The Two Day Rapid

The flood is on - watching the rains come down whilst chasing paper around an office knowing that little dried out river you spied last summer is now a raging torrent of fun can sometimes turn even the most encouraged of us into right miserable buggers! (Knowing smiles all around!) The frustration took its course and the excuse was made, followed by a mad dash for gear and the drive that seemed to take an eternity to the get in on the "Taf Fechan", and the bandit run to glory! Leaving work at 4pm knowing there was only one hour of daylight left was probably mistake number one. Number two was probably the fact I went on my own and now I think about it, the key mistake (no 3), was slipping on the walk in and putting my full weight (obviously solid muscle) onto the shaft on my paddle..............ouch you just know I am going to pay for that later? I slipped into the river, which was just mad - with only the knowledge of the river from a little summer scouting to go on. Hard sweep right - edge left and support followed by support and the speed was just sooooo unreal. No eddies and definitely no stopping. The feeling of being totally alone and pushing it was just too much - well it was until the bloody paddle shaft snapped in half and I wasn't even using it at the time... Being a family magazine I can't even attempt to type the flow of obscenities as I went over the lip of the drop into a pile of white frothing fury waving two halves of a paddle around like I was paddling a rowing boat. The upside down bit arrived instantly and all those hours of hand rolling in the pool to show off to students went right out the window. The river level being so high meant that the trees were in the water and I had just lost my ability to control any direction - admittedly I was upside down anyway............ the first swim in quite a few years followed more or less straight away...I was swept into some low branches and holding on for dear life as I slowly went under was slightly more scary than thinking that my wife was going to kill me if and when I got home.
	Which brings me back to why I started writing this - "The Two Day Rapid" - taking the opportunities while they are around, which is why I agreed more or less right away when I answered my phone to the near hysterical banter of Mr Mad himself - Ian Cave, "get packed we are going paddling this weekend", "Okay" I replied, "where?" now here's the amusing bit. Not North Wales or the Dart but wait for it...Austria and The Mike Jones Rally. Never heard of it? Call yourself a paddler? Mike was a top paddler of his day who bagged some major rivers with a first-class gang of mates, tragically though, he meet his maker on a river long before anyone should and now his mates organise a Rally in his name every year to grab some fine boating time and then spin "dits" and drink beer. Okay, that's not quite true as the Alpine Kayak Club were hosting the event at Crazy Eddies in Silz, and after doing the Upper Otez I paddled into an Eddie with the extremely talented but maybe slightly mad Olaf to be handed a beer before continuing the paddle................ later finding myself the guinea pig to volunteer to demo the bridge launch for the raft freestyle in my Prozone. Then, of course, we spun the "dits" of the day with more beer! The evening social was a classic, Crazy Eddies was an ideal venue, combine the fun mood of the Mike Jones Rally crew, the great food, awesome surf wave out the back of the bar and the entertainment - (rolling competition, freestyle raft competition, climbing wall challenge and top preview of the Skitline Film), and you have a pretty wild weekend. The Sunday morning lie in was a necessity but far too early, we were woken by cries for "get geared up - we are leaving in ten minutes!" One of the boys had heard the Sanna had undergone a landslide below Prutz and this was an opportunity to paddle the new rapid formed by half the hillside making a new home in the river. (The local authorities already had a large digger thing lined up to make it's way into the river on the Monday to clear the obstruction as there was a danger of potential flooding to the village). It's hard to describe the feeling of paddling down a river (closely followed by the world's largest hangover), with guys you have only read about or watched in videos paddling monster rivers long before I even knew what an Eddie was, and about to paddle a new drop on a river thousands paddle every year. Arriving at the landslide it dawned on us how new rock fall has scary sharp edges and so going upside down was not really the option of choice. We all inspected the rapid from the bank and listened to the words of wisdom passing around the group -"and then river right, small drop, paddle hard left, little S-bend and through the small wave and then beer".
How easy does it sound when a "legend" says it? However, this is how it went for me: "Shit -meant to be right, ohh no, large drop, support, support, backwards, make a sweep, damn, broached, bloody W-bend and then upside down in the wave, roll, roll ahhhh easy? In the exhilaration we all ran it and then realised no one had taken any pictures - thankfully memories are always better - especially when alcohol is added! Then the weekend was over and the long drive home for Monday morning followed - I hope Mike would have approved of our paddling, I was inspired by how his friends enthused about paddling rivers just to enjoy them - not to collect logbook entries as I often found myself doing to get up the coaching ladder. I think maybe mistake no 4 was trying to push it, get that tick in the box, so finally I have understood what should motivate me as a paddler after 10 years of trying- I may now be £140 worse off (new paddle as the Taf Fechan ate my old one - the boat turned up a mile down stream), but my logbook has been put to one side and I am now going paddling just to enjoy it and if it looks mad I am going to save it until Mr Cave turns up to watch my back! "Paddle now - suck face on the couch later" - Penny F

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