snap decision that Tully was where to head.

While I took the bus down and got the bus back up, Daisy did a wee warm up...

...and decided she deserved a rest!

...while Euan struggled to put his kit on!

An uneventful river trip with many silly photos from a non-waterproof camera...

...culminated in an unexpectedly high boatbreaker!

With loads of time left, we decided to head to the Etive via Killin. A quick stop for some photo's of the Falls of Dochart and we were off.

A slightly higher Etive than what the three of us were happy to do alone, and a rapidly darkening sky, meant that we took a few more photos and called it a day.

Food for the day: £5.00
Cost of a 9-seater minibus travelling 250 miles: £17.80
The look on Euan's face on seeing the rope swing broken: Priceless!!!

Paul.

Blast From The Past - Fort Bill 2008

2009-03-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Following on from the SUCC Film Night, here GUCC's only entry from last year, with the imaginative title, Fort Bill 2008!

http://broadbandsports.com/node/14270

Featuring the Feith Talagain, Upper Spean and the River Nevis.

Midweek Middle Orchy In Brief!

2009-03-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

A midweek rainy day saw a group of us head west to run the Middle Orchy, again! Slightly low levels, but good enough to run. Keen to get out of Glasgow for the day, and armed with camera, I was allowed to tag along!

Ben and Tom started the day with a low Allt Kinglas rock bash, joining Ali, Rachel, Charlie and Euan at the get on for the Orchy.

There were a smattering of swims throughout the day, with Charlie losing his paddles on the main line of Chicken Chute, having to walk off, and Rachel spectacularly styling Sheep Trolley Gorge...

Despite Euan doing his best efforts to lose his boat, letting it run Sore Tooth on it's own, and some considerable carnage at End of Civilisation, the group made it to the bottom without too much major incident, and only one lost piece of kit. Score!

Paddy.

SUCC Film Night 2009

2009-03-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Friday 13th March saw SUCC, GUCC and Caley descend on the Strath Union for a night of extreme sports and lots of booze!

I took home the top spot, with "Fort Bill 2009". In second place was a great skiing video from SUCC, and Tim Hamlet from Caley got 3rd place with his quality film, "Why We Kayak".

Other entries from GUCC included Paul Walker's epic low water Etive video, and an entry from BEAN called "WUCKING", which has to be seen to be beleived.

Despite DJ Sash trying to drown out the sound on everyone's films, it was a fun night. Bring on Film Night 2010!

Below is a link to my winning video.

http://www.vimeo.com/3641138

Happy Boating.

Paddy

Welcome!

2009-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new GUCC blog.

A space where you can see what GUCC have been up to, on and off the water.

If you would like to contribute, email: patrick_w@hotmail.com, or visit www.glasgowunicanoeclub.co.uk/forum, and let us know!

Happy boating!