Wet West PaddleFest

This year was my first time at Wet West Paddlefest and after hearing a lot about it, I was excited to find myself in the country with nothing clashing in the diary. I was also pretty keen to try out the Mamba 8.0 creek spec on something that would test it properly! So we packed up and headed north – camping out at the Falls of Falloch.

Hucking off the Falls of Falloch before breakfast – Photo: Tom Laws

Tom Laws on the Falls of Falloch – Photo: Lowri Davies

Chris Georgiou going for an alternative line on FoF – Photo: Lowri Davies

Not a bad christening for the three new boats, fresh from Dagger’s HQ! Happy that we were now awake, we headed to Glen Etive to find a sea of multi-coloured plastic enjoying good levels on the Etive and tribs. A run down the Etive and a blast down the ever hilarious Allt a’ Chaorainn and another run of the Etive with the rest of Team Palm/Dagger seemed to be a good way to start what would be a great weekend…

Tom Laws on Crack Dawn on the Etive – Photo: Lowri Davies

Chris Georgiou on a chunky Right Angle – Photo: Lowri Davies

The Green Machine almost reaches the bottom of Right Angle before it’s left the top! – Photo: Lowri Davies

After catching up with friend from far and wide at the Ice Factor centre on Friday night, we settled down for the night: 3 people, 2 thermarests and 1 van. Saturday’s organised release was on the river Garry – but fancying ourselves some more rock slidey fun, we headed to another of the Etive’s tribs – the Allt Mheuran. This trib involves a much more arduous walk-in but with a fun team and enough water, it was definitely worth the effort!

Team runs with High Fives – Photo: George Mortimer

Chris Georgiou on the final drop of the last crazy-fast chute – Photo: Lowri Davies

After paddling down it every which way, it only seemed right to try it on our bums, in trains and surfing down it. We also tried to see how many people we could fit on a Nomad – videos of these silly antics will no doubt end up online somewhere soon!

Photo: George Mortimer

Tom Laws, Tim Ripper, Chris Georgiou & myself – Photo: George Mortimer

Awesome fun – like being 10 years old again!

Saturday night was party night – with a mixed uptake of the Superhero themed fancy dress. My favourites were Flash Gordon, Borat, Banzer dressed as Ed Smith, Ed Smith dressed as a thunderbird and the couliflowers (for sheer randomness). Oh and who can forget Mad Andy dressed as a gorilla?! The party suffered a little from a small venue which closed quite early, but it was good to see everyone. Quote of the evening: “Go spoon yourself, Spoon Girl!”.

Sunday hosted the much anticipated Morriston release – well at least it did once they remembered to switch it on! As ever with organised events like this, there was plenty of carnage to entertain the crowds as hung over paddlers took to the water, not always with the skills to meet the lines. Luckily no-one was badly hurt. It was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to paddle it and really enjoyed it – some really sweet lines and fun little drops.

All that was left at the end of all that, was the long drive home with the two PK monkeys.

Tom and Chris prepare for the long trip home…

My photos from the trip can be seen here.

Generally I liked the Mamba. It is forgiving and seems to be a good shape for the female form. I chose the 8.0 as it is more comparable with my current river runner (Medium Burn) and I prefer my big boat to be big enough to carry plenty of kit, but when I paddled it I definitely thought the 7.5 to be big enough for a person of my size for general UK river running.

Happy Paddling, Lowri