Water on board....off-loading
Bristol’s parks were heaving this weekend with everyone from Clifton’s most smartly dressed women (hysterically sliding down hills on bin lids), to cross country skiers, enjoying the snow. Chief boat outfitter Neil looked pretty smug this morning with these pictures. Rightly so we reakon!
Bring on the snow melt!
Tim
Some areas have a profusion of outdoor possibilities. In the USA outdoor magazines often have features on the top 10 outdoor towns. Well, north Wales and specifically places like Betws-y-Coed and up-and-coming Llangollen are on my list for a UK version.
My trip to the area took me first to the Plas-y-Brenin set a few miles outside Betws, in Capel Curig. The area is steeped in hill and mountain climbing history, sat on the edge of the Horseshoe pass that leads to the climbs of Llanberis and only a short distance to Snowdon (Wales highest peak). The Brenin carries the heavyweight title of being the UK National Mountain Centre and is a veritable institution of outdoor activity.
Palm has been a sponsor of the centre for over fifteen years and the coaches, lead by Loel Colins and Pete Catteral have really put paddlesports on the map at the Brenin. This visit gave me chance to see what they had been up to, how Palm kit was standing up to hardcore professional use and also get some feed back on a few new products. Everything seemed to have worked really well and the guys were super happy with their sets of gear. The vote for best product was unanimously the Aleutian jacket but it was good to see that other items like the gear supplied for the Safety and Rescue Test Centre were getting loads of use.
With all the snow that unusually fell here in the UK last week the views from the centre dinning room in the morning were amazing so here’s a few pics to inspire. If you want to join them they have probably the broadest range of courses available and their web site is now featuring regular offers so take a look.
Next it was a quick trip to the National Whitewater Centre at Canolfan Tryweryn. This is a great facility (more so now that paddling is free) but my journey was not for getting in a boat instead to meet with Rescue 3 UK. To summarise what these guys do would require some more floods such as we have seen in the last few years. If you see the fire brigades rescuing folk from flooded homes then these are the people that taught them to do it. They are amazing flood and swift water rescue specialists and as we are doing some new products for this area its to their expertise we turn for critique. They don’t confine their teaching to professionals either with courses for groups and clubs as well, so if you want to stay safe take a look them up.
Finally another great drive through the snowy landscape took me to Llangollen and Ty’n Dwr. This used to be the old Youth Hostel but has recently been bought and had £2 million invested in a major refurbishment scheme for…. You guessed it, an outdoor centre! The new owners, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) are one of those newer style institutions that move quickly, don’t get bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy and act like a business. The result is a centre for study that, in terms of Outdoors, is at the forefront with higher-level courses (they have four outdoor specific degree courses), and probably the best outdoor centre building I have seen in the UK.
The result is quite some thing to see – certainly most of the people on the tour fancied giving it all up to go back and study…. if only for the 3 star student digs alone!
Paul
Our goal...the San Rafael Glacier
It squeezed us dry of every last drop of energy, and then demanded more. Patagonia, that distant magical place with towering spires for mountains and roller coaster seas, where someone told me “there’s nothing much doing with the tides from what I remember”, ate us up. It lived up to its name as ‘The Eater of Men’ (and women to be pc), and supplied a string of tough stuff, none of it helped by Andy hurting his back a few hours before starting. He crawled into the kayak high on drugs but still in pain, with a posture worse than Quasimodo. We would be two cripples in the wilderness, neither able to walk. It seemed a crazy plan to ‘set forth’, a hard juggle of our good sense with our commitment to make a film.
Andy being a big wall climber is well used to pain and thrives on things being as hard and grim as possible, so he was determined to try for at least one day in a kayak. I’ve a history of ex-boyfriends with bad backs, paranoid about my part in that, and though desperate for him not to make it worse, was no force to his stubbornness (which the Triple Echo film crew were thankful for). So in an already keen wind, we began – how hard could 5 days get? – our journey through tide-tortured waters. Fourty km a day, not much for some, but a lot for two wobblies who hadn’t sat in a kayak for five months, took us through tidal races, island narrows, white water rapids, and winds that built from nought to ‘too scary’ in no time at all. Any comfort we’d taken in our adventure being safe, given the proximity of the film crew on their boat, the ‘Natuiluca’, disappeared on day one, when they lost us, our white double kayak just a speck amongst the expanses of breaking waves. We felt vulnerable, all too aware that under ‘non-filming’ circumstances we would never come to such a remote man-eating place without other kayakers, believing some safety in numbers.
We were initially disappointed at our original month of paddling being shrunk to only 5 days by the filming schedule, and reticent about how realistic or challenging the journey would be…but we were quickly counting the days of effort that still lay ahead. Each night, I dragged myself through barnacles and crabs towards bivvy spots that might keep us safe from the unpredictable tide, and Andy crawled around, chopping small logs to roll the kayak up the beach. In sympathy, and seeing Andy doubled in pain, the camera crew occasionally carried a bag up the beach to help our slow process of making camp.
Why? Because there was a shrinking glacier to reach, carving into the sea in the Laguna San Rafael. Because neither of us can say no to adventure. Because now we’ve survived being swallowed up in the ‘Gulf of Elephants’ and its 20km open water maelstrom, and been swept by ten knot tides to a icebergs bluer than any colour swatch blue could be, life feels sweeter for a little while. It took a lot, but it was all worth it, and the Pisco Sour in our Santiago airport hotel right now tastes better than ever.
The verdict on Andy’s back….strained ligaments in his sacro-iliac joint, 6 to 12 weeks to recover. It might even drag Andy away from his Apple gadgetry, to the gym. And if anyone reading this fancies a paddling adventure in Patagonia, we’ve a great contact there with kayaks and kit and keen to help anyone get out there.
Thanks to Triple Echo and their fantastic film crew, the Nautiluca and their fantastic boat crew, and Patagonian Logistics, there will be a documentary about this, on BBC Scotland in March (I think). Happy paddling!
Wish it had been this sunny at the glacier (not our pic)…read more about our laguna arrival at www.andy-kirkpatrick.com Sorry no photos yet but camera batteries flat or with the airport baggage handlers!
P.S. Our Palm gear was superb – kept us dry, and was durable to those barnacles, and the best cut buoyancy aids we’ve ever worn.
A couple of weeks ago I caught up with the women’s sports magazine editor Danielle Sellwood to talk about women in kayaking. The article is featured in this months Sportsister magazine:
Check it out!
