John C. contacted Neil Evans from MADCC (thanks John) and the race date for the Cheshire Ring Race 2014 starts on Saturday 28th June 2014. No doubt we will be allocated an early start again. We have a scratch team together but we are still looking for more people. We need support drivers over the weekend and at least one reserve paddler. If we find enough paddlers we could possibly enter a 10 person relay team. I will be contacting people over the coming weeks to see if you are interested.
It has been a while since the last post and 2013 has been quite a year for us! Updates will start to come more regular now that I have moved house etc..
Steve and Kiwi decided to drive to Scotland on Saturday 21st December 2013 for some kayaking and mountain walking. We had quite an agenda (see below). General idea was to be on top of Ben Nevis for Xmas day, get some snow kayaking done and finally do some white water kayaking on the River Coe. Ho hum the wind was impossible! We did get to 1000 ft up Ben Nevis Xmas eve but the 100 mph winds started to blow us off our feet (literally) so we headed back down the mountain. End result, no kayaking at all but at least we tried. If the wind was not so strong we would have been fine as we were well prepared for winter conditions. Never mind, there is always next year….. None-the-less, we had a good look around and learnt a lot.
This was our original plan.
Drive directly to Red Squirrel Campsite,
Glencoe,
Argyll,
PH49 4HX,
Scotland,
Telephone: +44 (0) 1855 811256
http://www.redsquirrelcampsite.co.uk/
We do have 3G & Wifi devices but I can’t recall if we get 3G here. I do know mobile reception is fine. What we end up doing all depends on the weather.
http://www.bennevisweather.co.uk/weather.asp
http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Ben-Nevis/forecasts/1344
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The general goal for this trip is to make the top of Ben Nevis on Xmas day. Again pending weather. If we go ahead we will be leaving from the Youth Hostel outside of Fort William Xmas eve, wild camping at the lake half way up, then tripping to the top with lighter packs and survival gear / food. This is the route we will be taking:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fortwilliam/bennevis.shtml
Last report was -7 at the top which is perfect but I suspect strong winds will stop us being able to do this. Wind chill factor was -25 C today with very low visability requiring blind navigation only, something which is not fun and I won’t do
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I’d like to kayak some of the Great Glen Canoe trail to suss it out for our trip next year.
http://greatglencanoetrail.info/
If we do this we will start from Fort William or further down if we can drive into the mountain passage and at most camp one night out before looping back on ourselves. I have registered a possible trip with Scottish Canals in case we do this and I have the number for the coast guard as we need to inform them. They know we might be doing this as of a couple of weeks ago plus we have the details of emergency pick up etc..
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I’d also love to have a go at snow kayaking. If we do that it is likely to be from here somewhere:
http://www.glencoemountain.co.uk/winter-home.html
Ski lifts are not yet running (just checked) so we may have the whole place to ourselves but will check with the Glencoe ski base station. Worth a try even if we only end up learning when we ought to be doing it next time We will be knackered if we need to walk up the slopes dragging kayaks
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If it is too windy, a fall-back option is to do part of the West Highland way. We would certainly start from the Fort William end. This is much lower walking than heading up into the mountains. I have heard its amazing scenery regardless. Looking into the avalanche status everything looks fine so this is a safe fall-back I guess for some snow camping.
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/west-highland-way.shtml
http://www.sais.gov.uk/
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Finally, pending weather, water level and temperature doing part of the Glen Coe white water river would be really cool. We do have the problem of getting back to the vehicle but sod it, can take a taxi as long as we have warm gear while someone waits. It is only a couple of miles long.
Checkout the lower fall, but I suspect far too cold but I’d love to have a go
http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/rivers/scotland/west-highlands/photos/river-nevis-lower-falls
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If we decide to get out of the weather I know a number of places to wild camp in the forests which gets us out of the winds and are cool places to chill out. Either way we will inform.
We are well equipped with navigation stuff. Compasses, Garmin outdoor GPS/GLONASS and I have 1:25000 OS maps for all the areas we are in.
Expected back in Macclesfield on Saturday 28th, no idea what time at this point but suspect late afternoon / early evening.
Enjoy your Xmas
John C, Steve, Lieven and I had a 3 hr Eskimo roll course at Sale water park. We all learned a lot and had fun. I think we are close to getting this done reliably with a little more training. Just need to be in the mood to get very wet. Lieven got the shivers and had to bail out for the last hour hence someone to take a few pics while we were messing around on the water. Practice, practice, practice is all that is going to get us comfortable doing them correctly…
https://plus.google.com/photos/117315536949105066944/albums/5910502747977769041?banner=pwa
Starting to prepare for our white water adventures so some basic skills done at Astbury mere in Congleton. Not many photos as we were all in the water. Well…. Steve was up to his neck giving us instructions on how not to die, Stuart enjoyed ramming us with another boat (a rescue technique where we up turn ourselves) while John Cocker and I enjoyed the view of the sand/fish while upside down with our legs stuck in an upturned kayak. All good fun and we had private parking!
It has been a hectic 3 weeks. We finished the Cheshire Ring and our fundraising party went down a storm. Total amount raised still not done but should be soon. Being one not to waste any time we have already sold the Marsport Falcon K2 and Steve and I have bought a new carbon/kevlar Marsport Condor K2. We decided we needed something a bit more stable for us “bigger” chaps.
Why?
The plan is to do the Cheshire Ring (but under 20 hours this time) in 2014.
Stay tuned! This is the new Jolly Paddlers web site. There is a lot more to come over the coming months.
Enjoy.
The Jolly Paddlers 