Harder and Easier White Water on the Usk, January 2025

We’ve had a couple of white water trips on the Usk this month:

12 Jan Talybont to Crickhowell

The first of this year’s ‘harder’ trips saw us back on our ‘home’ stretch of river, as there wasn’t much water anywhere else! As usual we had a great trip under Simon’s excellent tutelage and it was good to see how our core group of ‘harder’ paddlers have progressed over the last 12 months; leading themselves as a peer group down our ‘usual’ left-hand route at Mill Falls and then tackling the more tricky (to get exactly the right line!) central ‘boof.

  • 12 Jan 2025, Usk Talybont to Crickhowell, low level (0.9m on Llandetty gauge)
  • 6 kayakers: Dave, Huw, Phil, Sam C, Simon, Steve
  • No swims, 2 rolls
Photo by Simon

26 Jan Sennybridge to Aberbran

What was intended as a ‘white water novices’ trip turned out to be one more for our ‘hardened’ paddlers, as our beginners dropped out one-by-one having seen the forecast for heavy rain and strong winds! However, Duncan stuck with us, getting away with only one swim (and a partial immersion while getting out of his boat!) on his first white water trip, including three grade 3 ‘drops’. It was wet and windy, but once on the water the rain didn’t bother us much – although we avoided hanging-around near falling trees – and were rewarded by sunshine and rainbows at the end of the trip – when we learned that the river had risen by 25cm while we’d been paddling. Fingers-crossed for better conditions next time!

  • 26 Jan 2025, Usk Sennybridge to Aberbran, low-medium level (0.55m rising to 0.8m on Llandetty gauge)
  • 7 kayakers: Chris, Dave, Duncan, Huw, Phil, Simon, Steve
  • 1.5 swims, 1 roll
Photo by Huw

2024/5 statistics (participation data since 22 Dec only – Steve will add data from other 2024 trips when he gets a chance):

PaddlerNo of trips / daysNo of swimsNo of rolls
Chris200
Dave301
Duncan11.50
Harrison100
Huw200
Logan100
Martin120
Nat101
Phil200
Sam C102
Simon300
Stef100
Steve R300

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