A bad day on the Mawddach

I havn’t posted for a while, and my first post in a long absence is unusally about a bad day on the Mawddach.  Considering it is one of my all time favourite rivers, it was a shame that a few weeks ago I dislocated my shoulder in the final gorge.  Luckily I had two very capable paddling buddies in the shape of Lowri Davies and Stu Jones who managed to get my screaming self out of the gorge and too hospital.

The arm  has healed pretty quick and I am still planning on getting back to Norway in August.

Have fun and play safe.

A Snatched Weekend

 

 

  Lower Prysor (Photo: Adam Holland)

I have just managed to sneak a weekend in Kayak.  The first since I joined the Navy.  It was an excellent weekend, back in North Wales.  Not much water so we basically gorge walked with a kayak down the Afon Prysor.  More pics can be seen on Adam’s Blog.

Folks get down in the Sunshine

South Wales, summer, lots of water, lots of good weather and lots of good boating.  Perfect recipe.

Spiti Valley

We have just spent the last week up in the little explored Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh. We spent three days on the Spiti itself and explored another three tributaries which were the Gyrundi, the Lingti and the Pin. We are fairly sure that the Gyrundi and the Lingti had not seen a kayak before we arrived.

Myself on one the larger rapids on the Spiti

Lots of the rivers involved walk ins, especially the Gyrundi which we spent an afternoon and a morning walking in. Some workmen were trying to build a road up the valley and were blasting the cliff above us with dynamite which kept you on your toes.

Tom Laws on a probable first decent of the Gyrundi

The river Spiti itself proved to be a fantastic run however we didn’t managed to paddle the last 20km gorge which leads to the Sutlej due the Indian Army not approving of the plan. The last gorge of the Spiti has yet to be paddled by anyone to our knowledge and would be an excellent place to try and explore for any future groups

The group on one of the more “jazzy” rapids on the Spiti

Myself on a probable first decent of the Lingti

Thanks to Tom Laws for the photos of me!

Carnage and Zen on the Beas

We have just come off a day run on the Beas that proved to a varied and interesting day.  The river proved to be the definition of “Jazzy:”  One group got on and had a dropped boat and a swim.  This involved chase boating grade V blind as everyone seems to have lost the ability to catch any eddies.

Meanwhile myself and Tom Haywood got on a little further down and had an excellent run of IV+/V with just the two of us.  We must have been in some sort of higher level Zen paddling state as we seemed to cruise down it with out much problem when we should have been bricking it.

This is the second time now I have paddled the Beas and I’m pretty sure it will be my last.  There are definately better rivers in India.

More fun in Uttaranchal

We have just got back from the river Tons which again turned out to be a bit of a gem apart from us getting kicked off the river by the Army.  For a full account and lots of gratuitous photos check out Tom’s blog.

Yamuna

Having met everyone in Delhi we headed out Uttaranchal Pradesh to do some exploring.  Looking at our map we decided that our first river would be the Yamuna.  We had no idea weather it would go this time of year but what we found was a right gem.  Some classic medium volume class IV.  A great warm up.

In all we spent two days on the river in bright sunshine and warm water, perfect and pretty unusual for the Monsoon season.

 

 

We bumped into some quite interesting wild life along the way including an 8 ft long snake! and thousands of huge fruit bats which was an amazing experience.

Thousands of Fruit Bats

Kali Gandaki Valley

 

We  are back in Pokhara now and we have just spent the last 8 days on the trek down from Jomsom through the Kali Gandaki Valley.  The Kali Gandaki is a river definately on my hit list, but as it is monsoon the river is a horrible, brown, henious mess.  It will have to wait till maybe Easter.

 

 

 

The flight to Jomsom was one of the most interesting flights I have ever taken.  It gets about 10 m from the mountain side at one point, and has to do a rediculous banking manouvre to make the tight landing.

 

 

The trek took us through some amazing scenery, with a good view of the Annapurna range.  Up near Jomsom it looks a lot like Ladakh, a barren mountain dessert.  As you decend the valley it changed to Alpine pine forest and lastly Nepali jungle.

 

It was an excellent way of getting back into shape but now it is time to get back into boat. 

 

 

 

 

Where to start?

Me and Eleri have been in Nepal for about 10 days now and have done a silly amount of things so it’s hard to know where to start.  First off all our Delhi to Kathmandu bus was a nightmare, and decided to take a bit of Eleri’s nose off. 

Monkey Temple, Kathmandu

When we arrived in Thamel, we quickly left again to paddle the river Trishuli.  Eleri had fun in the raft, while I was safety boating. It is Monsoon so the river was really high, a great test for me as I havn’t been on big water for a year now. 

Rafting the Trishuli river

Getting kit back when there is transport strike

After three days on the river we headed for some wildlife action in Chitwan national park. Doing an Elephant Safari is highly recommended!

The unlucky Elephant that took us for a ride

Rhinoes in Chitwan National Park

We are now in Pokhara, having just spent the day doing all the sights and riding around the town on a moped. 

Devi’s Falls, Pokhara 

 

Me on my trusty moped above Pokhara

We are about to go and do the Jomson trek which is in the Annapurna range, which I am told was higher than Everest only a mere 700,000 years ago.  It should take a week and hopefully will provide us with some much needed exercise.

 

Hurley on 3

                                        Dave Fairweather, Hurley Weir 

Hurley has gone up to 3 this week.  It is typical that I have been in London for 4 years and now, only two weeks before I am about to leave, do I start playboating in the Thames Valley. Been down twice this week already.

                                          Myself, Hurley Weir.

Anyway tested out the Rev and it handles really well, I’m really pleased with it.  I’ll see how much playboating I can get done in this last two weeks.

Photos thanks to Tom Laws.