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