The Mawddach Mission

Paddlers: Stu, Lloyd, Liam, Kim, Spud, Greg, James

It was a cold and rainy start at sheds at 7.45, exacerbated by the fact that we had to wait for Lloyd to arrive as he ‘forgot how long it took him to get ready in the morning’. (It’s not like you do it every day :P). We got racked and headed off to the Mawddach, hoping that levels would rise as rainchasers said ‘empty’ for most of the journey.

We turned up a very sketchy road to the get on and did the mission of a shuttle. James managed to take the wrong turning (I think he was following the sheep) but we finally got on the river.

Everyone was hesitant and feeling the nerves of the great Mawddach and after a little nervous swim from me we gathered up our confidence and set off into the depths of coed-y-brenin.

Greg was leading the way, with great speed, leaving the rest of us scattered throughout the rapids. After a few grade 4 drops and inspections we reached the first grade 5-the waterfall! Everyone pondered it for a while and Stu and Greg played paper scissors stone to see would go first. Greg won and set off, apparently missing his line but I was failing to take a photo of him at the bottom so didn’t see. Anyway his “deck popped”. Lols. No it actually did and he rolled up and paddled to the side almost completely submerged. Fairplay. He claims he styled it. Stu followed with a nice line. Liam and Lloyd enjoyed face planting but overall everyone did very well! Spud, James and I selflessly volunteered to do safety and take photos at the bottom and therefore didn’t run it :P

Immediately following this was a constrictor rapid. It was tight. There were some interesting manoeuvres and facial expressions on this one whilst everyone was avidly trying to avoid the syphon on river left. Spud rolled. We continued down some more grade 4 drops, with spud rolling, often stopping to inspect the ominous horizon lines. A few of the rapids were curlers on walls and one of them got the better of James who was spotted modelling the bung action of his new Jefe. The second grade 5 was reached and this looked more horrendous than Spud trying to cook a meal from scratch (those of you who don’t know-beware). We portaged.

From then on it was scout scout scout for the infamous Rhaeadr Mawddach. No one got too close when the immense horizon line was spotted. We walked around it whilst Liam and Stu contemplated which line they would take if they ran it (as if!). Lloyd was swiftly back on the water above the next set of rapids and began to ‘watch tap’ as the rest of us faffed around deciding where to get back on as we had seen a rather pinny tree in the second rapid of the set. Lloyd was blissfully unaware, but ran them unscathed. After much debate we decided on the best place to get back on, which was still horrendous, and carried on. The river eased off slightly and we flew. Until Greg, leading, ran a rapid blind and smashed his shiny new boat into a rock at the bottom. We wisely portaged.

The three nasties were upon us. They didn’t look overly clever so everyone besides Lloyd and Stu portaged. They ran them because they decided it would be easier than portaging however I think Stu regretted this decision when he was being worked in a hole and Lloyd had left him for dead by paddling off downstream. The portage was truly horrific and the get in was even worse resulting in my boat catching the current with only one of my legs in it (bit of a Scotland de ja vu moment). Technical.

We carried on blasting down until we arrived at a sort of rocky 90˚ angled wall bashing thing. Whilst everyone was inspecting it Liam shouted BOAT!! James had positioned his boat securely enough on a rock, with paddles inside, that it had somehow wobbled its way free and solo’d the rapid. At least we knew the gap was wide enough for us to fit! James and Lloyd set off downstream chasing it; Lloyd in a boat, James scrambling along the walls of a vertical gorge.  Greg, Spud and I were left to run it. I decided to go first and showed her how not to do it resulting in me swimming and spud rolling. Liam and I practiced live baiting so that was fun.

Everyone gathered downstream as James hopped back in. By this point it was 4.45pm and we were losing light fast. We blasted downstream, not caring what was in our way. A few rolls were had, a few welds were unwelded, a new boat was scratched, you get the drift. Oh and at some point, I can’t quite remember where, Spud rolled and scraped her head and face along a rock, completely removing GoPro and mount from her helmet. Don’t worry, she was fine.

We saw the confluence with the Eden and knew we were almost finished. The last big thing we encountered was a slot with about a 5ft drop on the other side. Lloyd inspected it and said ‘keep straight’. With these precise instructions everyone pencilled and ended up in a lovely recirculating boily eddy. At one point Stu, Spud, James and myself were in there. With some excellent advice from Greg on how to leave an eddy, we all exited successfully. Thanks Greg!

Finally we ran public toilet falls with excellent boofing skills and got out. We thought it was over, we thought we could eat, we thought we could go home. But James lost his car keys, for about half an hour! He had opened the car at least!

Exhausted, dehydrated, hungry, aching, but full of the joys of the Mawddach we set off home.