Hello all,

After mainly surfing most of the summer, taking the kids out on slow
stuff, including, the annual Sunday Teifi Tour run a couple of weeks
back - the conditions fell just right this weekend for the first lads
only run of the year.

The upper Tawe, my favourite river. The perfect solution to dust off the

summer cobwebs.

We brought Matt along, one of the lads in the club, you know the type...

sixteen years old, damn fine freestyle paddler, loves the park and play
world - not really sure what to make of river running, finds it pretty
boring (to date!).

At first, the visual inspections seemed to be extracting a lot more than

fear from him - judging by the amount of time he seemed to be peering
from behind the shrubbery! But once on the river his eyes and smile
seemed to widen more and more the further we traveled. If adrenaline was

a bright orange colour flowing through the veins, he'd have been a
prefect match with his boat!

Its amazing how you dismiss the feeling of paddling over a horizon line
once you know the line really well. Evident by the amount of frantic
back paddling and scrambling into micro eddy's by those that don't.

All in all it was great day, perfect run, clean lines no swims and no
epics of any kind. Plus, I think we may have converted one of those
'park and play' types into real kayaking...

A good inspection is needed of the upper gorge, its beginning to look
messy, with fallen trees making river wide strainers in a couple of
places. If scrambling up steep leaf strewn river banks isn't your thing,

I would suggest starting below the upper gorge (grade 5), somewhere near

Craig y Nôs for a great grade 4 portage free run.

Careful! the Tawe fills (and drops) really quick, and turns into a
committed grade 5 in high water. A good guide is to look at the river as

it passes under the bridge on the road to Penwyllt (just a 100m off the
main road a mile short of Craig y Nôs).

If the river looks runable without scraping the bottom, then your on. If

no rocks are clearly visible downstream, then you're in for the ride of
your life. If you can't see rocks anywhere and water is fast and muddy,
don't go!

Plus, the WCA have done a great job in gaining access for this great
river. There have been loads of problems in the past with the locals and

fishing clubs. So please, respect the area and river banks, park
considerately and never paddle in fishing season. I suppose the same
applies to all rivers.

I'm still high on the adrenaline now, I love winter...

Steve - AVP

p.s. Whats your favourite river? The river you would choose to paddle,
if you only had one choice.