Lyon Outdoor Equipment Award!

The kind folks over at Lyon Outdoor have awarded us their Expedition Award. We'll get some serious use out of their head-torches, dry-bags and aquapacs this summer!

Double Crown in Devon

Rachel on a sunny upper Dart

Team members Tom and Adam were joined by Rachel and Mark for a sunny Saturday of boating in Devon. We managed to paddle both the Upper Dart and East Lyn in one very long day trip from London. Water levels were low, but temperatures were high. I've not paddled the East Lyn for about 4 years and I'd forgotten how good it was! We randomly met up with local Exmoor paddlers Hugh Kingdon and friends on the East Lyn and paddled down with them - they had been paddling the river nearly everyday for the past 2 weeks.

This is probably the last bit of whitewater we will get to paddle before Peru - can't wait!!

Tom on the East Lyn

Mark Flower in a boat!

Now that's what I call a gurn.

New sponsor!

 

We are happy to announce that the kind people at DAM Watersports have offered to support the expedition and will be supplying us with spare seals for all our drysuit needs! Thank you DAM!

Easter in the Pyrenees

Alex having fun on the Rio Ara!

The team headed out to the Pyrenees over Easter with the rest of Imperial College Club for some pre-expedition paddling/training/fun! While most of Europe was experiencing drought conditions, we were lucky enough to find water in two of the valleys on the Spanish side - the Rio Noguera Palleresa and the Rio Ara. After catching the ferry from Dover we had a long over night drive across France, finally stopping in the town of Foix on the French side of the Pyrenees. We paddled a leisurely couple of hours in the sun on the slalom course on the river Ariege before hitting the road again, reaching Sort in the early hours of the morning.

Read and run boys - upper Noguera Palleresa

We found some great paddling on the Noguera Palleresa and paddled three different sections of the river. The upper section above the dam, being our favourite, we paddled twice! The upper section was 10km or so of great continous read and run grade 4 with a couple of harder rapids thrown into the mix. Below the dam we paddled 35km of grade 3-4 over two days, with a spectacular gorge to finish off the river. The slalom course in Sort proved to be a good play spot!

Good luck to yer family boys!

This was one of the last river trips for the Jackson Rocker before it's savage end - Adam paddling

Uh Oh..

Tom on some big water below the dam on the Noguera Palleresa!

The second half of the trip we based ourselves in the beautiful Ara valley, camping in the town of Torla. We paddled two different sections of the Rio Ara - the upper and middle. The middle was about 8 km of read and run grade 4.

Rio Ara

Tom exiting an exciting gorge on the Noguera Palleresa

Derf on the Noguera Palleresa

Alex doing some hucking

Tim enjoying the sun, but not the sunburn! River Ariege

Deep gorges in the Pyrenees - a precursor to the Cotahuasi?

Expedition First Aid Course

As part of our generous support from the Imperial College Expedition Board five members of the Paddle Peru team completed an expedition first aid course this weekend. Although we hopefully won’t have to make use of the skills that we learned, the remote nature of the Peruvian rivers mean they may prove invaluable.

Adam, Alex, Alby, Derf and Tom arrived in various states of wakefulness on Saturday morning and were plunged straight into an exercise designed to test how much of the outdoor first aid course we could remember (not a lot in my case). Revision time over we set about learning some more complex techniques including use of resuscitation masks, defibrillators and oxygen.  After a beautifully sunny lunch the information continued to come thick and fast, with an overview of the various illnesses we may be vulnerable to on the trip and the drugs that would be most useful to us. Saturday culminated in learning more advanced techniques to control bleeding, with some team members enjoying finding each others femoral pressure point a little too much...

On the Sunday we learned a number of the more practical first aid skills. After a quick lesson each of us was presented with a horribly injured patient (a chicken leg) and a suturing kit. With varying degrees of success we then stitched up its terrible wound. With this casualty dealt with we then encountered a whole bag of oranges in need of life saving injections. Luckily these were successfully administered, and we even managed to avoid sticking needles into ourselves. 

Our final challenge was to combine all that we had learned on the last two first aid courses into a single scenario. In groups of three we had to effectively manage an incident, triage patients and administer appropriate care. This provided a real insight into the challenges of dealing with a major incident and an opportunity to prove to ourselves how much we had learned.

We would like to thank Stuart Marshall and Dr Simon Green from Marlin Training (www.marlintraining.co.uk) for providing us with excellent tuition and the Imperial College Expedition Board for funding this invaluable course.

Advanced White Water Safety & Rescue

So after uni last Friday Tom, Derf, Alex and myself set a course for North Wales for a wet weekend of Advanced White Water Safety and Rescue training provided by Tom Parker. Arriving in the wee hours on Saturday morning, and waking all the happy campers up with our car which resembles the growl of a tractor, we set up camp in the Carrog Station campsite just outside Corwen and bedded down for the night before our early start.

On Saturday morning, after a top notch full English in Cafe and Books, Llangollen (where we found Tom P) we headed straight to the Aberglaslyn Gorge for a couple of (boney) warm up runs before taking to the bank to set up some rough, ready and rapid mechanical advantage systems. 

 

The Gorge has some great little cliffs to practice belaying and bank based skills from. Hours later and covered in mud after a day of practicing we headed to a local cafe for a good cuppa. Saturday night saw us battle through the crowds in Llangollen (!) who had clearly enjoyed the rugby as we found a bite to eat and tired after a day on the water we headed back to camp.

The drizzle cleared in time for us to pack up the tents and re-squash the car on Sunday morning, after which we headed across to Bala for some fun on the Tryweryn. Chase boating practice ensued, with some of the boats ("My nose!" cries Alex) and people ("My nose!" cries Alby) coming off worse than others. 

 

Plenty of swimming, throwing lining, body surfing, live baiting and hole rescuing was enjoyed after lunch, just as the sun came out to warm us up. A quick paddle over Bala Mill Falls and some pinning/injury scenario practice brought and end to a great weekend.

Tractor car, 4 boats, kit and people made the long drive back to London on Sunday evening in one piece wishing we could have stayed for another couple of days!

Many thanks to Tom Parker for a great weekend (www.tomparkercoaching.co.uk).

The next Hanson album cover...surely

Funding: Hoorah!

 

Imperial College London's Exploration Board have given the expedition their backing, so now everything can move up a gear. Now for fundraising, boat demo-ing, flight booking and other such frivolities...watch this space!