CarlS
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Tryweryn 14th September 2008Graham, Andy M, Steve and myself met at the Cafe, looked at Chapel Mill Falls and got in below, doing the lower section as a 'warm up'. The river was not as busy as in previous visits and we arrived at Bala Mill to find it more or less empty of other paddlers, the falls looked completely different than other times I have seen them, perhaps this was due to the fact that there had been lots of rain, in fact the whole lower section had a number trees that we had to avoid.
Steve, Andy and myself decided to run the falls and I joined the select few members of the club who have capsized and rolled at the top, unfortunately returning upright took me completely by suprise and I went other again. For some reason I bailed and ended up not knowing which way was up, I got stuck under my boat and nearly ended up with my head in the cockpit. I eventually got free, by which time I was at the bottom and swam through the slalom course. I would like to claim that my spraydeck came off, but this would be a lie!
We then got in at the start of top section. I had to put in a high brace near the middle of the graveyard but ended up going backwards, I regained control, but hit a rock or something side on and capsized. My chin hit the bottom of the river and I bailed going for another swim, my whitewater safety training course paid off as I was able to self-rescue by making an eddy. I could claim that my boat was too small for this type of water, but Andy went all the way in his freestyle boat (but he is a good paddler). At this point I decided that a facial injury was a good excuse to get out and walked the rest of the way. Steve and Andy continued down and Andy made the eddy halfway down the ski slope.
All in all this was a really good trip and the lower section is well within the grasp of many of our members, you may swim but it really is not a big deal, there are plenty of places to recover boats, bodies paddles etc. The water is really clean and we will certainly do this trip again.
Carl
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Steve T
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Yes, today was another great river trip. I've been to the Tryweryn a few times over the last couple of years, but have only done the lower river once before - I think it was four years ago and it was only a few months after I'd been "born-again". It's supposed to be a grade II run, but there were a number of sections which needed a degree of technical skill, so I would say much of it was a low grade III at least. There were certainly parts which were a lot more technical than the top section of the Graveyard which is generally accepted to be a II+ / III. This may be because although the dam was releasing at 10 cumecs, there had been a lot of rain and this is supposed to have swollen the lower river (according to the CT website).
Bala Mill was interesting. I didn't run this the last time but looking down from above it looked bigger. After a technical lead-in, the plan is to make the breakout on the left above the main fall, so you can break back in again high enough up to avoid the main flow pushing you over a nasty bit. Andy made the breakout, Carl got in but caught an edge, as I got into the breakout Carl had capsized, rolled, capsized again and had just dropped over the fall upside-down, Andy was at the bottom of the breakout, he shouted to me that Carl was out of his boat and as I was better placed at the top of the breakout I ran the falls next. I'd like to say I did this in style, and I probably will do when Carl & Andy aren't around to disagree. However what really happened was slightly different and I found myself facing upstream trying not to get caught in the stopper below the fall. Carl was a way downstream, his boat pinned on a rock but I'm sure he was grateful that he'd just bought a full-cut helmet. Andy followed, and we sorted everything out. By this time Graham had followed the new portage trail and got himself perfectly positioned at the bottom to take our pictures. Shame we were all 100m downstream with no way of getting his attention.
The top section was really just a quick blast down, since we started late and had taken quite a while to run the lower. This was a great run as the river was pretty quiet (most paddlers were probably on other rivers as it had rained so much) and we caught a good gap between batches of rafts. Andy styled everything and went on to play in the NRA wave and to run Chapel Falls although I was knackered and got out at the raft egress. Graham took a picture of the "facial injury" and I'll post that here for you to judge for yourself whether it's a disfigurement or an improvement. Carl did say he thought he felt a bruise coming on so it might look more impressive by Wednesday.
As I said above, a great day. I'm enjoying these river trips and really looking forward to the Greta next month.
Steve
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Steve T
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The facial injury:
At least he made the trains run on time.
Steve
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CarlS
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The helmet I bought is shown in my new avatar. Il Duce.
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