welshkate

Levels were about level with the slab when we got on at Dartmeet dropping to about 1 inch below by the time we got off at Newbridge. It was a good level for practicing some technical moves, working the rapids.

Chris plopping off a drop

We re-ran several rapids, practicing more technical lines and there were some excellent boof practice spots all the way down the run.  And euthanasia was at an awesome level.

Me on Euthanasia

Tom with a powerful low-brace. Its not playboating ya know!

Surprise, surprise was a bony level. I could feel my boat de-valuing with every boulder I scraped over. Ah the sweet sound of lost plastic. Its like weight watchers for your boat; run suprise suprise and see the pounds fall off…

Chris on SS

I guess you have to look on the bright-side, at least our boats are a bit lighter to carry now; the Erme hike in will be so much easier with those few lost ounces.

Me taking my fav line next to the big boulder.

Oh dear, looks Like in the photo I’m practicing that fine art of Lily dipping- ie not really paddling down the river, rather dipping lilys in the pond with my paddle. Where’s that aggressive forward body position with a vertical paddle Kate? Maybe those 2 beers on Friday night were a bad thing…

Watersmeet put in. Nice cream tea apparently

There are a couple of nice boof drops and one boudlery rapid before the gorge. We inspected the whole gorge before making a decision on what -if any- section to run. Chris, Tim and I put on at the start of  ” Crux 2″. It was a great confidence boost section. In fact I thought the gorge looked much more manageable at river level than it did from inspection up high. I am told though that most people think the opposite- guess I’m not most people- my mum always told me I was special.

One very happy Kate

I’ve put together a video from our run, most of which was filmed courtesy of Mr Power.

The last day of our holiday arrived and I was feeling happy but my body was feeling tired and bruised. I decided not to paddle that day. I was ‘paparazzi Kate’  for the day and followed the guys as they ran the Allt Kinglas and a section on the middle Orchy. Levels were good.

Photo: Chris on the crux drop of Allt Kinglas.

Chris nailed the line over the crux drop. Its important for this drop to get it right as the consequences of getting it wrong are not pleasant. Gregor took much the same line as Chris over the drop, but Al unfortunately did not get  far enough right. He landed on a rock on his back. Ouch. And he lost his paddle in the waterfall, but he was okay, thankfully.

Al on the crux

Al going left

The guys put together the split paddles and continued on the Allt Kinglas into the middle Orchy.  They had a good run down and Dave was so super pleased with chicken shoot that he ran it again and styled it. 

Dave on chicken shoot

The group continued on down to Easen Dubha. While I was waiting for our group to appear I watched a paddler from another group get a lovely line down the right hand side of the rapid, ending in a nice boof.

Random paddler taking a different, neat looking line

However the more usual route is the centre slab. Chris was the sole person in the group to run this rapid.

Chris running Easen Dubha

Below shows the kick from the stopper on the left. Probs best to avoid this stopper by going a bit further right on the slab- apparently it can get quite grabby at lower levels. On this day it kicked Chris out of the water completely and he did a total airscrew in his creekboat! He was totally fine though- he even landed upright…

Chris mid air in his air screw. Extreme playboating.

Yeehaw! Some of the guys put back in after this rapid to run saw tooth. A bit of a nasty swim was taken by one of the group so they decided to call it a day. We headed back to the bunk house to eat, drink and be merry before making the long journey home.

After the Etive it was onwards and upwards to the Allt Kinglas and middle Orchy. Allt Kinglas is prime example of a feature that the Scots call ‘Burns’.  These little gems of tributaries rise quickly after rainfall and the art of descending them is called ‘burn bashing’. It was indeed a bit of a bash down but super fun, none the less.

Photo by Larissa: Dave on the Allt Kinglas

Photo by Larissa: Graham and me on the Allt Kinglas

It was then onto the middle Orchy. We were beginning to lose light fairly early on this run, but we continued as quickly as possible until the last remains of the light was eclipsed by the rain clouds.

Photo by Larissa: Chris on Chicken shoot. Note the extreme low level of light.