On Tuesday the heavens opened again so me and Matt headed with 1 car to the Mellte again. When we left it was low on the gauge with rain coming in so we expected it to be at a medium level. Boy were we wrong... it was big and brown! Driving straight to the top we hiked in to the first drop. Matt had recently run the river at this level so he fired it up first was a pretty descent line. After some more scouting I fired it up and had a descent line, all good! The 30 footer was seriously fun at that level. It's more difficult to get the second boof as the water really piles over you and takes you deep, but pretty soft and cuddly however you get spat out! Matt hiked up to his new camera spot and I lapped it 4 times getting some sweet shots!
Fun bouncy water took us to the gorge. After portaging around one tree we had to duck under a huge one sat right on top of a hole with a recirculating eddy. Matt got through clean and I took a little surf in the eddy but got pushed out, exciting times! Slot and drop was a different beast at this level. The slot was washed out but behind it were two wave holes leading to the lip of the drop. There was also a large recirculating eddy on the right to also kill your speed, the hole at the bottom of the drop was pretty huge! The water then got pushed into a cliff with a big submerged tree in it. Matt was confident as he had done it at this level the previous week so he fired it up first. He got pulled into the eddy river right and had to breakout pretty much on the lip with no speed, he some how managed to punch through the hole but came out vertical. This didn't fill me with confidence and with only two of us there safety was minimal. Needless to say I wasn't feeling this one on the day and portaged.
We them portaged the 8 foot weir as at this level the towback was grim! The rest of the river went smooth with some chunky rapids leading to the take out. I then ran the shuttle (this sucked and I don't recommend it!). We headed to the middle Tawe and put on at a medium level, seriously fun slides and bouncy rapids with a few big holes to punch, major grin factor!
Wednesday levels dropped but the Wye was a still flooded. So Matt and I put on at Kerne Bridge and paddled down to Monmouth in about two hours! We also got a first descent through a field.
Saturday I headed back to the middle Tawe with a small crew. It was at lowish levels but still a lot of fun! This is quite a short run so we did two laps. On the first run we took a break to help another group pull some trees out of the first slide, this would have been nasty in high water!
On Sunday I had my Level 2 coaching assessment at Paul Junction, Gloucester. It was a beautiful clear day and the assessment went well and I passed, yay! So working this Summer is looking good!
Monday the rain came in late so I headed out for an anfternoon run of the Clydach. I hadn't done the Clydach before so was pretty excited to tick off a new river! After a few nice drops and holes we reached the 20 footer. This has a shallow lip and most if the flow pushes toward the right wall which would obviously hurt. Whilst scouting we walked past two Welsh Water employees that appeared to be pumping untreated sewage into the river right above the waterfall, the smell was pretty terrible! We both decided we didn't want to paddle in poo and unfortunately hiked out and checked out the Grwyne which was too low.
Tuesday I headed down to the Dart with Matt Price. We headed off early and arrived around 9, it was at a sweet medium level! We did two laps and both were seriously fun, sadly I had only done this section in low water. Big waves and holes, constantly changing your line, read and run awesomeness! Seriously classic river, very alpine in style. We took a bike to do the shuttle but didn't end up using it as both times very kind people offered to drive us to the top, thanks!
It was an amazing but unfortunately it was time to go back to work! I also signed on with Palm/Surlines this week and am looking forward to the arrival of some new gear! Good times with good company!
