British Universities Creek Race

Friday evening and Jon, Patrick and I met up in Perth and all piled into my car. Figuring (wrongly as it turned out) that the Kingshouse would be rammed with paddlers, we stopped at Bridge of Orchy and camped by the Orchy. Well, when I say camped, Jon and Patrick camped, I slept in my car. It was really rainy overnight.
The next morning I was woken up by the hammering rain at 5.30am. By 6.30 I had given up and got into my drysuit so I could go outside and wake up the boys. With little to do before registration at 8am, we decided to go look at the Etive, which was pretty high for the middle section.

This was the lowest level all day (about 7.20am).

Back at the Kingshouse, we went to registration then kitted up. The weather was not improving and the snow had started melting, so the river was getting higher by the minute.

Some deer came to watch while the SCA tent nearly blew away.

Some shuttle faff and we were off down to Twist and Shout, the final fall on the middle section. Usually this drop looks like this:

Today it looked a little different:

However, the left side of the island, normally dry land, was a nice grade 4 paddle with big but avoidable holes forming above and below the rapid. Soon the timed runs were off with a mandatory left line.

Small amounts of carnage happened, but surprisingly little! I helped pull one guy and all his kit out of a hole right before the finish line, he was gutted he didn't make it.
Finally the Alumni boater cross was up and Calum Strong gathered us all together. It appeared to be a bunch of sponsored guys, one other guy and me. Great. Deciding that maximum carnage was the way forward, the line was left or right optional and all eight of us were launched immediately upstream of the munchy river wide holes. Calum shouted go and I'm guessing there was some crazy carnage involving the guys but I was too busy doing an epic ferry of fear right across the river to sneak around the holes on the left!

There's me on the left, running away. Photo by Shaun Etherington

This worked to some advantage given that I paddled past Mark Mulrain having a fight with one of the holes. My line wasn't great down the left and I got stuck on a rock for a bit allowing everyone to get way past me, but I made it to the end upright and alive! Victory. Plus since I wasn't in the first five I didn't have to race again in the final.
While I had been having fun getting stuck on a rock there had been a massive pile up in the hole below the drop on the right hand side and Dan Rea-Dickins had swum out allowing Mark, who was late to the party after his tangle with the hole, to sneak into the top five. We all settled in to watch the final, hungry for carnage!

Mark, charging in the lead.

A surprise appearance from the famous Liquidriot duo.

Mark charged to victory, then we packed up and headed to the Coupall.

There was a tiny issue where the trailer nearly fell over.

A nice double rapid grade four, the Coupall runs rarely as it needs a lot of water and runs off really quickly. It was in fact running off while we were there, the lines changing through the afternoon.

Patrick's run did not go entirely to plan...

We rescued a random boat that floated down to the end and
pinned itself.

I had a run down after most of the timed runs were done, it was quite low and technical by then but still nice.

Photo by Geoff Cooper

Photo by Elizabeth Lennon

Properly knackered, we drove up to Kinlochleven and nosed about the Ice Factor looking at all the expensive things we can't have. When we got a bit hungry we went out into the car park and had a race between a Trangia cooking gnocchi and a gas stove cooking pasta. I'd finished my pasta before Patrick's water had boiled.

Then we turned up really early at the prize giving and nearly fell asleep before it started. Calum Strong was knocked off the top spot to the delight of the rest of the organising people. Congrats to everyone on your random swag and to Jiri Tykal, race champion!

Flat spins on Stanley

Today was a good day. After about a year of trying to flat spin on a wave and falling in a lot I finally managed it!
A flat spin, for the uninitiated in the world of playboating, is where you spin around while surfing on a wave. So a flat spin on flat water is just turning your boat around 360 degrees. On a wave, this becomes rather tricky!

This morning was very cold and snowy:

The roads were pretty sketchy! But I finally got there and we headed up to the Linn to have a look at the scary.

That orange dot on the far side is Jon.

We ran away downstream and went for a surf at the corner wave.

It doesn't photograph well, but it is an awesome wave with the weirdest eddy service ever. I tried for a spin, managed to get backwards and couldn't quite believe I was still upright so went for the rest of the turn and got all the way around! I had a screamy celebration and then, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke I went back on the wave and did another two spins in one ride. Woop!
We paddled down to the Thistlebrig wave, but it wasn't running very well.

So we went downstream to Wee Eric:

Photos of me by Paul Crossan:

Much flatspinning!!! It was awesome.

The Water of Ruchill

I got a text this morning from Craig.

"Are you still going to the Tilt?"

Sleepily I replied, "Still going out, but maybe not the Tilt" as I checked the water levels online.

"Definitely not the Tilt."

We all met up in Comrie and drove up the glen to the put in for the Water of Ruchill, a surprisingly large river that only goes in spate conditions. It was relatively low today, but still good grade 2/3 fun with a big scary grade 4+ gorge section in the middle that was easier to portage than I thought it was going to be!

At the put in.

Snow!

Grade 3 ledge drop.

Grade 3 ledge drop. Picture by Kirstie Macmillan

The gorge is a sequence of three large drops that would probably be grade four on their own. All together with very little breathing space in between they are a scary proposition. Apparently at high levels the whole thing is a monstrous grade 5+ which is very believable.

Jon commented afterward that "It's been a long time since I scared myself like that." I'm very ok with not having run the gnar!

Drop 1 in the gorge sequence of 3, pretty scary.

Drop 2 in the gorge.

Drop 3 in the gorge.

Jon in drop 1, photo by Kirstie Macmillan.

The guide book says to portage on the right, but the left bank looked much nicer, and it certainly was. A pull up a steep bank led to the top of the gorge cliffs and it was a straightforward walk across a field and slide down a muddy ravine back to the river.

Pulling up the first steep bank of the portage.

Portage selfie!

The picture makes it look much less steep than it was.

Back at the river, waiting for the others.

I got a bit bored, they took a long time to come down.

The final small drop out of the gorge. The third large drop
is in the background.

Happy Calum!

Continuing on down the river there was lots of grade 2 bouncy bits then a surprise grade 3 with a rather sticky hole that I side surfed for a couple of worried seconds before sneaking out the end and doing the rest of the rapid backwards! There were loads of red kites in this section wheeling around above us in the snow and we saw a couple of small deer running away from us.

Me and Jon floating down in the snow. Photo by Kirstie Macmillan.

Then we hit the flat near Comrie and discovered a sort of tree graveyard. The sun came out just as we got to Comrie!

Log jam!

Comrie, the confluence of the Ruchill and the Earn.