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Aire Waves
Leeds Canoe Club Blog. We paddle... lots!
Airewaves used to be Leeds Canoe Club's magazine letting people know what the club was upto. Its quite hard work pulling together a publication letting people know what the club is doing and publishing dates in advance is always hard as things tend to change. Step forth the blog.. Push button publishing for the masses. So here is the idea a few people in the club take it in turns to write up trips and talk about things in the club.
Monday, November 05, 2007Upper Tees - In Spate
As the beginners learned their kayaking basics down at Sowerby Bridge, a handful of more advanced members set off to the Upper Tees. We thought the water level would be just above "low", a nice level that means no scraping but plenty of potential adrenaline.
What we found was a water level anything but low!! S-Bends was underwater!! Water flowing faster than you could sprint!!
So we decided that we would give this a go...
The first drop didnt cause too many problems. A line down river left, just avoiding the tree, gave a nice easy run down the drop.
After this, it was a nice bounce down to the S-Bends...
"Its a bit different!"
The usual rock face on river right was now forming a huge pourover into a bus-eating stopper, and numerous other smaller stoppers lined the path from top to bottom.
It was decided that the "usual" route down the bends provided the best option, so off went Nick to show us how it was done. Nick gets a nice run down, bar for heading a bit too far left and almost running aground, causing a couple of 360 spins on his line down. Next up was me, in my tiny playboat. All i remember is the back of my boat feeling like it was being stamped on as i passed through each stopper. It felt like i took half the rapid vertical.
Next up was Gavin. The start was good, but all went a bit wrong about half way down. The roll up was successful, but no sooner was he up, he was back under again. After failing the next roll and fearing a rock near the bottom, the deck was duely pulled, and the boat chasing began...
The boat eventually grounded itself on one of the few areas of rock in the river, and from there followed a whole series of throwlines to swing both paddler and boat back to the side to be reunited. Sadly, Gavin and his paddles were not to be reunited. They had gone floating off downstream, and were never to be found...
So along comes Low Force.
At usual levels, most of us in the group wouldnt have to think twice about giving it a go, but at this level, most of us were a bit nervous to say the least!! After much deliberation, we plucked up the courage and decided to give it a go.
Mark offered to be the first to go, and made it without too many problems. Everyone else then followed, taming what seemed to be a monstrous waterfall.
With the water levels so high, a usually unrunnable channel appeared, with a good 10 foot drop to finish off. With most people in high confidence after low force, it was decided to give it a go.
Ben E was first down, choosing to run the drop on the right. Everything looked good, even the landing of the drop, but the water had other ideas and decided to try and drag him back. He fell to the right, using his fingernails on the rock to keep him upright. With much persistance, and a little relief, he managed to claw himself away to safety.
Along followed Mark, who went for a line just a little more to the left than Ben E. Seemed like this didnt help too much, as he too fell onto the rocks, and had to claw himself out.
Next up was Nick, who then decided he would go even further to the left than the previous two. For this one, i was above the falls ready to jump in, so never actually saw what happened. All i do know is that he got a good thrashing in the stopper, causing the deck to be pulled.
Full of confidence from Nicks swim, it was now my turn. Didnt want to be too far right, and didnt want to be left either, so decided all i could do was to run it at an angle from left to right. Looking back, i hit it at too much of an angle, causing a frantic splashing of paddles to escape the stoppers clutches. Just about got away with that one!!
From here on in, it was relativley easy going down to our usual get-out
Various video was taken on the day, some from Gavins camera, and some from my Head-Cam. These have now been put together into a short video, which can be found below. (Alternativley, right click the link below and select "Save Target As.." to save the video to your hard disk)
Video: LCC on the Upper Tees in Spate
© Leeds Canoe Club 2009