Winter is a good time for canoeists. Particularly the sort that annoys most people – the warm wet type. Whilst scanning the environment agencies website of flood warnings most peoples reaction to a severe flood warming for the Conway is not to get on the phone and see who else wants to go. This reaction is heightened after what was practically a six-week drought over Christmas and New Year. Living near to north Wales I can in fact confirm reports of sheep having to be slaughter to drink their blood, and whole forests being reduced to morbid sculpture parks of lifeless totem poles.

So it was that 5 of us headed across to north Wales, through increasingly driving rain, commenting occasionally that this is what weather should be like. On arrival at the bunk house even the track down to the farmhouse was almost paddlable. Rich and I, having arrived early, decided that we would drive down and have a look at the gauge on the Conway. We spent some time looking for the gauge, in the rain and dark, before concluding that we must have missed it. We had. But that, we discovered at a later date, was because it was underwater. Not being ones to be deterred by failure we carried on down the, several centimetres deep in water on the down hill sections, road into Bewts-y-Coed to have a look at the Llugwy. It was an impressive sight. For those who know the drop in Bewts-y it was the only time there was sensible line. A solid boof over the large rock in the middle of the drop. Aparently it had dropped from the day before as well. Having concluded that there was possibly some paddling on the cards we returned up the surprisingly hydrologically interesting road to the bunk house.

The less said about seven o'clock the next morning the better. The fact that we hadn't found the cutlery draw and had no spoons was only compounded by a lack of anything to eat with them. Whilst we may moan about Andy's amazing tendency for over packing the large food box did have it's advantages that morning. Stolen breakfast eaten we where still not very ready to fact the day ahead, but there was water, and we weren't planning to waste it. We decided to start on the Nant-y-Gwyfyd (mystery prize available for the first person to pronounce it correctly1). This is the unique sort of spate run you only get when there is so much water even the sheep have decided to take up playboating2. Rivers like this don't even have riverbeds since they so rarely have water, just rocks and grass. It is a peculiar experience paddling on a stream that most of the year you could walk across. Anyway, there where no major problems. We boringly walked the grade 5+ / 6 (this was the warm up). Then spent some time debating the best route on the last fall, every route of which on the main drop appeared to involve some heavy contact with rock. We ran it left instead, a route requiring a hard boof. Oh well.

Though still raining it had not been as heavy over night and during the morning and the rivers where already droping [insert your own favourite up and down faster than… gag here]. It seemed a waste not go and run some other silly streams before the water ran out so we drove round to the next valley to run the upper Llugwy. By upper I mean upper. Starting within about 400m of where the river appears to begin, however a source to sea decent wasn't really on the cards that day. Little regard as a may give to my own life a floating corpse just wouldn't have had the skills not to get stuck somewhere on the way and actually complete the decent. Anyway the river was quite fun and ended with the 'grade 5' browns falls. We all got out about this. Then went back to have a look. Andy carried on having a look. We discussed lines and the possibility of safety cover. We remembered that we had a video camera in the car nest to the drop. We decided on a line and set up safety cover. Andy took his boat up to the top, for about the first time ever not complaining about the seemingly excessive safety cover set up. Andy having run the drop fine Rich thought he would have a go, safety cover reduced Rich, seemingly as always pulled out a superb line. Having seen that I decided that really there was no excuse not to try. Started of fine, then landed the main drop with characteristically too much of the wrong edge and tested my helmet on the wall3. Seen even me have no huge problems Conrad decided to try his luck. Floated down the approach, pencilled the drop on the far right. Looked to everyone like he was going to get vertically pinned, but then used his secret weapon, the amazing volume of the redline, bounced completely onto the other end and popped out. Dan decided that he'd give his luck a rest.

The sheer amazement of finding water in the rivers appeared to take it's toll on certain members of the party. The early evening found both Andy and Dan already asleep with the others flagging. We hadn't even got round to cooking dinner.

This caused something of a problem, as with Andy and Dan asleep and neither Conrad or Rich particularly hungry it seemed a little rude to start cooking the communal food just for my self. However a cunning plan was developed. One which, really, should have been though of before. We went to the pub. An all round good decision from just about every angle, except that the locals insisted on playing us at pool. Narrowly defeating Conrad, they then showed that my skills at pool, even when not drunk, are only marginally better than my ability to crochet a large doily in less than 30 seconds. In order to save on further humiliations retreated to the other bar where, missing dinner finally having got the better of us, we ordered a selection of jacket potatoes. After which we somehow couldn't resist trying the dessert menu. It wasn't long after this that we returned back to the buckhouse. Partly to get some sleep, partly to avoid trying another item on the pudding list.

The destination for the next day was pretty much decided by Andy who was far too awake after a somewhat impressive 12 or so hours sleep. He wanted to run the Ogwen. The prospect of going and running a new river which rarely has water just wasn't enough to sway him4. So we went and ran the Ogwen. A fact Andy may have slightly come to regret halfway down Ogwen bank falls when his boat came to an abrupt halt when it really shouldn't have done, and his paddle shaft came into rather closer proximity with his nose than is generally accepted as wise. For the rest of us it made the whole trip worth while, something to laugh about for many weeks to come. It may seem slightly callous to laugh at other people's misfortune, particularly in what could be a life threatening situation. But lets face it, Andy coming close to breaking his nose is just quite funny. The rest of the run was quite entertaining. But after Andy having provided us with such entertainment so early on there was not going to be anything to measure up to it on the rest of the river.

There was still one hazard to contend with though. We all stopped off at my house on the way home, for the free food and five different home made puddings. Which is generally a good thing. However Andy discovered an easy to play Beatles tunes book on the piano in the living room. So far not too bad. He then preceded to demonstrate his grade one piano knowledge by trying to play them. Now quite bad. Rich then decided to demonstrate that he has one of the worst singing voices ever by joining in. So bad every one else left the room. Still it makes you realise how blissful silence can be when it stops.

All in all it was not a bad trip. In fact it was so good that, given that there was still threatening to be rain about we decided to go again the next weekend. Well Rich and I did, accompanied by Tom Saffell5. We all packed into Rich's metro and headed back towards my parents house, having phoned them about half an hour before to say that we would be coming up to stay the night and they we would be taking a car away for the weekend as well. So, always true to our word, we turned up, ate food, stayed for the night and then took a car for the weekend.

On driving into Wales it was clear that we where not going to be having quite the water park we had had the previous weekend. You could see the gauge on the Conway, it was reading about 56, which we decided was really a bit low. So we drove round a bit more, slowly discovering that there really wasn't much water in the rivers. One enterprising farmer had even taught his sheep to do an African derived rain dance in case the feared Christmas drought of 2001 should return.

In the end, though, after bumping to pretty much the entirety of Loughbourgh university canoe club in two minibuses who weren't seemingly bothered about not paddling as they had just come up for there annual dinner7, we decided to paddle the Aber-Glaslyn gorge. For a test piece of Welsh white water, most of the questions it posed where really quite easy. There was only one slightly testing drop, which Rich whilst leading ran straight down with out the slightest hint of inspection8. Due to the lack of water elsewhere we decided to run the section a couple more times, thinking that maybe there where some bonus questions somewhere that we had maybe missed the first time. Unfortunately there weren't, and though we all ran the one drop badly at least two out of three times we decided by the end of the day that it was really more of a quiz than a test piece.

We headed into Betws-y after that for a spot of shopping. It is the sort of thing that has to be done on all of these trips. However much kit you have, there is always a compulsion to walk around kit shops for protracted periods of time until you find the one obscure and slightly pointless device you don't have which functions as a toothbrush, tent peg remover, pan handle and belay device, possibly all simultaneously, which you then just have to buy because it is made out of shiny titanium.

Slightly more useful shopping followed in the large 24 hour Tesco we found in Bangor, where we tested our culinary ingenuity to the limit and bought a huge amount of pasta and pesto. In fact it was far more pasta and pesto than we could possibly hope to have got through. Still, definitely better than the other way round. We spent the evening staying in leisure at the expense of her majesty. I suppose the armed forces do have something going for them if you can work out how to exploit it. Even if they are a little too picky about having to hover the floor before you leave.

The Conway emerged as probably the best destination for Sundays activities. So we drove back across and had another look at the gauge, which was at about 5.5. Slightly low, but not an entirely unreasonable level to run the upper sections of the river. However we were a little tempted by the Fairy Glen - another supposed test piece of Welsh water. So we went and had a look from the road. We even paid 50p to go and have a look from the other end due to not being able to avoid the cunning sensors of the farmer who operates the picnic area. Not sure how he worked out that we had gone in with out paying. Close inspection of the gate revealed no sensors of any form and only what appeared to be a metal honesty box. Whilst we weren't obviously being that honest there seemed no way the farmer could have known that with out either having some very hi-tech sensors or spending his whole time looking out the window just to catch people, I'll let you come to your own conclusions9.

We had been thinking of running some of the upper sections of the Conway to warm up, then depending on how we had been going maybe try the glen. However we decided that instead we would just run the glen giving our selves some time to inspect and protect things as seemed necessary. We met Ray Goodwin10 in the carpark at the top who said that there was some heavy rain coming and that the glen is capable of 'going ballistic on you'. Still, the recommended level is 2.5-3 on the gauge and it was only 5.5 so couldn't be too bad.

It was raining when we got on. It carried on raining for the whole time we where on the river. The paddling started off well. I managed to get back-looped with in about 5 metres of starting off. Quite an impressive start in the plunge pool of the Conway falls though, it just shows the dedication to salmon fishing that someone actually has tried to construct salmon steps all the way up the falls.

So it was we set of. I won't say too much about the actual decent as something's are best left as legend. Suffice it to say, just because you are paddling well doesn't mean you have to carry on. Inspecting a gorge from 20 meters up through trees really isn't that conclusive. Just because it is called 'the end of the world' doesn't mean there can't be another huge hole after it. Don't trust fairies or river gods. When drove back up past the gauge, it was completely underwater. It goes up to 10.

It was generally agreed that having experienced a quiz the day before, this test piece was more of a tripos examination. But we seemed to pass, so it definitely had to be worth while.

Index