Five go West – River Teifi 12 Feb

With too little water in any of our ‘local’ rivers, a few of us headed West to paddle the Teifi from Llandysul to Henllan. A quick warm-up on the lake slalom course was followed by a wake-up run down the grade 2 slalom course (where Chris was caught out by an inconsiderate rock!) and negotiation of the grade 3 ‘cauldron’ rapid before 4km of gentle grade 1 meandering through pleasant countryside. The broken weir and short gorge section at Pentre-Cwrt provided some eddy-hopping fun, then after a brief lunch stop and another 3 flat km we arrived at the grade 3+ Henllan falls. Here we deliberated whether a tree stuck in the gorge below the falls presented too much risk for us to safely run this double-drop, but when we saw two other paddlers make it look easy, we decided to take our chances and Dave, Pete, Simon and Steve made it through – with the odd support stroke for good measure – while Chris ably manned a throwline on the bank just-in-case. Thanks to Pete for leading the trip (and entertaining us with half-a-swim as he got out of his boat at the end!); to Simon for joining us on his first club trip (and for sharing his expert knowledge with us); and to Chris, Dave and Steve for making up the numbers 😉

Our next ‘easier’ trip is scheduled for one of our less-used grade 2 rivers on Sat 25 Feb; and our next ‘harder’ trip to the River Dart on Sun 12 Mar – subject to river conditions as usual.

Trip information & 2023 statistics to date:

  • 12 Feb 2023, River Teifi Llandysul to Henllan, 8km
  • Low water (0.5m on Llanfair gauge)
  • 5 kayakers: Chris, Dave, Pete, Simon, Steve R
  • 1.5 swims (Chris, Pete)
PaddlerNo of tripsNo of SwimsNo of Rolls
Anne110
Chris420
Dave300
Huw100
Mike1 (polo)
Pete40.54
Sam C310
Sam H310
Simon100
Steve H120
Steve R400

Thanks to Ellie Ablett for the following pics via Facebook:

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