Washburn report Saturday 16th August

[Richard D]

Following the visit to the Washburn a couple of weeks by Dave Y, Andy, Paul & Laurence another 6 intrepid Wombourne members made the long journey north to visit this great little river. I left home and picked up Steve before meeting Geoff & Kee on the Kingfisher car park at 6.10 then on to Wolverhampton to meet Mark and Rob. We left Rob’s house at 6.45 had a 30 minute break at Charnock Richard services for a coffee and Subway ! On up the M6 to the M65 towards Blackburn & Burnley coming off at Junction 13 ( A682 ) towards Blacko and Gisburn. Turn right onto the A59 and the Washburn ( the only dam release river in England ) is about halfway between Skipton & Harrogate. We arrived at the put on below the dam at 9.45. ( All this bumf is for future reference ! )
We strolled down to have a look at the main feature and were on the river for 10.30 having sorted the shuttle. Contrary to popular belief there are loads of eddies, but not many you can get 2 boats in and stop and have a chat to one of your fellow paddlers ! So we made our way down eddy hopping and if your mate hadn’t vacated the eddy you were aiming for then it was on to the next one. Probably the most noticeable feature of the river is its speed of flow ! A great river for building individual skills as decisions have to be made early , quickly and positively.. There are loads of surfing opportunities with a mixture of small waves and river wide waves and as expected Mark tried out every one !
The grade 3 drop or stretch is intimidating and challenging but brings a great deal of satisfaction to get through successfully, everyone made it through. There is of course the challenge of breaking out river right into a large eddy that will allow you to enter the drop and try surfing in the wave ( which Mark impressed us with ) or there are two eddies river left the top one of which is “guarded” by boulder which is a real trip hazard. From either of these eddies the challenge is to break in, cross the river and break out river right just below the smaller 2nd drop. We continued on down making eddies and surfing and then we had the real challenge, chasing a boat full of water ! It’s fast and as said before there are very few eddies and places to bring a boat to a halt. We were a fair way down before the boat was brought to rest.
We decided the second run would be just down to the grade 3 section and then we would carry the boats back up and do it again. Needless to say after trekking back up the 6 or 7 hundred metres to to the put on, only Mark did it twice !
So we decided to run the whole length again, both vehicles waiting at the bottom so we could get changed before setting off home.
An excellent day was had by all and it was great to hear Mark say he’d thoroughly enjoyed it as the speed of the river kept it interesting all the way down.
Well done to Geoff who didn’t even have to put in a roll, brilliant day well worth the early start and long drive. There was even talk on the way home of the club paying for a private release and having the river to ourselves for a day, only £450 !!

[admin]

Fantastic lads, glad you had a great day…. its one of my favorite rivers…

[Geoff]

Great report, great river and a great day….!
Long journey, but well worth it, glad we made the effort to go.

[Mark]

Great trip I was pleasantly surprised by the Washburn, the speed of the water alone makes it worth a trip. Not sure what it would be like when really busy though. Great day guys everyone paddled well

[Author]

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