SnowFest 2010

… was tops.

Sue and I got a bit older. The rest of us collected hangover, bruises, fresh tracks, bunnies and smiles on the slopes.

Some random photos (stolen from facebook) from the trip. Big thankyous to Sue for all the organising. You can organise my Birthday celebrations every year.

Washburn report

On Sunday, a whole bunch of folk headed to the Washburn – Alison, Kaylia, me, Penny, Bob, Frank, Will, Cath, Chris, Anna, Splinky and Kev. Will found it “too boring”, or maybe he was too hungover from party the night before, and decided to jog the shuttles instead, which was very handy for the rest of us.

Was a lovely day with brilliant sunshine. Despite the weather, the water was chilly – luckily only one swim between us all day.

The Washburn is certainly pricier than we’d remembered – £8 even for bcu members – I guess I’ve only usually gone in an evening before, is it cheaper on the eve runs?

On our last run, we found a lone random, “paddling without his boat”, haha. I’m sure he was delighted to be rescued by us 5 girls (not). Unfortunately he was too young to legally purchase swimbeers.

Hooray for a nice sunny Sunday with good company.

Also spent Saturday in Angelsey, which had nice surf, not huge, but very pleasant – lets have some surf trips this spring,

Happy paddling xxxxh

Feels like

And the forecast today is blizzard snow, Easterly winds blowing cold air from Siberia, highs of zero degrees in North Wales, but with the wind chill factor this will feel like -4.

What exactly does -4 feel like? Oh great, lets find out.

On Sunday, we set off for the Dee, AlisonH, HelenH, Kaylia, KatieL and Penny. Lately, we’ve been doing a kind of “paddling for softies” progression (Penny is strengthening her shoulder, while Alison and me are just plain soft), so this January we’ve been to Chester (yes, the flat bit) and Trevor (there’s one rapid) with Kim, as well as a few runs of the Burrs last week. So, this time, in the spirit of easy rivers, we tagged on several miles of the flat section of the Dee above Horseshoe as a warm up.

Warm up.

The section was very pretty, we saw heron, dippers, and some men with a nice bonfire who shouted at us a lot. The sun shone down, occasionally making to us at the bottom of the valley, but could not counteract the biting, miserable, face-exfoliating wind. We soon lost all feeling in our fingers and toes, expecially Penny who bravely struggled on with no gloves.

By the time we got to horseshoe falls, two of us had hypothermia but still enough sense left to stop paddling and jog back towards the car – thanks Manchester for the lift! – while the other three were obviously further gone, beyond thinking rationally, and carried on paddling.

Before serpents tail, my left hand was a disembodied object, no connection for the messages I was sending it, and no response in movement. Luckily it was curved into a hook shape to grip the paddle, hey ho. I went down serpents fine, keeping left and skimming happily over the shoulder of the stopper, aiming for, and making, the nice little eddy river left.

Which I then found I couldn’t leave… Oops.

Kaylia was next, and as she headed on line, perfectly aiming at me and shouting “Get out the way! Get out the way!” Sad to say, swerving to miss me was her undoing, and the resulting swim cooled her down thouroughly, in case she was feeling too warm. Katie, the one we were supposedly “looking after”, bobbed down the rapid easily like a little duck, and didn’t even get her hair wet.

Kaylia had experineced the pain of a whole body instant chill, while by now, I was actually beginning to feel much better – probably the adrenaline – and my hand had become mine again, rather than an alien lump of chilled meat. The rest of the river was fine, and at Town Falls, we all made the line we’d planned, left of the slot, despite all the “helpful” advice from the pub balcony encouraging us to “Go right! Go right!”

At the bottom, hooray, dry socks have never felt so good. A quick phone call to find out about the uni, who were over at Teeside slalom, getting the brunt of the east wind and gales. They had come 7th! Wow, what a fab result!

Now for the shuttle. There is a picture I want to put here, but someone won’t let me. Suffice to say, the lady at the house by chainbridge wants us to write to the council and ask for bollards to be put in – apparently this is not the first time cars have ended up at a jaunty angle in the evil ditch there with their back wheels shoulder-height off the ground and their exhaust pipes pointing at the sky.

Hooray for farmers with towbars, we love you.

Next we retired to the Sarah Ponsonby pub, and made our resolutions to take a bit more notice of the weather forcast next time.

White Christmas

A trip planned based on the theory that I can’t possibly be with my family at Christmas, so I am going to encourage everyone else to skip out on theirs as well. Skipping out on family turned out to be less popular than I expected, the only locals to make the trip were JimBob & Andy Ince.  Joined by the orphans for the year, myself, Ed, Dan, Sharon (Aus), Thai (Alaska) all going to visit Chris (exiled in France for a Season).

The tone for the trip was very much set on the first night, we laid out or luggage to discover we had more bottles of spirits than we had people. Obviously to get through all this we would need to be drinking all day… Christmas presents were given early and by day two everyone was packing a hipflask filled with their spirit of choice. Which helped to build up courage above the black runs, and also reduced the price of our nights out. One round can last all night when you can load up with every trip to the bathroom.

Christmas eve I am told was good… somewhere along the line we invented “Irish Russians”. A bit like a White Russian, only replace the milk with Baileys… then for some reason everything gets a little hazy.

Christmas gifts continued, and on Christmas morn we were all packing Santa Suits provided by Dan. So by mid afternoon Seven “Sober” Santas dragged themselves to the top of the mountain. In order to slide back down.

Thats about it, Video was created by Thai. Much thanks to everyone who came along and made it my best Christmas since landing in the Northern Hemisphere (Same time next year?).

Stay Classy…

Betws-y-coed

Winter walk

 

We went a very pretty walk, to Llyn Crafnant and Llyn Geirionydd reservoirs, more pics here.

Mist in the valleys, and bright sunshine on the tops lovely. Chris and I tested the emergency shelter, and discovered that it creates emergencies just fine – happy birthday Chris, here’s a cracked skull just for you (sorry!) Other activities of the weekend included scrambling, shopping, curry, and testing the response time of the local fire brigade (1 hr 5 mins) using a complicated system of toasters, connected in both series and parallel.

Lovely weekend, Happy Birthday Chris xxxxx

Hell Runner

Where is the best place to be on a rainy November weekend.

If your answer was running through a Muddy forest encountering “the bogs of Doom” and following paths that seemed to pick the steepest hills possible. Then Delerware (sp) forest & Hellrunner are for you.

Will said “Hellrunner?”, 9 of lucky’s finest said “Hell yeah!”. So with that spirit, Myself, Ade, Mike, Will, Cath, Alison, Kev, Claire and Penny lined up at the start line, for a race no one knew the length of, or the terrain.

It turns out it was about 10-12 miles of primarily steep muddy paths. The surprise result being Mike narrowly beating Ade. And Alison only a few minutes behind Claire.

Today’s reviews..

Ade
Well done to everyone (esp Mike – fine performance!)

My legs can tell they’ve been out.

Alison
Well I can hardly walk and stairs are completely impossible!
Am taking up running for my new hobby though.

Penny (who crossed the line without being noticed)
Ah – all part of my MI6 untrackableness! Today i have decided that lifts (usually looked on with distain) are a good invention after all.

Will
After feeling like i had been hit by a bus last night, this morning i feel ok apart fom the intensely uncomfortable ring of fire of nappy rash i have between my buttocks!! I have spent the day walking like john wayne.

Position, Name, Time
68 MIKE LANCASTER 01:33:10
77 ADE GREENWOOD 01:33:33
287 DAVID COOTE 01:48:10
954 CLAIRE LANCASTER 02:17:14
1062 ALISON HOWELL 02:22:33
1227 CATHERINE TURNER 02:34:49
1230 WILLIAM POTTS 02:34:49
1375 KEVIN SMITH 02:55:29

Turkey: video trailer

Currently in production, Lazy and Inept Productions video of trip to Turkey – see Ali’s report of the trip: Turkish Delights in June

Here’s a trailer:

Autumn trips LUCC

See the lucanoe.info website for a list of trips of Autumn term. In particular, the West Tanfield trip is 25/26 Oct, the Tyne Tour is 8/9 Nov and the Xmas dinner is 12 Dec. xh

Pyranha Fest 2008

 

Coaching session with Chris Eastabrook

flaring

tea stop between runs

boofing

top class accomodation

raft carnage

 

I’ve just got back from an awesome weekend at the Pyranha Fest held at the Tryweryn this weekend. It was the first of hopefully many Pyranha Fests to come. There were loads of coaching sessions put on by Tom Parker and gang from whitewater rescue to river running to freestyle.  I took the opportunity to do one on Boofs and Flares on the Saturday morning.  There were just three of us, me and two other guys for a three hour session with Chris Eastabrook , one of the team Pyranha guys. The session really opened my eyes to how much more there is to river paddling than just your standard paddling techniques, there is a whole lot of new school techniques to learn as well to improve your style and control down rapids and open up new lines that you had not previously thought about. We started practicing our boofs off some small ledge drops on the Tryweryn and quickly moved on to flares on curling waves and off rocks.

 

For those who don’t know a boof is a technique that you can use on drops to propel your boat horizontally off  from the lip of the drop landing flat at its base to stay on top of the water to maximize your control and avoid being worked by the stinky holes and stoppers at the drops base.  A flare is where you ride high on a curling wave keeping your boat on top of the water to maximize your control. The technique is commonly used in combination with a boof to avoid the mess lying at the foot of the curling wave or to get into and eddy if you flare a curling wave coming off a rock. Using these techniques allows you to run much cleaner lines on rapids, making you look much more stylish and ultimately better in the photos!

 

After a bit of practice with the boofs and flares Chris had us combining the two techniques and performing deck grabs to prove how controlled (or not) we were. We then went on to explore all the possible lines down the ski jump rapid (centre-centre, left-centre, left –left, right-left…) using our newly honed techniques to make it look stylish. The right-left line saw me doing most of ski jump upside down. With zero points for style and some new scratches in my helmet I went back up to do that line again and get it right.

After the coaching session and a few mugs of tea I spent the rest of the day perfecting my boofing and flaring on a couple of runs down the upper Tryweryn. There were loads of other paddlers around, some really good, some not so good.  Watching the really good ones you could see how they were using the techniques we had been working on to make every line they took really smooth. Watching the not so good ones causing carnage was quite funny!

Later I met up with Will, Andy, Sue and Ben (Sue’s housemate) and headed off to the Pyranha fest party in Bala. The “Fat Cats” guys showed a film of their most recent  trip to Greenland and the White Water Warriors talked about their trip to China involving a 22 day drive in for one river that they then decided was not worth running! They did run some other stuff that looked pretty good but scary! Then the music started and everyone had a good dance with most people ending up topless and very merry by the time it all came to an end.  A typical paddling party really.

We slept what was left of the night in our classy accommodation, the car-park in Bala and got up the next morning a wee bit worse for wear to head to the Tryweryn for some more paddling and playing in the sun. It was a great weekend and I hope they have another one like it next year.

 

Tour De North

So after finishing up my last job, with no more work in sight I figured the best thing to do would be to go for a bike ride. I even convinced myself that if I could stop at peoples houses I could apply for jobs online and it would be just as effective as staying at home.

So how to plan a bike ride, well look up the addresses of your mates in the North, ignore those who live in bigger cities, pick a nice place to start and join the dots. The nice place to start I chose was Penrith. The night before (Thurs 11th Sept)  I caught the train up to Warrington to have beers with Si & Lloyd, figuring the next morning I could get an early start.

I spent the next morning sitting around in Warrington trying to kill time, as they wouldn’t let me on the train with my bike until 11:15. ASDA do really average breakfasts. Eventually I caught the trian, and left myself 5ish hours to cover the distance I initially planned to do in 8 hours. Day 1, Penrith To Barrow via Conniston, was a picturesque ride definitely best done on a weekday. It includes an assent of Kirkstone pass, which is as steep as anything the alps has to offer. Fortunately its also a lot shorter.

Arrived in Barrow, drank beer with Laura, didn’t apply for any jobs… Saturday and Sunday were filled in with some walking in the Lakes. Very nice, I have no photos, but if I did I suspect Saturdays would look like clouds. Saturday night involved drinking tea and playing cards in a nice pub. It was tops.

Monday, left Barrow and headed to Lancaster via Windermere. Very nice ride scenery wise. I got rained on continously for the 8 hours or so before I arrived at Chez Devling. Tim and I then went off to the pub to meet Mr Kev, drank beer, ordered curry, didn’t apply for any jobs.

Tuesday’s destination was Halifax, catching up with Andy Rahooo in Clitheroe. Again a really nice ride, it was even dry for the morning… Apparently Andy got rained on continously from Liverpool, so he turned up 2 hours later than agreed looking very soggy. Rain continued to follow Andy, and by default me all the way to Halifax. In Halifax we were greeted by Andy’s parents, who fed us spag bol and tea. Feeling warmer and drier we went to the pub, drank beer, and didn’t apply for any jobs.

Next stop, the Bob residence. Not quite as good a ride, a little bit too suburban. The morning was spent heading for the Holme pass (or whatever the hill south of Holme is called). Went over that, and headed for Sheffield(ish). After arriving at Jim Bobs I realised that Jim Bob is not a christened name. Loonsey arrived (on route between her new house in Durham and her Boyfriends new house in London) at some point, we ate spag bol, laughed at childhood photos of Jim Bob, drank tea, wine and beer, and didn’t apply for any jobs.

Thursday, first day of proper sunshine, Lindsey gave me a lift back to her blokes new place in London. I took the bike inside, and made myself a cup of tea.

Thursday arvo, got a phone call… Can I start work on Monday… feeling slightly jammy I said yes.

Random Notes
1) I have a new bike it looks like this

Mine is dirtier

2) My old bike got knicked
3) Lindsey’s bloke’s new London house, is my London house
4) Distance wise every day was between 90 and 100km
5) My new job, where I am writing this, is the same as the previous contract position, but for 3 months. I met my recruitment bloke on Friday, he apparently went to Liverpool Uni, we talked about the wonders of the Raz.

Turkish Delights in June

Turkish Delights in June

Turkey and kayaking weren’t words I had previously put together but when asked if I fancied a two week trip to Turkey to experience my first white water away from the UK I thought it was the perfect chance to get some sun and try to improve my boating. Six months later I found myself touching down in Dalaman airport with my trusty inazone in tow. Team Turkey consisted of myself, Bob (our token open boater), Frankie (Chris Smith), Matt W, Jamie, Miguel, Grandad, Beast, Donna and Nicola. It was at this point that I realised I was going to be easily the weakest, and only girl, paddler and that everyone else had monster sized Pyranha Burns or creek boats, leaving the lingering question of was I out of my depth?

The scenery in Turkey was fantastic, big mountains with deep canyons containing spring or dam release crystal clear waters, all of the rivers were pool drop in nature allowing some breathing space between rapids, giving plenty of time for the lads to put me back in my boat after one of my numerous swims.

Fantastic scenery - gorges of Turkey

The Dalaman river was the start and finish for the trip being run on several days as the rafting company we arranged our trip through was based on it. The lower section was dam fed and graded 3+, although I could have sworn it was harder, it wound its way through a canyon which started by a village called Narli and ended by a Roman bridge. The Dalaman upper section was a grade higher so I left it to the men to paddle as continuous grade 4+ sounded a little bit out of my league; from all accounts it was good fun section to paddle.

The end of the rapid on the Dalaman that claimed most of my swims and where I first tried to roll.Grandad on the upper Dalaman

We then moved onto my second favourite river of the trip, the Köprülu, at grade 2+ to 3 it was commercially rafted but being large volume there was plenty of space for everyone, unlike the Tryweryn… The river provided plenty of long wave trains which gave me lots of chances to practice my roll on, Chris the opportunity to capsize two girls on a raft while trying to surf a wave and all the lads the chance to ogle Russian girls rafting in thong bikinis.

Miguel on the Köprülu

Beast playing on the Köprülu

The Manavgat river was the dark horse of the trip, the guidebook was confusing reading and the get in hard to find; even the locals were unsure about which section of the river was which. Knowing that one section of it was up to grade 5 with a must make portage and the whole of it was running through a deep gorge I decided to have another rest day and leave the river for the men. Nearly eight hours later as they arrived back at the get out in the dark I was very glad I gave it a miss. The section started out at low volume, requiring a fair amount of portaging but suddenly lots of springs entered from the canyon walls and the roller coaster ride began. At one point the whole river disappeared below ground but there were still plenty of rapids to keep everyone interested and to a cause a few swims including Matt (his first for a few years).

Chris on the Manavgat

Manavgat, so glad I didn’t do it!

The last new river of the trip was the Alara which ran alongside the road and was my favourite river of the trip. Again this river ran into a canyon which at one point narrowed down considerably, causing Miguel to swim when his paddles were ripped from his hand as he blind probed it over a drop into a boily mass of water. According to him, he could see the bottom so reckoned it was good to run, apparently that’s the Portuguese style of boating. Common sense prevailed as the rest of us decided this was probably the drop the, up to this point, rather inaccurate guidebook has recommended portaging! I finally managed to get the hang of boofing drops on the Alara. The same section of the Alara was paddled a couple of times as a section further downstream we were originally planning on doing proved too tough a task for our minibus to get to.

AlaraThe Alara from the road

Due to the distance between the rivers we also had the chance to sightsee, sunbathe, or swim in the rivers. We also experienced a real Hamam where we were pummeled and scrubbed by semi-naked strangers, ate lots of kebabs and köfte, which are miles better than the ones you have after a few pints in the pub, and drank the local natural yoghurt based drink ‘ayran’, Turkish tea and coffee and just generally experienced the culture; how many times has a British policeman given you a cup of tea when asking for directions? We spent most of the trip outside the usual tourist areas but found that having a local driver really helped and even in the smallest village someone would have a roof, olive field or tree house where we could stay the night for a few lira.

Castle by the Alara river

Tea with the police

Although not crammed full with river after river, the trip was still full on, most of the rivers taking up a day to do with long shuttles to the get in. Creek boats proved to be the order of the day as the big volumes suited the rivers and also allowed a decent stash of food and drink to be carried; most of the rivers paddled included a stop for lunch. I loved every minute of it and was pleased with my first attempts at rolling on moving water, my confidence increased massively. I really want to go back next year as have unfinished business with one rapid on the Dalaman that caused a vast proportion of my twelve swims, so anyone up for paddling some new rivers with no problems of too much or too little water in plenty of sunshine?

British summer paddling weekend

After some strong hints from Kaylia that she wanted to paddle this weekend a  group of us had some fun on the Tryweryn and the Wnion with Andy Ince’s Birthday BBQ party in-between.  Was not great weather for a BBQ but we didn’t mind as it was good for paddling.

Saturday saw me, Will, Lloyd, Andy R, Kaylia, Matt C, Katie and Bob (Wigan) have a nice free paddle at the Tryweryn.  Three descents of the upper, two broken sets of paddles, a raft stuck in the bottom of ski jump and a few swims from Katie later we headed back to Chester to Andy’s for a party.

We hit the pub for a few pre party beers and then headed to Andy’s laden with beers and burgers trying not to get too wet in the rain. Cheers for the party Andy.

It rained all night so on Sunday me, Will, Lloyd and Katie got up with sore heads and headed over to the Tryweryn to pick up my kit I had stupidly left there the day before.  We met up with Bob, Frank (Wigan), Matt and Kaylia and headed to the river Wnion. It looked to be a nice level and was a new river for all of us except Will who had run it a few years back in floods and said it would be a nice grade 2/3 bimble.  Hmmmm, not quite accurate but it was a great section particularly for intermediates.  

We discreetly got changed and put on just below the horseshoe shape weir like drop, out of site of the fishermen that had just turned up.  They saw us just as we got on but were very nice and thought us mad for “going paddling down there”.  No access problems at all despite the guidebook saying it is a sensitive area for this.  Parking is limited at the top and we cheekily used the campsite for parking at the bottom. The section starts off a nice grade 2 for a bit then steepens up and drops into a lovely gorge containing several easyish grade 4 pool drop rapids.  The worst drop is the one into the first gorge where the river narrows and drops over a boulder into a hole that spits you out in various directions.  It finishes with a second gorge like a mini chateau Q before you take out at the campsite bridge. The water was warm the sun out and the river at a perfect level.  We finished the day with a quick pub stop on the way home.  It was a great weekend and here’s to more summer paddling weekends.

London triathlon 2008 Working swim safety

So the 9th 10th of August I went down to london town to help a friend out doing swim safety for the london triathlon.

I did some paddling, caught up with old friends, met some nice new people.  Id like to say all of green team rocked what a great bunch of folk especially Malc for letting the girls war paint him up with his french disguise.



So Saturday a nice 7.30am start on the water, a day of boatin and then a few quiet drinks in the excel centre after dinner. Had a cracking nite loads of fun and games, starting off playing the box game and I introduced guys from the other unis that were there and the locals to the bake bean can game (using beer cans). A proper hoot was had by all, its amazing how competive paddlers get when having fun. Most importantly though my team won that game by miles (thanks Hazel). BUt early to bed, alseep by 11pm in a local hotel.  Saturday also saw a few decent breaks in the paddling so I went for a wander round the change over area and with all the stalls there it was like freshers fair but for healthly/fitness stuff. I picked up a few nice freebies but gutted as I missed out on getting a free Buff on sunday afternoon.

Sunday up at 4.15am on the water for 4.30am to paddle from Regatta centre to the Excel centre. Yes that is AM.  A Safety briefing and breakfast later (mmm big bacon bagette) and its on the water to work properly at 6am for the first race at 6.30am. The pros and elites seem to like racing early, havent got a clue why though I’d prefer a lay in myself


7AM sees Aussie dave turning up for a dip in the water and then he turned up when he finished to show off his medal.  Dan Waterstone was there too apparently but everyone looks the same in a wet suit and a bright coloured swim hat so I didnt see him. The waves of swimmers went from 498 swimmers a time for the masses down to 30 for the pro women. With about 13,000 people over the weekend competing thats a lot of swimmers.

Last race on sunday at 4.30pm and a debrief at 5pm and off back to the regatta centre where we were based for a quick shower and off home or a go in the nice sauna for those that needed it. A great weekend with no swimmer casulaties and only a few people needing to be taken out of the water all weekend due to tiredness/cramp.

Over the weekend there was sun and rain and a pretty constant wind making tougher then last year. BUt it was a great bunch of guys to work with, I had loads of fun, got fed and paid to sit in boat all weekend, it was spot on and would recomend it to anyone.  If im not competing next year then you will probably see me in a boat helping out again. 

If anyone is interested in doing it next year its on the 1st and 2nd of August and they always need paddlers for the swim safety.

London Triathlon

A few LUCC associates were at the triathlon this weekend. Si was there to help all the swimmers be safe… I was there to compete, and on my way out I was spotted by a Dan Waterston (who I didn’t didn’t realise was competing)… anyway
Heaps of fun, took me 3hrs 29min 43secs

But as I the clock says I spent 1hr52 on the bike, and my bike computer says I spent 1hr22 on the bike. I am going to assume I spent 30 minutes swearing at my punctures and waiting for a replacement tube.

Dan did somewhat better, in 2hr41min34sec

Who is up for next years?

Balls 2 Africa

OK, more retro photos, this time from the “Balls 2 Africa” project which Jenny, Helen L and Ross were involved in last year. Jenny and her scouts teamed up with Swazi scouts to take a bunch of sports equipment for schools, provide activities and training, and help with building sports facilities there. Oh, and meet the king. Jenny, love the braids.

We love you, Positive or Negative

Buhle Buyeza school

Balls 2 Africa

King Maswati III

Jenny – abseil to raise money for equipment

UK and Swazi scouts

Scouts from UK

Volley ball court under construction

football

Photos: Ross