High water on the Dart

After a conversation with Mr Wicks a few months ago I agreed that attending the Gene 17 Adventure Paddler weekend at the Dart Country Park sounded a good idea. For those of you unaware the event is essentially a load of talks, videos and photos from people who’ve paddled a bit more than the average, and during the day the opportunity to go and paddle the rivers in the South West.

The trouble was that I’d forgotten to make a note in the calendar and by the time Andy reminded me about it I’d subsequently agreed to attend my girlfriend’s family Christmas gathering (school boy error I know). Getting out of it wasn’t looking good as apparently ‘I’d promised’ and ‘love kayaking more’ than her, something I denied. She couldn’t find out the truth, so I had to attend the family do.

The solution was to go paddling on the Saturday and then the family do on the Sunday . I still wanted to pack in as much boating as possible so on the Friday night suggested to Andy that we start as early on Saturday as possible and proposed getting up at 6am. I was a little surprised when Andy agreed that this was a marvellous idea. So at 7am we had finished scoffing Andy’s mums bacon sarnies (which she’d felt obliged to get up and cook for us) and were on our way to the Dart.

Now it has been raining the night before, quite a lot, and it was still raining when we arrived at Newbridge. The night before I had chatted to some of the boaters from my local canoe club and they had informed me that they were planning to kick off with the Erme starting at 9 and then head over to the Upper Dart. ‘You lite weights’ I’d said ‘not early enough for us, we’ll have run the Upper Dart before you’ve had breakfast and will see you at the Erme afterwards. The Upper will be too high before you finish that’.

So Saturday morning there we were sitting in the car at Newbridge. The level didn’t look too bad, maybe lapping over the edge of the slab and all looked like a goer. Trouble was that there was only two of us and as we all know from the BCU handbook (or Mr O’dell) less than three must never be. We also knew the Dart can rise super fast and had no idea how long it would be before it was bloody good boaters only (something me and Andy are not).

Luckily another car pulled up, they also thought it was ok, but wanted to wait for a mate before making a call. We had faffed too long so headed up to the top. On the way we agreed the plan. If the guys we’d met in the car park decided it was a goer, it must be so we’d get on, if not we wouldn’t. Now for any Aston Uni freshers out there, you won’t find this method of decision making in any boating manual because it is not a good one.

When we got to the car park, we found three boaters about to get on who looked like they knew what they were talking about, well they had Palm Sidewinder dry suits on anyway. They informed us that it would be a good level, but we must get on asap (within the next 20 mins) or it would be super high and would reach ‘Scotney level’ by lunch.

The guys we had met in the car park turned up after making the decision to run it. We got the gear on and after suggesting to them that it would be much better for us all if we paddled as a five rather than two and three we got on. (Not that me and Andy were scarred. Safety 1st and all that).

Off we went. I’d not paddled the Upper Dart at this level before, before it had always been a bit on the low side. This time it was a superb level, and the continuous grade 4 that it is renowned for. It was certainly keeping me on my toes and I was feeling a little rusty. One of the chaps we paddled with reckoned it was a good medium level although I suspect it was a little higher than that.

The chaps we were paddling with had paddled it numerous times before which allowed us all to crack on swiftly, with just Andy and myself it would have taken a lot longer as we would have needed to inspect far more.

All was going well until a couple of hundred meters before Euthanasia, the biggest rapid on the river. One of the guys took a swim, he got out well before the rapid but his boat continued down a channel to the left of Euthanasia, where it was rescued.

The others couldn’t be arsed to walk back up and paddle the falls but Andy and myself decided to. We briefly discussed what the line looked like with our man (I really can’t remember any of their names as you’ve probably guessed).

As we got on the water myself and Andy realised we probably should have looked at the falls, I wasn’t really sure which part of the falls to go over! Andy though he knew so off he went. All seemed to go well although I couldn’t see him until I near got to the edge, so off I went. A lot more water than I’d seen down there before and still lots of fun.

Finally the fun ended and we arrived at Newbridge. The level was well over the ledge but no where near going through the third arch (otherwise known as Scotney level).
I immediately got on the phone to call the lads from Oxford, but Vodafone still haven’t heard of Dartmoor so I had no luck. We couldn’t really be bothered to paddle the loop along with every man and his dog, so Andy blagged a lift with a couple of guys who we vaguely knew and who also knew the Oxford guys.

When Andy arrived at the top he wasn’t surprised to see that the river had risen significantly but was a little surprised to see the Oxford guys on the river. They had just returned from bottling the Erme which was at a monstrous level.

Anyway Mr R and Mr W who Andy had given Andy a lift, were a little surprised too. Mr W and Mr R are pretty good boaters and were later presenting some of their adventures at the Gene 17 event. Despite this, they were wondering if they had missed the level and if the Dart was now too high. They therefore wondered why the hell the Oxford guys were on the river.

Anyway after a brief discussion with Mr R the Oxford lads got off the river. There’s no shame in this, being talked off a river is embarrassing as you’ve made a poor judgement getting on, but it’s so much better than a ‘cluster fuck’.

One of the Oxford group was mouthing off about only getting off because the others weren’t up to it. For the record, he’s a twat.

Anyway back to the boating. A decision was made to paddle the West Dart, as this was one of the few rivers in the area that was a goer in these high levels. Myself and Andy were a little delayed getting on as we still had to get our boats so we had to catch the others up.
We started in some tributary to the West Dart. There was lots of water and lots of barbed wire fences spanning the river which as well as bloody dangerous was a complete pain in the arse as it meant lots of portages.

We soon joined the West Dart and the others. The river was basically increasingly big and bouncing grade three. There were a couple of swims, Vicky got her boat nicely pinned followed, myself and Andy performed an efficient rescue.

The river seemed to get bigger and bigger (or so I’m going to claim). Ben went for a roll, I got myself in a position to T rescue him in case. He rolled up, a few seconds later I was upside down, I’m not sure why. I went for an attempt at a roll and then another... I simply couldn’t get the paddle to the surface and enough leverage to roll back up. Shit I thought, I’m going to have to bail. I wasn’t very excited about this, there weren’t a lot of rocks, but the waves were big.
I pulled the deck, the next minute I was being sucked to the bottom of the river, paddles ripped out my hands only to re-emerge straight away.

I managed to clamber onto an approaching rock as the wave rode over it, and then swim to the bank (the wrong side as it turned out). As I climbed out the bank I noticed Dave was also climbing out the bank.

Bollocks I though, he’s just swum, that’s just halved the chance of me seeing my boat again.
Strangely Dave, just thought I was on the bank as part of some elaborate rescue operation to save him. He was rather disappointed to find out, that I’d swum too.

We then legged it off in the hope of recovering our boats and paddles... Recovering my paddles seemed unlikely, and I was already thinking ‘hmm... cranked Werners next time?’
Having a swimming buddy is much more fun, someone to race down the bank with and share the embracement with.

So to summarise what happened next as you’re probably getting bored?

Amazingly both mine and Hodges boats were rescued before the Upper Dart. (A few meters after the get in to the Upper to be precise). Thanks to those involved.

My paddles ended up being thrown in someone’s garden pond and were later recovered. The order for those cranked Werners has therefore yet to be submitted.

After several minutes of deliberation Hodge and myself decided that swimming across river, (even with some throw line support) was not a smart idea and took a long walk back to the other side of the river, recovering Louise’s boat as well. (She’d swum in the back group round about where I had).

Finally we were all back in the car park to join numerous other boaters being reunited with their tuperware. Some were not so lucky, as the numerous posts on UKRiversguidebook.co.uk the following Monday prove.

Finally a few words on the evening event. The event was compared by the amusing Dave Carroll from Gene 17, most famous for flogging Andy a set of dodgy ‘Rough stuff’ paddles at a Canoe Show a few years back. ('Werners all the way', I say)

Talks included:

• A couple of strange lads who had a weird trip to Iceland, walking for days to get to rivers they didn’t want to paddle as there was only two of them. Despite this they had a good time, and now have lots to do on their return trip!
• The ‘Axis of Terror’ and their adventures in California and BC.
• Debb Pinger (I think she won some world freestyle championships or something a few times) and her trip to an East African country that I can’t remember the name off.

There was also a raffle with what seemed like hundreds of prizes, despite this neither Andy or I won anything. The main prize was a Sweet Rocker helmet which is cool.

Neither Andy or myself went paddling on the Sun, this wasn’t a massive prob as the levels were all still silly high and I thought that a set of bollocks would be useful for future kayaking trips.