The Upper River Tryweryn Trip, on 6th August 2016.

The Upper River Tryweryn Trip, on 6th August 2016.
Paddlers: Dale Clarke, Matt Kendel, Michael Ward, Colin Harrison, plus the 2 Ross’s, for part of the trip. Dale expertly led the group.

The group met up at the White water centre on the Upper River Trywern, at 10 am (Colin, excited as ever, turned up an hour early! and after walking the whole route of the run, got himself into a right tizzy and he wasn’t even on the water yet) The weather held out all day, reaching about 20 degrees Celsius.
3 paddlers decided to seal launch into the river backwards. Dale went first, followed by Matt, then Michael, who decided swimming is better than paddling, as he remained in his boat for about 3 secs before taking swim number 1. Colin wimped out and seal launched forward, joining the rest of the group to start the run. The launch was caught on camera and will be uploaded to the HCC Facebook page for all that want to see the swim.
After moving off, the group made their way to the first major feature and eddy’d out. Under the expert tutoring of Dale, Colin practiced some ferry gliding and surfing to gain his confidence.
Continuing down the river, coming across a large rock, Dale pinned himself too it, Matt pinned himself onto Dale. Then it was Colin’s turn followed by Michael. Everyone completed this successfully and much fun was had by all.
Arriving at the “graveyard” section of the river, Dale and Matt entered the first tier of the drop and exited out, river left, on the first available eddy. Colin missed the first eddy, got pinned against a rock on river left and after wriggling of dropped down the next two tiers backwards, but managed to eddy out on the third drop. Dale tailed Colin down. Matt and Michael followed the paddle down successfully to regroup at the bottom of “graveyard”
At Ski jump everyone ran the river, Colin and Michael deciding not take the eddy out at “hero eddy” on the first run, but making in count on the second run. This section of river is a short but severe drop of river with a big stopper at the bottom.
Passing through the feature called “Miss Davis” Michael took another swim (take 2) everyone else made this run without error.
The “cafe wave” and Fingers” delivered superb runs by the paddle group. You would even think they knew what they were doing at this point!
“NRA bridge” was challenging for Colin, who took a roll on his first run, then a swim on the second run. Michael took a swim (3rd of the day) on the second run, but nailed the first. Dale and Matt managed Olympic style runs both times.
“Chapel falls” was uneventful for all paddlers on the first run. This marks the end of the run. On the second run Michael and Colin only made it too NRA bridge.
On the second run of the river, everyone joined in with “boofing” of rocks, surfing at the “café wave” and eddy hopping and trying to make the more difficult, technical eddy’s.
Colin, now feeling old and tired, decided not to take the third run. The three remaining paddlers made run three count. Colin videoed some of the third run and will post this on the HCC Facebook page for those interested. Swim 4 for Michael on this video, we did say at the start he preferred swimming! 😉 Michael plus another paddler managed to eddy out at the same time, went over the drop together and Michael lost out this time, better luck next time! Well they do say if you’re not swimming you are not trying hard enough.

This report was written by Joanne Thomas, as Colin cannot type, speak or write English. Apologies to those know the correct terminologies for kayaking, I am going on what Colin told me, then made some sense of it, in order to write this report.
Joanne.