RIVER BALDER

[Mark R]

Guide.

[Red]

Paddled this on the 7th Sept 2008, approx 8 - 10 serious tree hazards that required portages.

[dgg2dwp]

A group of us paddled this on the 6th of July 2012 at a pretty good level- no scraping, spill way was well covered and had quite a large flushing hole. At that level the river was pretty much continuous grade 3+ with quite a few trees- we only needed to portage 4 and could sneak under, or over 4 or 5 more. The river does start to ease off after you pass under a footbridge with some open grazing on the river right. The ledge drops (maybe grade 4) are just below a ruined building that is on the river left, and might be worth a quick look.

[Jim Pullen]

Ran this yesterday (09/12/12) at fairly low levels, but not a scrape (even on concrete...) Annoying sheep fence at the bridge after the spill way to portage. About three trees needed portaging, four more could be ducked at these levels. A couple of these will need C4 rather than chain saws to remove! None of them on blind corners, so even in higher levels should be ok.Best rapid is the final one a few hundred metres above the road, but nothing harder than about grade 3.

[dgg2dwp]

Ran this yesterday (19 May 2013). Once again only 4 tree portages but one was the results of a recent landslip on the river right- the portage is about 50m long now to get past the trees and back down to the river and is over very sticky and deep clay!