{"id":21309,"date":"2019-10-04T17:41:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T16:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/?p=21309"},"modified":"2019-10-04T17:41:21","modified_gmt":"2019-10-04T16:41:21","slug":"high-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/high-water\/","title":{"rendered":"High Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we transition from summer flows into the winter storm season our river options (here in the UK at least) widen. There have been a few posts on social media, both of boats and kit lost on high water runs, as well as questions from folk looking for alternatives to their usual runs, as they reach high flows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ian Salvat on a high water run in Tomalino, Spain. Photo: Jan Larrue

The level of skill to visualise and stick the line with high consequence is built up over many years of experience, and with a deep understanding of the river environment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is NOT a \u2018do not go floodwater boating\u2019 public safety\nannouncement, rather some ideas for paddlers looking to have safe days out on\nthe water, based extensively on my failings when I was younger. If you see me\non the river feel free to ask about the time 8 of us got on a river, and after\n500m there were 6 swimmers\u2026 we were still collecting boats from the estuary as\ndarkness fell!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some terminology first\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High – The river is above its normal paddledable level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bank full – The river has filled its normal channel, and there is no gap between the water and the bankside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flood – The river out of its banks and flowing through the trees on the edges of the river. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tim Burne, somewhere in Indonesia. Photo: Chris Eastabrook

Tim and Chris had camped on the river during a multi-day expedition, and experience an overnight storm. The river rose 4ft overnight, and lead to some ‘type 2’ fun during their descent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of these levels provide excellent sport for us as kayakers, provided the team and environment that we choose to go into are in balance. Here\u2019s some tips for ensuring this balance\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Check the forecast<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check the weather forecast (sounds obvious right!) and know\nwhat has happened the few days before in the local area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the river is already high when you go to get on, and there is more rain in the forecast, we can assume that the river will continue to rise. This is due to the headwaters (catchment) being already saturated, and so any rise can become exponential \u2013 water has nowhere to soak into, and so runs straight into the river. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flow chart from the RIver Lledr, North Wales.

The rainfall of the days previous meant that the catchment was saturated, and so when the next band of rain came across there was an immediate and severe effect on the river flow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2. Head up the valley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we\u2019ve got to our planned river, and it is running high.\nWe are not lemmings \u2013 we can make rational decisions! One option is to head\nfurther up the valley, lessening the impact of the rain on our drainages. A\nclassic example of this is the River Findhorn in Scotland \u2013 the lower gorge\ngoes most of the time, but the upper section of river only becomes paddleable\nin high water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Turn the grade down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the rivers are so much more forceful, and things happen\nmuch faster on high rivers, then lessening the grade we are paddling increases\nour margins for safety. I have had some of my favourite days paddling down big\nwave trains on grade 2 rivers, surfing waves that don\u2019t normally form (and\ndodging trees as they float down!). A great example of this is the Dee, in\nNorth Wales. Last weekend it was huge, but the section below the normal\n\u2018classic\u2019 run would have been incredible fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jonny Hawkins on a high volume descent of the Alaknandar, India. Photo: Rory Woods

Knowing that they were faced with a very high water season in the Himalaya, the team were seeking out lesser paddled runs and making the most of their paddling days!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

4. Change drainages<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK we are often blessed with being close to a\nmultitude of runs, with rivers in one valley being off the scale, yet two\nvalleys over there being a normal flow (or no water!) in the rivers. I\u2019ve been\non a very high Mawddach, and yet when we\u2019ve passed the Eden confluence there\nhas been little more than a trickle coming down!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Drink coffee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our gut instinct is a very powerful thing. If we\u2019ve spent a couple of hours trying everything above, and still haven\u2019t found anything we feel like we want to paddle then go and drink coffee or mess about in the park. It rains a lot in the UK, so the rivers will be up again soon\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dan Wilkinson, first descent of the playpark, Callander, Scotland. Photo Luke Kemp

It had been raining continuously for 10 days in the Highlands of Scotland and everything was in flood. In search of more appropriate activites we ended up mucking about in the park at the get on of the Teith, before a very high water run down a classic grade 2!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you want to read more about the background to these ideas\nof good decision making then my good friend Tom Parker has written this about\nHeuristics for paddlers here: Link\nto Heuristics for paddlers article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we transition from summer flows into the winter storm season our river options (here in the UK at least) widen. There have been a few posts on social media, both of boats and kit lost on high water runs, as well as questions from folk looking for alternatives to their usual runs, as they … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[752,1240,1238,1239,120,124,1241],"class_list":["post-21309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adventure","tag-advice","tag-flood","tag-high-water","tag-kayak","tag-kayaking","tag-public-safety"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tk9G-5xH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21309"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21336,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21309\/revisions\/21336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}