ULKC Wales Trip

I spent the last week in Wales paddling with ULKC on the Tryweren in North Wales and at the International Whitewater Centre in Cardiff. It was savage craic! We left at stupid o'clock in the morning last friday and then paddled virtually every day on a few sweet rivers. And we found time for a few parties in the evenings too! We spent most of our time on the Tryweren, a sweet grade 3+ run which is dam controlled meaning that its virtually always working and you always know exactly what level its running at. This river is perfect for anyone whos level 3-4ish ability wise and theres loads of stuff on it. We spent quite a lot of time here working with throwropes and other rescue skills, as well as the usual paddling skills.

Unfortunatly the complete lack of rain over North Wales meant that the river was turned off one day that we were there so we had to go further afield looking for water. We ended up paddling on the Dee which is a sweet little run about an hour from Bala with a few nice rapids but nothing too challenging on it.

The last two days of the trip were spent on the international whitewater centre in Cardiff. Since rescue was provided here we were able to simply show up and paddle as much as possible in the time we were on the water. This course was a bit of a step up in difficulty from the Tryweren so a few of the beginners felt a bit out of their depth here, and none of the features were deep enough for freestyle so I could have been happier but for the people at level 3-4 standard who were just settling into the Tryweren when we left it was perfect, they had savage craic and improved loads.

Photo credits go to Micheal Howard, Caolin Doran, Niamh Hanrahan and Orla Tuffy.