Lowther

10th Feb We’d hoped to paddle the Upper Duddon, but despite the best effort of Storm Ciara, sadly  hadn’t left enough water in that river…so we went to do the Lowther because Rainchasers said it would be “Huge”1.5 on Eamont bridge gauge.  Driving over Shap summit, the air temperature dropped to 2 degrees and the wind picked up. Lovely. Shuttle to Brougham Castle, then back up to Askham to start. By the time we started the level was 1.4. The central channel through the broken weir was tree-free, so we took that, then ducking and diving through the boulders and down to the footbridge. Nice paddling, no dramas avoiding the big hole, far left , at end of caravan site. Around the corner three more holes hid,  between a large consumed section,  all was well until the very last hole: Phil relaxed too early and took a bath as a result. Then down via the last rapid on the Eamont and off at the castle. Most of us were cold and tired, but Mike’s enthusiasm is unrelenting, having seen water coming over the dam. We shuttled back up to Wet Sleddale reservoir. Jumped on below the last (big) sheep fence, and down to the first gorge; twisty, rocky, tree bound and narrow. Safely through, and into the small weir, then a long sequence of fridge-freezer sized boulders, “Never liked pinball” said one paddler, but with clean enough lines, we were starting to get into it a bit. At this point the wind picked up and we had more horizontal sleet, but the river was also picking up; seemingly endless grade 2+ rapids, with lots of interest.

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Eyes on stalks because this river has a reputation for fences, but they’d all gone. Back to Rosgill to collect the van and battle roof straps with icy fingers. Paddlers were Mike, Chris, Tim and Phil.

Phil

Duddon Dash

Saturday 1^st February saw generally low river levels which were still still falling. The Duddon was at 0.66m and the trend was flattening so Paul, Emma, Rhod and Sten met for a short blast down the Lower Duddon from Ulpha Bridge to Duddon Bridge.

Only the four of us so the shuttle was as simple as they get, meet at the take out, four boats onto a car and up to the put in. As expected the level was low but with the exception of a couple of shingle beds and the last rapid the lines were pretty clean (if you were on line of course).

The only upsets came at Duddon Hall where Paul caught a rock and had to deploy a very deep support stroke to avoid capsizing and narrowly made it to the eddy above the drop. The straight route down the fall proved to be rockier that it looked and Sten slightly too far right ricochets from the rock and found himself searching for his roll at the bottom. He was relieved to find it working this time. 

The conditions were pleasant, sheltered from the wind for all but the last 200m of flat water to the take out. We even managed a brief stop for a brew on the way down and Rhod almost got away in time to make it home for the Rugby.

Sten