Post by Disco on Dec 6, 2015 22:06:35 GMT
Date: 06/12/2015
Paddlers: Chris "lamp post" Welsh
Duncan "I think I can see a line" Stewart
Disco "not even drunk" Peden
River level:
Tooooo low There were a few rocks showing under the bridge in Keltneyburn. Seriously it needs to be raining when you arrive and have been for like 8 hours if you want it to be fun.
Description:
Having been watching "super hurricane storm Desmond" flood most of Perthshire over Friday and Saturday the we were rather excited to go and get some watery action on Sunday. To get off early me and duncan rocked up at 7:30 to get sorted out at the store and were a bit unimpressed when chris stumbled in at 8:30 looking like a zombie having stayed up into the wee hours writing a report. Despite this small delay we were out of dundee by sunrise (cos we're just that keen!)
We ran into a few problems in aberfeldy cos there was a wee bit of flooding on the route we where going to take so we worked out a new route via kenmore. FAFFTASTIC!!! This route was also flooded but the MPV heroically battled through. We looked at the keltney and it looked low so we set of to run the loch-AAAY. Fortunately some nice gentlemen informed us that the road ahead was blocked by a landslide At this point we said screw and went to the keltney. It was snowing and the river was a mile and a half away but since were hard as nails we downed a bottle of malt, punched a polar bear then got into our paddling kit. The car park is a hill walkers car park and so we got a cheeky ego boost from the odd looks we got as we unloaded the boats! The walk in was uneventful and we soon arrived at the river.
It took a wee while to scramble down into the gorge and Chris - having seen the stout flow - decided to end it all and slit his hand on some bracken. Fortunately I fixed him up while duncan the medic buggered off to run a wee drop upstream Then we got under way with some super scrapy gd 3 action. The fun ended abruptly as the river dropped away prompting some scrambling for eddies and neck craning. I hopped out and scouted and imminently decided to take the pedestrian option cos most of the river swept of the two metre drop into a rock wall. There was a line but it was scrappy and minging. Duncan had a look and after a bit more consideration decided to walk as well. Much to my embarrassment I dropped ma boat in the river and had to swim after it! (this doesn't count as a swim ).
More boat scratching followed until we found ourselves above the 2m drops big brother. The guide book described it as 5m but we reckon it was a bit lower after some scouting I decided to take a stab at it since there where lots of cameras around! It was pretty awesome and chris and duncan soon followed with some nice clean lines. The next section was nice grade 4 or would have been had there been water! As it was it was just a bit rocky. Duncan hopped out and signalled the line but I got pinned and then -after washing off- gave some very dubious river signals to duncan as to the best line so they made the sensible decision to skip it! The river flattened and we decided to cut our losses and walk back to the car!
On the way back we took a peak at the linn which was as big as we'd ever seen it. Naturally duncan melted it like a lad and rolled up unscathed halfway to pitlochry and chris - not to be outdone - dropped into the worst part of it sideways and threw some ends down before mystery moving his way to safety. I filmed all this but unfortunatly lost the film!
In conclusion we walked 5km and paddled 1.2km! It was still all fun and games and we will be going back when there is more water
Paddlers: Chris "lamp post" Welsh
Duncan "I think I can see a line" Stewart
Disco "not even drunk" Peden
River level:
Tooooo low There were a few rocks showing under the bridge in Keltneyburn. Seriously it needs to be raining when you arrive and have been for like 8 hours if you want it to be fun.
Description:
Having been watching "super hurricane storm Desmond" flood most of Perthshire over Friday and Saturday the we were rather excited to go and get some watery action on Sunday. To get off early me and duncan rocked up at 7:30 to get sorted out at the store and were a bit unimpressed when chris stumbled in at 8:30 looking like a zombie having stayed up into the wee hours writing a report. Despite this small delay we were out of dundee by sunrise (cos we're just that keen!)
We ran into a few problems in aberfeldy cos there was a wee bit of flooding on the route we where going to take so we worked out a new route via kenmore. FAFFTASTIC!!! This route was also flooded but the MPV heroically battled through. We looked at the keltney and it looked low so we set of to run the loch-AAAY. Fortunately some nice gentlemen informed us that the road ahead was blocked by a landslide At this point we said screw and went to the keltney. It was snowing and the river was a mile and a half away but since were hard as nails we downed a bottle of malt, punched a polar bear then got into our paddling kit. The car park is a hill walkers car park and so we got a cheeky ego boost from the odd looks we got as we unloaded the boats! The walk in was uneventful and we soon arrived at the river.
It took a wee while to scramble down into the gorge and Chris - having seen the stout flow - decided to end it all and slit his hand on some bracken. Fortunately I fixed him up while duncan the medic buggered off to run a wee drop upstream Then we got under way with some super scrapy gd 3 action. The fun ended abruptly as the river dropped away prompting some scrambling for eddies and neck craning. I hopped out and scouted and imminently decided to take the pedestrian option cos most of the river swept of the two metre drop into a rock wall. There was a line but it was scrappy and minging. Duncan had a look and after a bit more consideration decided to walk as well. Much to my embarrassment I dropped ma boat in the river and had to swim after it! (this doesn't count as a swim ).
More boat scratching followed until we found ourselves above the 2m drops big brother. The guide book described it as 5m but we reckon it was a bit lower after some scouting I decided to take a stab at it since there where lots of cameras around! It was pretty awesome and chris and duncan soon followed with some nice clean lines. The next section was nice grade 4 or would have been had there been water! As it was it was just a bit rocky. Duncan hopped out and signalled the line but I got pinned and then -after washing off- gave some very dubious river signals to duncan as to the best line so they made the sensible decision to skip it! The river flattened and we decided to cut our losses and walk back to the car!
On the way back we took a peak at the linn which was as big as we'd ever seen it. Naturally duncan melted it like a lad and rolled up unscathed halfway to pitlochry and chris - not to be outdone - dropped into the worst part of it sideways and threw some ends down before mystery moving his way to safety. I filmed all this but unfortunatly lost the film!
In conclusion we walked 5km and paddled 1.2km! It was still all fun and games and we will be going back when there is more water