Huge day on the Upper Swale

Another 5am start to get to the Upper Swale ASAP to catch the water, and boy did we. Getting to the put in at 10:15am we got changed and I ran the shuttle.
On the way back I checked the gauge just off the bridge, it was already reading between 1.6 and 1.65 and still raining. This had already beaten our first run down at 1.41. 

Rainchasers Gauge Reading

After a little warm up shooting over Wain Wath Force we broke out above Rainby Force to inspect. We decided to try the far river left line first. Jumping back in the boat as I paddled to the edge I got a good last boof stroke, flying through the air ready for a nice flat landing in the foam pile. Dan then followed the same line, with a nice boof he also landed in the foam pile but had to put in a roll after his edge got caught by a boil.

Rainby Force still

We decided to jump back out and run the drop again but this time hitting the middle line. I had also put the GoPro on the front of the boat pointing back to me. Heading to the drop I was hoping not to take a roll damaging the GoPro, with this on my mind I was a bit late with the boof stroke which left me nose diving a bit too much and on landing and I needed a few support strokes to get away. Dan had another flat flight and landing, firing straight out of the pool.
Not happy with that attempt we went back up and ran it again. This time we both nailed it.



However after getting out to take the GoPro off Dan was half in his boat when it caught an edge. Before he knew it the boat was full of water and he had to let it go. Seeing this I quickly took the GoPro off the front of the boat as I knew what was coming might force me to roll.

The next rapid, taken Nov-12 at 1.41. "Richie's" rapid.

Getting to the start of the rapid it looked a lot worse than the photo above. The ledge was a lot lower, but a massive stopper was at the exit of the slide. Starting river right I dropped off the ledge and then powered hard left to skirt round it. I think I'd just managed to miss it although I was thrown backwards and stern stalling for a moment. After this rapid I could just about see Dan's boat. Powering hard down to it before the next double drop I luckily managed to get it into an eddy and recover it.

With Dan and boat reunited we headed down to Catrake Force. Taking both drops river left we were through with no problems.
Through the gorge section, a few large waves/stoppers had formed and we broke out above Upper Kisdon Falls. After having a quick look we took the river left line and both dropped it nicely.
Lower Kisdon was the final drop on this section. We got out river right to look at the drop and pick our line. Dan jumped back in his boat and ran the drop. Getting a sweet line he bounced off the ledge and landed on top of the foam pile. I then followed, but was a little too far to the left, which put me more into the stopper on landing but I managed to paddle out without any issues. Now just the monster of a walk back out to the car park!