Hot Dang Summer

The problem with summer…… is its so flippin dry. In a country where rain rules the kayaking world, this is not a great thing. I think we highland kayakers have made the best of it though….

Garry sessions galore only go so far in the quest to stay sane and soon you end up doing anything. Anything at all to get your fix. I even talked myself into walking into the middle of midge hell nowhere to spend the night in a wet tin shack with Lil Rich an Ed Smith. At least the River Kinglass that we paddled the next day was really full of water…Not! Oh well at least it was an adventure and there were some very very cool rapids up there somewhere.

The million k’s of flat water, the forever walk, no sleep, and way too many midges somehow made me forget about pretty much anything good about the trip though. Maybe I’m just being a grumpy boxtird though; I guess I’ll just have to go back to check! There was some amazing stuff up there…. I think the other two enjoyed it when I wasn’t whining too much. I guess its a good thing that the epics are way more fun to recall than the best of the best days.

Cliff huckin has been my saviour this summer and Thom Brown and I have desperately been trying to sack up. It just difficult though when you’re just not man enough. Luckily Thom had loads of Original Sauce orange energy to boost us on…. (surely you’ve seen the ad??!!)

It did rain a few times though and we got out here and there: the best trips were on the Leven. A few weeks ago I headed up with Thom and did some cool stuff on the upper section before paddling some awesomely powerful water below the End of the World. More recently I had a great trip with Ed Smith, Dave Martin, Lil Rich and Chris Radnuts. We paddled an awesome waterfall on one of the tribs then got some magic action on the river. We hucked, and survived, End of the World before enjoying the lovely lower section. Check out Ed’s post about it below…

I put a wee video together of the summer footage using some offcuts from my big giant movie project. Its all filler I’m afraid, but I can assure you that there’s no talking and there may be some rapids you haven’t seen. Bring on the rainy months and don’t forget to love yourself.

The video link…

http://www.wheresthewater.com/summer

Dave B

Salachan, WigWam and Oranges

The Salachan Burn and the WigWam Burn are two Scottish Creeks which you might not have paddled, but really should. Following a couple of sweet runs with Thom Brown I thought I’d do a quick rough guide for those who aren’t in the know. Both are grade 4/5, but there’s nothing too stressful if the flow is sensible.

The Salachan is located about 5 minutes drive south of the village of Duror on the Glencoe to Oban road (about 10 mins from the Ballachulish bridge turnoff). It needs quite a bit of water so looking over the road bridge there should be enough flow to get down the main channel without scraping off any rocks. If it was super high (completely covering the entire river bed upstream of the bridge) then it would be fast and scary with big holes everywhere and no eddies….

You can park up at the bottom of the private track which leads up beside river left. Walk up for about a kilometre and a half until you reach a fork in the road, there should now be an open grassy area to your left. Walk down and put on to a short grade 3 warm up and after 70 metres or so you’ll be at the top of one of the coolest drops in Scotland. It’s a pretty easy line at a low flow, but would get pushy high and could feel shallow if you don’t boof (Gr5): enjoy the rare feeling of complete disconnection and freefall!

After this the difficulty of the river will be entirely dependent on the flow, but is generally good 3-4 which can almost all be run from the boat. There’s a big horizon line which is a fun 15ft slide followed by pool then a fast flume into a sweet parabola boof off a 3 metre drop. This is all good and easy at low/med flow, but would get very serious at high flow.

After this you’ve got another section of good G3/4 action which all goes well- mostly from the boat. There are a couple of trees and the odd dodgy looking boulder trap to avoid, but it’s all good if you’re upright and in control. The get out is on the left where you will spot the track that you walked up winding along above the riverbank.

Next up is the Allt Auchtertyre or WigWam Burn which flows into the north side of the glen between Tyndrum and Crianlarich (opposite the Connonish). Coming from the south take the right hand turn immediately after the bridge over the Connonish (sign for wigwams) and follow the track to a large parking area. Looking over the bridge the rock beneath the downstream side should be completely covered and forming a reasonably chunky hole. If you don’t think you can run this rapid then maybe the rest of the river won’t be for you…

Walk up the track which follows river right. It’s probably a good idea to stop at the top of the first hill and bash your way to the river to check out a big fall, “Spit Roaster”. It’s big and gnarly and may require a portage although it has been run at a good flow (but not tremendously successfully!). If it’s very low then this drop would be an excellent park and huck…

Carry on walking until you reach a stile above the point at which the river splits. The bigger river, on river left, has got some cool slabby stuff to be explored and is more worth it than it might look. Otherwise it’s probably best to put on below the ‘Destroyer’, a grinding, churning hole which is immediately after the meeting of the two streams.

Some good grade 4 boofs for 100 metres lead to an obvious horizon line which can be inspected on river right. “The Lamb Fondler” is definitely one of my favourite drops and seems to go nicely at most reasonable flows. I’ll let you decide the line, but it’s pretty obvious that you don’t want to go left on the bottom ramp… The short gorge that follows is turbo, but has a few trees to avoid and a good face shot from a river left waterfall if the river is high.

After this there’s a kilometre of awesome grade 3/4 which all goes sweetly. It flows through a reasonably gentle sided and escapable gorge which makes for easy scouting and portage if necessary. There’s a great drop and hole under the railway bridge then a 2/3 section until the Spit Roaster breakout. The bit from the big drop downwards is a “Stay Left” boulder affair until you reach the rapid under the bridge. Take out river right and be careful not to damage the fence. Enjoy!!

The stills have been taken from footage which I am collecting for “Sneaky Freaky Creeky”, a Scottish boating film. It’s going to be a while coming, but it’s going to be radical!

Dave B

Wet Wet Fort

It’s been a sweet couple of weeks here in the Fort. I escaped work early last Tuesday to go on an epic solo mission to the far end of Loch Arkaig. Before I knew what was going on I was slogging towards the Allt Cuirnean in the middle of a monsoon.

Earlier that day I had been dreamily looking at the Lochaber map which sits beside my desk at work. This combined with an internet search for images of the river I had spotted on the map gave me a need to go adventuring. I’d seen a cool looking double drop on geograph website, so this rapid was my main target- the plan was to take my new high def video camera and tripod to capture some radical action on a previously unexplored river.

I passed an awesome rapid on the River Dessary, which I’d seen before at low flow, which in full flood looked wicked. For some reason I kept walking…..hmmm! I eventually reached the Cuirnean to find it thumping through a deep gorge with crystal blue water. About a k up I got to the double drop- 20 foot into a cauldron then another 20. It looked mental and there was no way I was running it at that flow, so I lowered my boat down into the gorge and paddled down the freight train gorge (which I had scouted from above), dodging big trees, holes and siphons. Quite character building stuff!!

Unfortunately I didn’t get a single bit of footage, because it was getting dark and I was concentrating on just getting the thing done. I think I might go back in lower flow and with friends to have a crack at the double drop… we’ll see!

Anyhoo… I had three cool days prior to these events which I did catch a bit of film of. The first day was just me and a very low Dubh Lighe (one of my favourites) on which i was testing out my new camera. It was a bit dark, but still a couple of fun moves to make…. The next day I was on the Etive with Ed Smith and it was pretty flippin high. Check out the cool shot in the vid of Ed showing us all how to re-surface- He always comes up upright and I’m never quite sure how. Apparently he gets a stroke in when he’s under that keeps him driving forwards which is definitely something that I’m going to practice… You’ll also see Ed storming through a massive hole at ski jump as though it was nothing. Very cool!

That Saturday I had a turbo paddle down the Nevis with Callum Anderson, Steven Cant, Brinky and Paul Maydew. It was a bit on the low side but lots of fun. Most of the footage is from that day. This short clip was also shown at the very end of the Fort William Mountain Fest Paddling Night and the music is by Bat for Lashes- hope you enjoy! (I’ve had to lower the quality a bit for web use…)

A Wee Clip

More recently- this weekend- I went to have a look at a big drop on a tributary of the Ailort. It was about 50 feet and looked pretty good to go, but after extensive thinking I decided to woose out. There wasn’t much water going over it so it could easily end up being a body wrecker, but maybe I’ll go back one day. Or maybe I’ll just find someone braver and film them running it… Luckily there were a couple of other cool drops which I did get to run. The stills are grabbed from video which I’m holding back for the production of “Sneaky Freaky Creeky”. It might be a while coming, but there is going to be a Scottish boating movie being made over the next year or so.

Keep it radical

Dave B