River Leven

After my park n' huck session on Monday, I wanted get back in my boat as soon as possible! Then chance to go paddling on Wednesday came up, I would have been stupid to pass it up!

We went to the River Leven in the South Lakes. The River Leven flows out of Windermere so it is usually quite reliable for water level. This was my first down the Leven, and wow! What a river! Was really nice and chilled, only grade 3 with some 4/5 rapids on, but some of the rapids were constant and hundreds of metres long - great!

The group consisted of me, 3 mates from uni and a canadian that I just met, crazy I know! Was a really nice river and trip. Here are a few pics from that day.


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies

Park n' Huck

After a very dry and cold winter in the Lakes, none of the rivers were running, even the bigger ones which were fed by lakes - still too dry.

That was until we had a good dumping of rain over the weekend just gone. It was a shame really that I was in North Yorkshire when this happened and without my boat. However when I got back, the rivers were still up and I decided that I was going to have a park n' huck session on Aira Beck just around the corner.

I was the only one paddling, and armed with 5 media students and their cameras we headed off straight after lectures to the beck. The section I will be running consists of a double drop at the beginning and a final drop about 3/4 metres high. I ran these 3 drops over and over again, and time and time again the second drop on the double drop gave me trouble and I walked away with scraped knuckles, hurt wrist, scratched paddles and a dent in the nose of my boat.

All in all I had a great time, here is a picture of me on the final drop.


Photo by Rob Atkinson

The Cold Cold North

After a few months of really settling into uni life now, I think I have a equal balance on my uni work and social/adventure life. About 3 days work and 4 day weekend ... its a hard life really.

After the recent cold snap (which im sure you all would have experienced) the rivers in Cumbria became all frozen up, some even freezing all the way through, not just the top. This left me with a major problem, after snow boating became boring (mainly due to the hard work of dragging it to the top of the hill and the spine compressions) I decided that I would get more into walking, climbing and ice climbing.

After many days spent ice climbing in the lakes, I decided to venture up into Scotland where there is climbing mecca! Here are just a few photos to keep you all at home ammused. Enjoy!

Aira Beck

After settling into uni life at Penrith, I have finally sat down, got off the river, off the mountain, out of the bar and started to get some work done. I got bored of that so I thought I would update the blog with some paddling exploits.



A week ago or so me and some uni mates paddled Aira Beck. This is a short run (about 3km) of pure boulder bash with some class drops. The get on is a little village called Dockway, and the get out is on Ullswater. The get on started with a river which is about 10ft wide, and about 2ft deep in the deepest places. On the way down you come to some small rapids and drops which you basically grind down on the rock.

You then come to the first drop, a great little drop going into a slide, this drop is brilliant, you can get out and go and do it many times!

Just after this little drop was a continuous slide of about 50ft which was almost flat, it was very wierd, but very cool, especially when you do it backwards like I did. After this there were some more drops, until we came to a 30ft drop which looked sweet, the only problem was that it slammed into a wall, had a step which would over rotate you half way down and funneled into something the size of a tea cup! We walked this, further down there was also another rapid which was unrunnable, it was a very deep gorge which looked very cool from above, but the run in was also again about a grade 7!



We then came to Aira Force. We did not run this, for anyone who does know what Aira Force is, google it, it is very famous and def unrunnable! However we did run the drops just below Aira Force. The first was a drop double which was too narrow to boof, so you had to pencil, however this led you to being pinned by a rock in the middle of the plunge pool, when the water pushed down on the stern of the boat it popped you out of the pin and could run the second drop, again too narrow to boof so you penciled again.

The drop just below that was a slide into a drop, no matter how you landed you got sucked back, d****d a little and then spat out.



The rest of the paddle was a gentle grade 2 onto Ullswater where we paddled along to find where we parked the car, easier said than done as we couldn't remember where we parked the car. We ended up finshing in the dark, still had a great day though.

Bliss-Stick Mystic Creeker for sale

Pics of boat as per UK Rivers web site

Who Needs Rain

OK so it is summertime and we have been lucky again this year with the raining falling into late May / June so plenty of kayaking but it has all now all but stopped and the good weirs have dried up leaving only a handful of choices for a UK kayaker based just south of the midlands:-

• Boulters – however the Thames is still a little high
• Nene – some would say costly for a small man made course
• HPP - a drive, but one of the better options
• Tryweryn – the better UK option but 6 hours in a car in total – but it is now free
• Europe – this simple won’t happen with a little one on the way
• Surfing – all ready in the diary
• Another sport perhaps?

Wakeboarding ???????????????

Ok its not quiet kayaking but the kit is same for summer months so no extra cost there plus it keeps the upper body working.

Taking tips from a good friend Mr Richard Fearn who is into his wakeboarding and plus the fact that a whole group of us where off to Corfu of Jamie’s and Jaynes ( now Mr and Mrs Fearn ) wedding in July we thought we would all get some Wakeboarding lesions in prior to Corfu to give us something to do during the day other than drinking, sunbathing, eating and sleeping.

We headed off to Boxend Park near Bedford to get lesions off the back of a boat rather than a cable tow, this was a wise move by Richard now referred to as Scout Leader.

Off the boat you first use a beam, then a short line beam off beam then the long line – I have to say the chaps at Boxend are extremely good and within 15 mins most of us where off the long line.

After a couple more lesions it was off to Corfu to pose on the beach and look cool – well an attempt at it anyway.

We added to the cool look by hiring some buggies and quad bikes for a few days – Scout Leader went for the Brokeback Mountain look.

A big thanks to Level Six for suppling the boardshorts, t-shirts, hats and rash vets to all the wakeboarders plus some summer kayaking kit to me - check out

http://www.levelsixinc.com

Next step convince Box End to tow me in my kayak

Check out

http://www.boxendpark.com

Hurley Weir - 3 gates

After the rain dances have been successful, Hurley Weir was back upto a 3 gater. It wasnt the classic 3 gater, the water level was quite high. This meant that the wave wasnt as high and there was no shoulder on the left - but we had fun anyway.

After a few phone calls to Jack and Ben, we all jumped into Bens van at the Nene Whitewater Centre at 9am. Once getting into Hurley Villiage, we had the visions of zillions of paddlers in the car park all getting changed. After going around the corner into the car park, it was about 3/4 empty!! Do people know something we dont?

We got on, had loads of fun for a few hours, and made our exit. When getting back to the car park - it was bursting with paddlers, caterers and people in nice clothes, there was a wedding happening in one of the big expensive houses. Paddlers and people in white dresses and big hats do not mix!

Here is a little video of the fun we had that day. Take a look and leave a comment on what you think.