After I found the 6am wake up the hardest bit of the day, we
all headed for sheds and were in and out racked up, paddles on in about 20 minutes
and we were on the dark roads to wales.
We stopped at the
little chef just outside Bethesda as Stu needed his ‘morning poo’ and we needed
food and tea. We arrived at the get on at 8am and eagerly ran to the bottom of
ogwen bank falls to see the levels which were a nice medium.
The first rapid of a day gun barrel was huge! Tolly had a
very somewhat lucky high brace after he was pushed right out of the hole into a
rock. James also had a bumpy but clean run and everyone else styled it with the
exception of Liam who rolled before he even got to the meaty section.
Me and Spud then joined everyone else at the bottom of gun
barrel and off we headed down the river. As we were paddling down the river it
got noticeably harder as we were heading towards fisherman’s gorge. We got split
into buddies, me and Stu, Spud and Liam, Tolly and James, ben and Greg and our
new friend Nicky was running solo. The first drop into S-bend was a shock to
the system but everyone cleared it, with admittedly a few interesting lines,
Nicky had a roll then we began the gorge.
Stu was leading and I was following, the
adrenaline surging because all you could see was a continuous boulder garden
down the river. Making a few breath catching eddies we conveniently stopped in
time to see James’ boat floating towards us and a surprised James sitting on a
rock in the middle of the river. I got out with my throw line to prevent
anymore carnage and Stu chased the boat down the river, taking a hard left line
into a stopper and had a cheeky roll while no one was looking. Tolly then went
to help the boat rescue and Ben, Nicky, Liam and spud went down to the eddy by
them. I followed Greg down and ended up hitting a rock, capsizing into a hole
and rolling up afterwards. Several
minutes later pulling James boat across the river. He was back in and we
paddled on down where the fun continued! After a few cheeky braces and
skilfully avoiding the bad lines Stu had taken we eddied out, to see an anxious
spud and Liam zoom past. A few minutes went by and none of the others appeared,
causing Stu concern so he went to investigate and discovered James had taken
another swim but was quickly back in his
boat and we carried on. We then reached the get out but we decided to carry on
another 3km where the grade 4 slowly eased into a nice grade 3 although the
drops were becoming quickly rocky. We then all got out at 11.55am and soaked up
some sun while we waited for the shuttle! A very successful first run of the
ogwen for me and spud! We then racked up and popped to Bethesda for some lunch,
Nicky then left us to continue his paddling elsewhere.
We then headed back
to ogwen bank falls again, where some of the guys were even keener to run it.
But common sense prevailed and they got on below it to run a slightly lower gun
barrel.
Me and spud called it a day, as we felt we were pushing our
luck to nail grade 4 for another 3 hours. So we resumed photo duty above gun
barrel (she took photos, I watched). Where we witness Greg stop dead in the
hole, spin round then roll up afterwards. Stu, Tolly, James, and Ben all nailed
there lines and liam took a perfect line, making an accidental eddy, then
underestimated his ferry glide and nearly ended up in the metal spikes in the
drop below. Me and spud then got changed, I had a nap and we waited for them to
come back. At 3.30 they returned to hear the river had dropped off, which had
made the lines a bit more technical. The majority of them got spanked in the
hole Stu and I rolled in earlier and Greg after capsizing in the hole had
several roll attempts and eventually swam looking pretty unhappy with himself.
Then later on Stu looked round in horror to see James boat capsized with James
still in it bumping its way down the rapid. He finally took a nasty rocky swim
and ended up with a cut lip. But as a true kayaker he got back on and soon they
were at the exit.
We completed the day watching Greg and James do their booty
beers. An amazing introduction to the ogwen thanks for taking us Stu and Liam!
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