Post by phnx on Jun 21, 2012 12:30:12 GMT
Sunday 17th June 2012
Paddlers:
Jack
Moon
Gav
Thomas
Elliot
Roddy
Level: Scrape- We expected more water from the previous days downpour. The falls need more water to be runnable and not a risk for boat damage, wouldn't recommend running at this level. In high water they are meant to be tasty!
Details:
Roddy, myself, Tom and jack met at the store to load up kit and we were to meet Moon at the get in. While we finished loading up kit Jack went for a bakery run and was to bring me back 3 bags of crisps of any flavour. he texted me to say there were no "normal flavours" so i was getting an " exotic selection". This made me do the excite. He returned with two bags of cheesey quavers and some wotsits. i know I'm from kirkcaldy and good food isn't found in these parts, but I would hardly class them as exotic! Never the less they were quickly scranned and we were on our way to the river.
We met Moon at the get in above the falls ( but not up at the loch) and got changed at a lightning pace due to what i can best describe as a plague of midgies. Whilst waiting for the shuttle to be done we were feasted upon and myself and jack spent the majority of the time slapping the air, throwing water up or rolling to avoid the pesky winged devils.
A few of us were rocking shiny new kit. This included Moon in his sooooper shiny new Stomper, Tom in his very sexy palm Atom and myself sporting new dry trousers and wrsi helmet.
The first part of the river was a scrapey pish bimble that has nothing worth talking about that I can remember. There was many a comedy value in seeing Moon try and avoid every single rock ( and there were millions) and the grimaces he would make as he added the first scratches to his boat. We were soon through the depressingly scrapey bimbles and at the falls. At sucha low level the falls merited a prolongued inspection from both sides of the river, above and below the falls. the falls split into two runnable channels around a large rockface in the middle of the river. At normal levels the left hand channel is favoured and the right hand side is for the more ballsy. Today the lack of water had exposed several rocks on the left hand run, making it a technical grade 4 that was runnable both left and right. Running right would require a very precise line to avoid taking a pasting on the rocks in the middle and avoiding a nasty syphon far right. This made the line very undesireable and was dismissed fairly quickly. Running left looked slighly better, line could be ran eddying out far left just after the drop in then hugging far left again a tight line appeared through the rocks. The bottom of this line was fairly tricky and would likely end up splatting a large rock at the bottom and some downtime in the stopper. Because of this we got back in boats and paddled over to river right to inspect the steeper fall.
The right hand channel looked more intimidating than running the left channel if a mistake was made. The rapid was shorter but much steeper and some rocks in various places made both lines awkward and we spent some time inspecting this side before we made a decision. Running in hard left the line was perfect straight down and you would avoid a hard kiss on the rockface and blast through at pace. The problem was rocks obstructed the run in and we weren't confident a boat would make it through. The right hand side faired little better, with the run in flat you could hit the line hard right easily, but you couldn't judge where the rock middle rock was until it was too late, and had to trust to memory to avoid it and blast through. The scrapey nature of the fall made Moon walk as he didn't want to damage his new boat and Roddy decided to walk too. Gav and Tom were still pondering when Jack and myself decided it looked doable. Jack ran first and absolutely nailed his run in, putting a final stroke on the right hand side to hit the far right line perfectly, avoiding the rock and making it look easy. Tom ran second and hit it pretty sweetly too and made it down in one piece. I ran next and in the process of geeing myself up for it didn't come right enough and smashed into the middle rock. Despite losing all speed I still managed to make it down, somehow without remodelling Anthony's nose again. Gav ran last and all seemed fine so we continued on down.
After the falls the river narrowed into a pretty sexy rapid. At these levels a big rock river left forced the water to flow round it to the right allowing boats to pass through this channel between some rocks on the river right. Moon got back in and joined us in running but Roddy continued on and portaged and joined us after. Tom had a little moment and went under but due to the flat water after the rapid he rolled easily. Everyone else was fine.
the rest of the river continued on fairly scrapey with more Moon wincing at the scratches fast appearing on his boat. Some better rapids than the top of the river but nothing that compared to the falls and the rapid after it. Some small drops of a couple feet and bimbles were all the river had to offer until we hit S bend, a nae bad grade 3 that is ( shockingly enough) shaped like an S. We all ran it fine except Roddy, who continued his trait of portaging everything worth paddling by getting half way down the S, eddying out, deciding he couldn't hit " something" ( i couldn't hear due to the pounding gnarly water swirling all around us) and opted instead to slide down the rocks like a Seal at Edinburgh Zoo. I to this day have no idea why this happened.
The rest of the river was meh. At the get out we realised Gav had hurt his boat badly, probably on the bony falls. If it takes a decent hit on the bottom it is probably going to split. this made everyone in the group sad, but especially Gav After this we got out and changed before arguing about paddling something else whilst the midgies feasted upon us some more. We decided against it due to inspection of WTW and the realisation that everything within driving distance was empty :/ gav suggested a visit to the Bracklinn falls near callander, which we obliged. After a lengthy inspection we decided to give it a miss and Gav's parents invited us for scones. As we chatted in the car park a little thing called Karma decided to materialise. Some of you readinf this may remember a certain Thomas Eadsforth delivering what can only be described as one of the best testicle hits I have ever seen at the Etive weekend. A poor unsuspecting Jack Duncanson had been chatting and Thomas seized the oppurtunity to leap like a gazelle and spring forwards and backhand him square in the testicles. jack had been biding his time and it was time for him to exact his revenge. Mid-sentence the unsuspecting Dr was blasted in the testicles so hard by Mr Duncanson that the Dr was heard to audibly say " When I piss there is going to be blood." It was an absolute beauty and El Doctor was limping and whining for quite some time.
We went to Gavs and met his lovely parents. We all had a good laugh at thomas being uber polite which was MEGALOLZ. We were treated to some exquisite home made soup and scones. Gav's mum asked about the now very obvious and numerous bite marks on my face. When i told her it was 2 days until my graduation she laughed so hard I think part of my soul died. Then everyone else laughed. It was very upsetting. Gav's mum gave me some cream ( man up?) to put on my face and it made me do the pretty again in time for graduation. FANX MRS SWAVIN
Then we drove home with full bellies and parted ways.
Conclusions:
The Leny probably is a one rapid wonder
The Leny is best saved for when it is PUMPIN'
A scrapey Leny will hurt boats
If it has been wet, there is no rain, no wind and it is warm you will be feasted upon by the dreaded midgies.
videos of the falls were taken by Moon and Roddy. Will get links put in here when they are fired on Vimeo.
Paddlers:
Jack
Moon
Gav
Thomas
Elliot
Roddy
Level: Scrape- We expected more water from the previous days downpour. The falls need more water to be runnable and not a risk for boat damage, wouldn't recommend running at this level. In high water they are meant to be tasty!
Details:
Roddy, myself, Tom and jack met at the store to load up kit and we were to meet Moon at the get in. While we finished loading up kit Jack went for a bakery run and was to bring me back 3 bags of crisps of any flavour. he texted me to say there were no "normal flavours" so i was getting an " exotic selection". This made me do the excite. He returned with two bags of cheesey quavers and some wotsits. i know I'm from kirkcaldy and good food isn't found in these parts, but I would hardly class them as exotic! Never the less they were quickly scranned and we were on our way to the river.
We met Moon at the get in above the falls ( but not up at the loch) and got changed at a lightning pace due to what i can best describe as a plague of midgies. Whilst waiting for the shuttle to be done we were feasted upon and myself and jack spent the majority of the time slapping the air, throwing water up or rolling to avoid the pesky winged devils.
A few of us were rocking shiny new kit. This included Moon in his sooooper shiny new Stomper, Tom in his very sexy palm Atom and myself sporting new dry trousers and wrsi helmet.
The first part of the river was a scrapey pish bimble that has nothing worth talking about that I can remember. There was many a comedy value in seeing Moon try and avoid every single rock ( and there were millions) and the grimaces he would make as he added the first scratches to his boat. We were soon through the depressingly scrapey bimbles and at the falls. At sucha low level the falls merited a prolongued inspection from both sides of the river, above and below the falls. the falls split into two runnable channels around a large rockface in the middle of the river. At normal levels the left hand channel is favoured and the right hand side is for the more ballsy. Today the lack of water had exposed several rocks on the left hand run, making it a technical grade 4 that was runnable both left and right. Running right would require a very precise line to avoid taking a pasting on the rocks in the middle and avoiding a nasty syphon far right. This made the line very undesireable and was dismissed fairly quickly. Running left looked slighly better, line could be ran eddying out far left just after the drop in then hugging far left again a tight line appeared through the rocks. The bottom of this line was fairly tricky and would likely end up splatting a large rock at the bottom and some downtime in the stopper. Because of this we got back in boats and paddled over to river right to inspect the steeper fall.
The right hand channel looked more intimidating than running the left channel if a mistake was made. The rapid was shorter but much steeper and some rocks in various places made both lines awkward and we spent some time inspecting this side before we made a decision. Running in hard left the line was perfect straight down and you would avoid a hard kiss on the rockface and blast through at pace. The problem was rocks obstructed the run in and we weren't confident a boat would make it through. The right hand side faired little better, with the run in flat you could hit the line hard right easily, but you couldn't judge where the rock middle rock was until it was too late, and had to trust to memory to avoid it and blast through. The scrapey nature of the fall made Moon walk as he didn't want to damage his new boat and Roddy decided to walk too. Gav and Tom were still pondering when Jack and myself decided it looked doable. Jack ran first and absolutely nailed his run in, putting a final stroke on the right hand side to hit the far right line perfectly, avoiding the rock and making it look easy. Tom ran second and hit it pretty sweetly too and made it down in one piece. I ran next and in the process of geeing myself up for it didn't come right enough and smashed into the middle rock. Despite losing all speed I still managed to make it down, somehow without remodelling Anthony's nose again. Gav ran last and all seemed fine so we continued on down.
After the falls the river narrowed into a pretty sexy rapid. At these levels a big rock river left forced the water to flow round it to the right allowing boats to pass through this channel between some rocks on the river right. Moon got back in and joined us in running but Roddy continued on and portaged and joined us after. Tom had a little moment and went under but due to the flat water after the rapid he rolled easily. Everyone else was fine.
the rest of the river continued on fairly scrapey with more Moon wincing at the scratches fast appearing on his boat. Some better rapids than the top of the river but nothing that compared to the falls and the rapid after it. Some small drops of a couple feet and bimbles were all the river had to offer until we hit S bend, a nae bad grade 3 that is ( shockingly enough) shaped like an S. We all ran it fine except Roddy, who continued his trait of portaging everything worth paddling by getting half way down the S, eddying out, deciding he couldn't hit " something" ( i couldn't hear due to the pounding gnarly water swirling all around us) and opted instead to slide down the rocks like a Seal at Edinburgh Zoo. I to this day have no idea why this happened.
The rest of the river was meh. At the get out we realised Gav had hurt his boat badly, probably on the bony falls. If it takes a decent hit on the bottom it is probably going to split. this made everyone in the group sad, but especially Gav After this we got out and changed before arguing about paddling something else whilst the midgies feasted upon us some more. We decided against it due to inspection of WTW and the realisation that everything within driving distance was empty :/ gav suggested a visit to the Bracklinn falls near callander, which we obliged. After a lengthy inspection we decided to give it a miss and Gav's parents invited us for scones. As we chatted in the car park a little thing called Karma decided to materialise. Some of you readinf this may remember a certain Thomas Eadsforth delivering what can only be described as one of the best testicle hits I have ever seen at the Etive weekend. A poor unsuspecting Jack Duncanson had been chatting and Thomas seized the oppurtunity to leap like a gazelle and spring forwards and backhand him square in the testicles. jack had been biding his time and it was time for him to exact his revenge. Mid-sentence the unsuspecting Dr was blasted in the testicles so hard by Mr Duncanson that the Dr was heard to audibly say " When I piss there is going to be blood." It was an absolute beauty and El Doctor was limping and whining for quite some time.
We went to Gavs and met his lovely parents. We all had a good laugh at thomas being uber polite which was MEGALOLZ. We were treated to some exquisite home made soup and scones. Gav's mum asked about the now very obvious and numerous bite marks on my face. When i told her it was 2 days until my graduation she laughed so hard I think part of my soul died. Then everyone else laughed. It was very upsetting. Gav's mum gave me some cream ( man up?) to put on my face and it made me do the pretty again in time for graduation. FANX MRS SWAVIN
Then we drove home with full bellies and parted ways.
Conclusions:
The Leny probably is a one rapid wonder
The Leny is best saved for when it is PUMPIN'
A scrapey Leny will hurt boats
If it has been wet, there is no rain, no wind and it is warm you will be feasted upon by the dreaded midgies.
videos of the falls were taken by Moon and Roddy. Will get links put in here when they are fired on Vimeo.