Ogwen and Cwm Llan

What an absolutely awsome day, I have found it hard to compare to!

We started off by meeting at the Ogwen with the WCC lads and some others but found out Kev and Chris were one and a half hours away! We decided to press on for a run of the Ogwen starting at Ogwen bank falls. Most people ran it but I decided to leave it for another (very soon) day.

This was my first run of the gun barrel and BOY was it fun!!!! The river was at a low-medium ish but all good fun. At the get out Chris had arrived in his paddlewagon just in time to pick us up for another run!
This was great as I was paddling really well and I was really in tune to the river.

When we got out to move on, we met some 'friendly' welsh people in there car who were quite expressive about their views. After a short 'language fight' and chasing their car (not literally)we were on our ways ;-) (don't ask)

After this we headed to the Cwm Llan with that LONG ASS walk in, which in all honesty I quite enjoyed as it made that sweet little gem that bit sweeter!
Once we got their the river was at a lowish level but still plenty of fun was to be had!

At the top I was very relieved and I was looking foward to the run in hand.....
All the drops were fine and my favourite was the very last one which is basically a 15ft. drop onto rock but GOOD GOLLY was it fun!

Here are a few other photos...

Scotland, WOW!

Here are a few photos of my Scotland trip with report below :-)

What a truely amazing place. The rivers were unique, the scenery amazing and the boating was 'lush'!

The rivers me and my group got done were :

Roy-high water

Gloy-high water (perfect)

Pattack x2-medium and then again in high

Archaig-low-medium water

Upper Spean to Invalair falls-2 pipes (alpine!!)

Etive-medium high

I think my favourite has to be the Gloy, what an outstanding continuous grade 3/4 run. Out of my group I was the only one not to swim which was pretty lucky. All the other swims were due to lack of attention, new boats and chase boating.

After this I would strongly discourage anyone to 'chase boat' unless you are on a piece of water which you know in side out.

I ended up swimming once on Right Angle, River Etive. I basically got a small dunkin' in the 'right angle' part. I took a roll and manged to get out. But by the time I was out I was way too far right. I went down the fall O.K but I resurfaced upside down and the pretty weird boils pushed me against the wall leaving me unable to roll. I popped my deck and got pulled to the side of the fall with water trickling down my head. As i was stuck in the most awkward place, it took a good 20 minutes to get me out of there.

In my opinion I think it was agood thing as I am still pretty inexperienced and a swim like this has never happened to me. The bad thing was that I lost beloved h2o team blades :(

So I am still currently paddless but borrowing friends blades:)

Cynfal

The Cynfal was an absolute blast. It begins with a tricky lead in but after that there are two 20foot freefalls which are bliss!



Here is a video of Taff running seond drop

Here is me running it ( this video is a little long and i do't arrive untill the very end so hang in there :-) )

Skip foward to 42 seconds.