Portage Advice

[steve crofts]

I am a mature sea paddler who has come back to running easier rivers when sea conditions are bad.
Someone asked me can a rapid on a certain river be portaged(I have never paddled the river in question)I replied I suppose so because I had never encountered a situation where a portage was impossible.
So thought I would throw it open - Have you or do you know of any situations in the UK
where a rapid/weir/river problem etc has to be run and cannot be portaged.

very interested in the response.

Regards

Steve

[ianletton]

None that I know of in Scotland.

Had a similar experience in Japan a month or so ago. Encountered a full on grade 5 rapid that was deep down in a 150ft gorge, no way past unless you paddled it. Couldn't go up out of the gorge without outside help, couldn't paddle upstream and you couldn't climb over the rocks. They were vertical. A must run.

If you want to hear how this ended, keep your eyes peeled for the dates of our Japan presentation at Stirling Canoes next month!

Cheers,

Ian

P.s. However, we could have got out farther upstream and portaged round it so I suppose that unless you are standing right on top of it, yes, everything can be portaged as long as you get out far enough in advance.

[jmmoxon]

There are rapids that are more hassle to portage than to run, but I don't know any that are must runs.

Mike

[Jim]

Whether or not you can portage sometimes depends on where you manage to stop above a rapid.

Take Scimitar gorge on the Nevis, to portage you stop river left before you can really see it. If you are definitely running and want a different viewpoint there is an eddy on the right before the first drop where you can get onto the bank, you would need ropes to effect a portage from there though.

I can think of one drop in the Tilt where I looked at portaging and could see no way of achieving it so ran it anyway (it was OK, but I was a bit jumpy having pinned over a siphon earlier).

There are other spots on the Tilt and in the Meig gorge where portage would appear to be impossible, but I have known people to walk out with enough determination, this has sometimes involved paddling back upstream to find a suitable egress route.

The Perth Blackwater has the best example of a portage that is far worse than running the rapid.. again it would be possible.

Now we come to the interesting situation in England....
The Tees Greta, where access is fairly hotly contested anyway, has a big double weir very close to the confluence with sheer walls on both sides. It is physically possible to climb up and portage through the gardens of the big house, but surprise surprise, this is where most of the access contention occurs and you would be in trouble if you did (civil?) so the weir is effectively a mandatory run (and it has some pretty big holes when the river is up).
Another example is way up the Bristol Avon where the river passes through a film directors estate (or used to, he may have moved) where access is not tolerated and firearms are apparantly used to enforce this - the weir is a long slopy one preceeded by a very low bridge. I didn't like the look of it and ran swiftly round keeping very low.
Whilst both of these (and there will be many others people can think of where similar conflicts occur) can physically be portaged, the solution that will cuase the least trouble is to think of them as unportageable, and only tackle the section if you are happy to run the feature (usually a weir) on sight.

So absolutely impossible to portage - not many, but if the river runs in a gorge and you don't have good climbing skills it is a genuine concern.

[steve crofts]

Ian,Mike and Jim

Thanks for your replies,I was expecting the more trouble to portage than run scenario because it has often influenced me to run a rapid.

I thought gorges would probably be a problem but at the level I am talking about (grade 3) and in my limited experience I would,nt think there are many/any rivers you can,t portage or line down.

Thanks Jim for the English horror stories,I will keep well away from them.

The Tilt/Blackwater/Braan etc are ones that I would expect to be difficult or even impossible to portage but out my league anyway and of course lots of gorge sections again.

Ian the Japan trip sounds scary,I will keep a lookout out for it at Stirling Canoes

[Adrian Cooper]

Of course if a man-made weir was a must portage, one must also assume that when the weir was constructed, the owner must have had in mind that anyone on the river would need access t the land in order to portage. A legal access must surely be presumed.

[DaveBland]

Of course if a man-made weir was a must portage, one must also assume that when the weir was constructed, the owner must have had in mind that anyone on the river would need access t the land in order to portage. A legal access must surely be presumed.

Not if the landowner believed there was no right of passage down the river, meaning there would be no need to portage.

[Adrian Cooper]

Well, under the current state of the law, the landowner would owe a duty of care to anyone who happened to be on the river whether there was a right or not. This principle is enshrined in the Occupiers Liability Act although it was good common law prior to this.

[DaveBland]

Well, under the current state of the law, the landowner would owe a duty of care to anyone who happened to be on the river whether there was a right or not. This principle is enshrined in the Occupiers Liability Act although it was good common law prior to this.

But 'emergency use' for unauthorised navigation wouldn't constitute an acceptance of a right of way on the land would it?

[Adrian Cooper]

I'm not suggesting 'emergency use only'. I am suggesting that anyone installing 'river architecture' must have in mind that anyone navigating the river would likely need to portage the obstruction, almost whatever it was. They must therefore expect that the installion of the obstruction would result in a theoretical trespass on the land.

I am exploring a legal technicality.

[callwild]

The Tees Greta, where access is fairly hotly contested anyway, has a big double weir very close to the confluence with sheer walls on both sides. It is physically possible to climb up and portage through the gardens of the big house, but surprise surprise, this is where most of the access contention occurs and you would be in trouble if you did (civil?) so the weir is effectively a mandatory run (and it has some pretty big holes when the river is up).

There is no man made weir at the section Jim is talking about.

It's this fall
http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/neengland/gretateesg4.htm
All natural I believe, but still hard to portage.

Many must run falls once you have abseiled into the Glean Cia-aig !!!

[Pete C.]

The closest I've found in the UK to a 'must-run' is the last rapid on the Fairy Glen on the Conwy in North Wales. Very hard to inspect, and the only way to get out of the pool above is with ropes from the top of the gorge. But - from the run's reputation - you won't come across it by accident.

Apart from that, I'm racking my brain to think of any...

[Mark R]

My first 'on sight, must run' G5 was a scary walled-in thing on Clear Creek in California, but I digress...

In the UK - the obvious one that comes to mind is Conwy Falls - pass the last eddy above the bridge and you are committed, as many have discovered...

'Must run' can have different connotations - I've followed Chris Wheeler down a sketchy walled-in slot on the Devon Avon that really needed inspecting/ protecting at that water level. When I asked him afterwards (and after we'd retrieved a swimmer) why he'd just headed blindly down it, the answer came back, "The landowner's dog looked fierce".

[DaveBland]

I'm not suggesting 'emergency use only'. I am suggesting that anyone installing 'river architecture' must have in mind that anyone navigating the river would likely need to portage the obstruction, almost whatever it was. They must therefore expect that the installion of the obstruction would result in a theoretical trespass on the land.

I am exploring a legal technicality.

But if the landowner/weir installer is under the belief that no-one should be navigating the river, in their eyes it wouldn't be necessitating a trespass on the land as the person navigating the river would already be trespassing on 'their land'.

So it all comes back to whether the land owner controls navigation of the river or not. Paddlers say they don't. Landowners say they do.
...or have I got it horribly wrong?

[jmmoxon]

In the UK - the obvious one that comes to mind is Conwy Falls - pass the last eddy above the bridge and you are committed, as many have discovered...

As far as I'm aware only empty kayaks have completed the run.

Mike

[nomorfkindhalbhat]

How about Rheidol falls at the end of the Rheidol gorge, an abseil off a rather dodgy looking tree, though ive heard of people jumping it, the but sump at the end of the pool awaits hungrily.Must be a contender.
Incidentally has anyone else run the 30 footer, supposedly to shallow to run. 5 of us ran it in spuds and no one hit anything, not the place to get it wrong though. Sorry Im hijacking the thread.

[chrism]

But if the landowner/weir installer is under the belief that no-one should be navigating the river, in their eyes it wouldn't be necessitating a trespass on the land as the person navigating the river would already be trespassing on 'their land'.

So it all comes back to whether the land owner controls navigation of the river or not. Paddlers say they don't. Landowners say they do.
...or have I got it horribly wrong?

So if they wanted to stop you they'd have to prove you didn't have a right of access in the same way as if you were on the river. I'd expect just as many court cases as you get for on-the-water trespass...

Of course if they're threatening you with something other than court action then the police should be called to deal with their criminal activity.

[Jim]

The Tees Greta, where access is fairly hotly contested anyway, has a big double weir very close to the confluence with sheer walls on both sides. It is physically possible to climb up and portage through the gardens of the big house, but surprise surprise, this is where most of the access contention occurs and you would be in trouble if you did (civil?) so the weir is effectively a mandatory run (and it has some pretty big holes when the river is up).

There is no man made weir at the section Jim is talking about.

It's this fall
http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/neengland/gretateesg4.htm
All natural I believe, but still hard to portage.

Many must run falls once you have abseiled into the Glean Cia-aig !!!

Well it looks natural in those photos, but when I ran it (only managed it the once) it looked more like 2 offset weirs with walls on both sides - there may have been more than a little more water..... :-)

Enjoying the discussion about weirs and navigation, it strikes me that the vast majority of weirs in England are probably Victorian or early 20th century from a time before anyone gave a damn about enjoying the countryside, or had time to, and when when the landowner would probably have taken a big stick to them or set the dogs on them if they had tried.

Things have actually come a long way....

[banzer]

There's a creek near Loch Ness where if you run a slidey rapid into a flat but high walled, 30m-long gorge, you'd be be committed to the unscoutable but clean 6m fall at the end. You could backpaddle all you like but all there is is a horizon line! Never been there with enough water to paddle though. (Actually that's a lie, I did take Dave Biggin there one time but he turned it down because his giirrll frriiiend was on the Garry.... ahhh!)

[Big Henry]

Thanks Jim for the English horror stories,I will keep well away from them.

The (Tees) Greta is a really good run (I've only done it the once) and would recommend you do it if you can. Instead of going right down to the grade 4 section which is described as unportage-able and I believe uninspectable, we got out at Great Bridge, missing out the final section. Still an excellent grade 3/4(?) trip.

[Chaucer]

The last drop on the Greta is the one that immediately sprang to mind for me as well. Legend in the North East has it that a certain Andy Gilbert discovered that this drop was unportageable after a solo high water run....

[steve crofts]

Thanks lads for all the replies it answered my question fully.
I think its clear from the answers that anyone who does a bit of research on the river he is going to run is unlikely to get himself in a impossible portage situation.

Henry I am still going to miss out the Greta.
I am a retired Pyranha Fusion paddler in my sixties and find Grade 2 & 3 more than enough excitement.


Regards

Steve

[Pete C.]

My first 'on sight, must run' G5 was a scary walled-in thing on Clear Creek in California

That sprung to my mind too...

Are we allowed anecdotes? On a river out in Taiwan, I remember being on a river where the four of us on the trip were sat in an eddy just above a smooth walled microgorge. Polished rock, definitely no portage options and getting above the gorge would have put us in hideously steep jungle. And very shaky information on how runnable the section was. Peering downstream, we could make out a small eddy on the other side that was big enough for a paddler.

What do you want to hear from your friends in the eddy? The one thing you don't want to hear is Greg shouting, 'Look, guys! A ****ing enormous snake swimming about with us! Let's get rid of him...' At which point, he smoothly picks up the somewhat confused snake on his paddle and, with a deft canoe polo flick, wings him across the eddyline and into the flow. That's what I'd consider an escalation of the situation - now we've got a steep river, an unscoutable, unportageable rapid, impenetrable jungle all around us AND an angry and doubtless very poisonous snake waiting for us downstream...

[MikeB]

That's what I'd consider an escalation of the situation - now we've got a steep river, an unscoutable, unportageable rapid, impenetrable jungle all around us AND an angry and doubtless very poisonous snake waiting for us downstream...

And ????

[steve crofts]

Yea c'mon Pete how many died out there in Taiwan??

[Adrian Cooper]

I remember the photos of this feature from James' presentation. I think I can agree that it was a bit awkward.