Canoe with a View : : Canadian Open Canoe forum

Sunday Morning and Sam, James & I headed off to meet up with Tony from SoTP for the 1st time with a view to continuing my exploration of the River Wear, upstream of Bishop Auckland. Our launch point being Escomb village. A decent car park with a 70yd portage to a shingle beach next to a granite block weir. Water levels had dropped dramatically and were a good 3' down on earlier in the week which promised another day of mixed paddling & lining. We headed upstream, paddling against the stream with Sam and I jumping out to tow James in royal spleandor whenever we got to a really shallow bit.

After a couple of hours of very mixed water including a number of what appeared to be very washed out weirs along with beautifull tree lined stretches where you felt no one had been before.

We rounded a bend to be confronted by our 1st awkward check. A block weir with high banks and a lot of vegetation but with a lovely secluded beach below it where we stopped for a well earned brew and sandwiches.

We lined the boats up the weir without too much drama and portaged the gear and James through the gap under the trees to the right of the weir.

Our trip carried on pretty much in the same vein for several hours untill we came to a double weir beneath a brick viaduct which involved a portage of about 100yds before we were able to return to the river. Further upstream the river began to narrow significantly as it wended it's way through shingle banks and islands with frequent short rapids and many downed trees. By now James was flagging so we marooned Sam on a shingle bank with the food and the firesteel whilst Tony and I pressed on. Another mile or so brought us in sight of some Fly fishermen, As we intended turning back shortly I couldn't see the point of carrying on through their swim only to return again in a few minutes. We negotiated a couple of nice fast bits of water though touching bottom was a frequent problem. On rounding the bend where we'd left Sam we found she'd got a decent fire going and James was out for the count.
Having stopped and finished of the food and drunk the coffee we chilled out for an hour or so whilst James re-charged his batteries before heading back down river. The little bits of faster water that we'd lined and waded on the way up became great fun as we headed back with one or two having to be run 2 or 3 times just for the sake of it.



We continued down the river with sam jumping ashore with james whilst Tony and I played













After a while sam and James joined me and as expected James thought the splashing and bouncing about was fantastic. About a mile from our launch point we entered another fast shallow run, well overhung with trees and well in shadow and as we accelerated down we never even saw a boulder just beneath the surface. We glanced off it and as we heeled hard we struck another and the canoe went over on it's side and was full in seconds, depositing the three of us in a couple of feet of fast moving cold water. I grabbed James who had trapped his finger and was a little upset though his waterproof suit had done it's job. As I waded ashore with James I noticed the paddles making a break for freedom, as did Sam who in wading after them, promptly found the deapest hole in the river and disappeared up to her neck to much hilarity . We recovered the canoe and once dried out continued down stream, arriving back at the launch point at 9.45pm! Poor picture quality I'm afraid as stills from video recorder.

[evid]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxyr4I5H39g[/evid]



Regards, Mike.

Fixed duplicated image tags..Nige

Sounds like a great day out Mike....

And you managed to find some bumpy stuff...

Hope James hasn't been put off with his hurty finger....

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Red.

(26-07-10 03:18 PM)redframe Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds like a great day out Mike....

And you managed to find some bumpy stuff...

Hope James hasn't been put off with his hurty finger....

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Red.

He's fine. I think he trapped it between his body and the gunnel as we tipped. It didn't help that he was really tired. Either way he's asked why we arn't canoeing today LOL. The highpoint though, had to be Sam as she went from knee deep to neck deep in 3 steps. We were rolling about laughing. Mike.

Great TT Bro' like this piccie



A prospector doing what prospectors should,

Cheers
Tim

A brilliant TT Mike, a thoroughly enjoyable read. Sounds like you all had a very enjoyable day. looks a very nice river.

Spot on and thanks for sharing.

Nige.

Hey, thanks for sharing a most enjoyable TT

Looks like you had fun,I have yet to brave a river.