Project365 - January

After returning from Borneo, I haven't really used my new DSLR that much. This is a project to get me twiddeling dials and pressing buttons in a bid to eventually take better snaps.

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The Devises to Westminster International Canoe Race - 1st month of training

The Devises to Westminster is a 125mile canoe race on the Kennet and Avon canal and River Thames finishing in front of Big Ben. The race organisers describe it as “an extreme test of endurance, mental and physical stamina, self-awareness, planning and control”. In April, Rich Masey and I will be competing in the K2 category, in what we both think will be the toughest challenge we have ever faced. 

Team with our pimping, yet to be named boat.  Any suggestions?

We have both always wanted to do the race after hearing about our canoe club founders Pete and Kevin doing the race years ago. The route passes through my home town and every year I say to myself “next year I will do it”. This is the year.

Careering uncontrollably into a portage.

Having never paddled K2 together, Rich and I have given ourselves four months to prepare. We must learn the technique, get fit, practice portaging, sort our support team and get mentally phyched. We attended a few training seminars at the start and now have a vague idea of what to do. 

Portage practice.  We will portage a half marathon distance throughout the race.

Our weekly training involves a 1h circuits session on Tuesday, 1.5h ergo or river session on Wednesday and Friday eve and a long (20-30mile) paddle on canal or river on Sundays. So far training is going well, however fitting it in with work and having enough rest and recovery time is a tough. 

Rich nailing the circuits.

One of the main aspects of the race is the support team. Two cars leapfrog each other down the race course, meeting us every hour to feed, water, re-clothe and motivate us. Without them the race would be insanely more difficult, so fingers crossed our tactics with them work. 

There are so many unknowns about the race as it’s our first ultra-endurance event. Neither of us have even stayed up for 24h let alone kayaked for that long, so for us it is a huge mental game. Training is going well so far, but we are still a long way away from the race. If we can keep it up, sort the support teams and build our mental toughness, we might just finish. 

 Bring it on!

New rivers with new friends

With buckets of water falling all over the country and time off from the Reading Climbing Center, I couldn't resist a boating trip to South Wales.  Despite driving through buckets of rain to pick up Dan Rea-Dickins, our initial target of 'Tawe Mores' was yet to rise.  Plan B was to head down to Pont Nedd Fechan for my first run of the Mellte.

Dan at the Mellte get on.

 Levels on the Sunday were quite low, however more than enough to give me a good introduction to a stunning river.

Hugh paddling the first drop of the Mellte.

On the Monday, we met up with Hugh Graham. The heavy rain overnight brought the Clydach Gorge into condition and what I thought was going to be a nice grade 4 bimble, contained some nice surprises.

A decent 25ft boof off a sloping ledge, a long tunnel under the canal and a spattering of weirs and trees kept us on our toes through a great little gorge.

After lunch, we returned to a slightly higher Mellte, to enjoy another run down.

Dan boofing in awesome surroundings.

 The increased water level cleaned up all the drops and softened up lots of the landings.

The classic South Wales waterfall, Sgwd y Pannwr.

The main event is a 30ft double drop with an auto-boof mid ledge, that in our flows, required an anti-auto-boof to save loosing a few inches of height upon impact.

The rest of the river continues with more drops, interesting slots and a few more drops.

Cheers Dan and Hugh for a great couple of days

Winter Woodland Wanderings

Living in the south of England for the winter, adventure potential has decreased somewhat, so I was excited to take up Al Humphries' Winter Solstice Microadventure challenge.  The idea is basically to get outside, sleep without a tent and remember why nature's fun.

I decided to take my hammock into the woods just outside Henley, have a fire and listen to the sounds of the woods.  The woodland was damp and musty when I arrived, making fire lighting quite tricky.  I used a  fungi from a dead tree with a flint and steel to get an ember, then dry beech leaves to get some flames going.

Whisky and fire warmed my body as I listened to muntjac deer barking, ows hooting and squirrels rustling for company. 

I had forgotten how cold it gets at night, especially with a frost but eventually I got some sleep and awoke to the sound of animals going about their morning chores and the sun twinkling through the trees.

I packed up quickly, strode across the frosty golf course, staggered up the hill, arriving back home for a huge cup of tea and some boiled eggs.

"Think big, start small but do start" - Al Humphries

Snapping with Shutter Scotland

David Russel was running a free taster photography course as part of his new company ‘Shutter Scottland’. We arrived at our morning venue, Loch an Eilean, with no wind and a stunning view.  The fantastic castle, Scotts pine and silky Loch made for an excellent venue choice even with the low light levels.

First shot of the day, a moody Loch an Eilien.

Playing with 'depth of field' with some funky looking lichen.

We started with a free for all 'point and shoot' session, designed to unleash our creative juices and get used to the cameras.

With the low light levels, big awesome landscapes were tricky.  David suggested focusing in on the small details.

We moved quickly to look at the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the camera.  Exposure was the first topic of conversation, discussing how; ISO, shutter speed and aperture affected the amount of light reaching the sensor. We had a play in the 'AP' (aperture priority mode), adjusting the depth of field to emphasise features and draw your eye through the image.

I love the texture and color of Scotts Pines.

Next on the list was composition.  I had previously experimented a lot with the ‘rule of thirds’ so was happy to hear about using lines to draw the eye through an image and how layers create sense of depth and heightened interest to an image.

I like how the foreground layers bring your eye into the contrasting perpendicular trees.

Again playing with different layers to create a sense of depth.

After a well earned lunch, David showed us some of his great images to inspire us to work with different type of light in the afternoon.  Back lighting, raked light, direct light and diffuse light were all mentioned in the slideshow and it was a pity that the afternoon light didn't give us the chance to work with all of these different styles.

I loved these colors and shape, just like a woodland rainbow.

An awesome log in the 'Green Lochan'.  Lines lead into the shot.

We finished with a quick look at panoramas.  Lots of portrait shots stuck together, ensures a good height, high resolution and a huge width.  With a steady upper body and some cunning software, David explained that taking great panoramas was quite simple.

My first attempt.  Can't wait to do it on a high snowy mountain.

Take home messages

• If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front if more interesting stuff.
• Find something interesting, then 'dance around it' until you find a good angle.
• Once you understand the technical stuff, the rest is down to artisticness.

Cheers David for a great day.  I learned a lot and am now inspired to play with all the light techniques once we get a nice sunny day.

Use of Google earth for planning whitewater expeditions

I first realised how useful Google Earth could be for expeditions when I watched this great TED talk about using Google to plan a climbing expedition.   Tim Burn then used to it plan a kayaking trip to Sulawesi. 

Whilst planning a kayak expedition to Borneo, I was keen to use Google Earth and see how useful it could be.

Finding rivers with potential for Kayak Borneo before we headed out.

Accurate maps of many countries are incredibly hard to come by, especially ones with contours detailed enough to work out gradients.  This is where Google Earth came in really handy.  Its new cloud free satellite imagery of the whole world and topographical (height) data means you can gain a lot of information about rivers all over the world.

Drawing a ‘Path’ down your intended river enables you to see; the average gradient, particularly steep sections and distance.  Combined with the satellite imagery, you can see bridges, villages and roads for potential access and egress points.  With recent and detailed images, newly built dams and other potential hazards such as weirs and rivers going underground can also be seen.  It is also to see the size of individual rapids and even start to scout possible lines!

Scouting the Humla Karnali using Google Earth.

If looking at a lot of rivers, like we did for Kayak Borneo, it is really important to establish a key for them before things get too confusing.  Creating a document with all the important stats on the river before you head out means that before you even land in the country, you have a hit list of rivers to check out.

Another cool feature that is possible to make fly overs which can be used to make grant applications and also give perspective to videos after the trip.

How is it all possible

I think this is a good point to stress that I am a technophobe but with a little bit of time on Google and scrawling through help forums and youtube, it is easy to work things out.
First download Google Earth a ≥ medium power computer is needed to get then most from it
Find a river
After finding a country with loads of whitewater potential, start finding rivers to explore.  A paper map can be useful for this but not essential and it is easy to mistake roads for rivers.

Google Earth showing the Tutoh deep in the Heart Of Borneo

Adding a path
Use the 'add path' button on the tool bar.  Carefully draw a line down the intended river.  You can remove sections from each end by selecting the final point then 'right clicking'.  In the pop up box, rename the river (think carefully about a coding system) and also change its 'style and color'.

'add path' button - http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/annotate.html

Path added in Google Earth.

Once a path is added, it is possible to get a lot of information from the satellite imagery.

Calculating gradients

The topography data contained in Google Earth is also really useful.  By right clicking on a river in the 'Places' menu and selecting 'Show Elevation Profile', a graph appears in the bottom of the image.  It is possible to quickly see river length and rough gradient variations.  The river appears to rise and fall rapidly along the length of the graph.  This is due to low resolution topography data and also not quite following the rivers course.  Not a problem.

To calculate an over all gradient, divide the height difference from get on to get off by the total length.  Keep it in meters over kilometers to get a useful number.  For low volume runs 25m/km to 50m/km is good.  for example the Nevis is 30m/km.  For higher volumes, a lower gradient is ideal.

Making a flyover
This is when it gets cool.  Select the river to make a flyover with and press the 'play tour' button.

'Play Tour' button on Google Earth

There is possibly an easier way to do this next step, however this is the way I found.  Download some 'screen capture' software then use it to film the 'Play Tour' in Google Earth.  You can adjust the screen size so it excludes all of the gubbins round the edges.  The output file can be converted from .xesc to .mp4 file for use in video editing.

Mid flyover in Google Earth

As with all technology, the future is exciting and mind boggling.  Google Street View kit is on rucksacks is traveling to some really remote areas such as the Grand Canyon making scouting rivers even more detailed.

I hope I have explained this process clearly.  If you are trying to follow this and you encounter problems, ether comment below or drop me a message or Google search.

Hurrah for Google!

Winter Wandering

In between Kieth and Jen's amazing wedding and the Glenmore Lodge IDS interview, I had some action packed days in a very wintry looking Scotland.

Stunning views from Mam na Gualinn, situated to the north  of Loch Leven.

First stop was Glen Coe staying with Ted Piper.  We had a great day following one of the lovely routes in the Cicerone Ben Nevis and Glen Coe walking guidebook.  Escaping Munroe status, Mam na Gualinn and Beinn na Caillich are squeezed in between the Mamores and Loch Leven.  They therefore boast incredible views onto the Aonach Eagach ridge, across the Mamores with the Ben's head poking into the clouds.

Ted Piper looking out across Stob Corie na h-Eighe in the Mamores

The weather chased us along the ridge, with incredible rays of sun, snow showers and a bitter breeze encouraging a brisk pace.

Spot the climbers!  Stob Corie an Lochan, South Glen Coe.

Patrick Jenner then joined in the fun with a trip up into the depths of Glen Coe.  On the way up to Stob Corie nan Lochan, we spotted some early bird climbers of the magnificent buttress overlooking the glen.  They certainly enjoyed their belay spot as we ventured up, into continually deepening snow.

Patrick Jenner striding out over Bidiean nam Bian

The views from the summit were stunning.  Scotland, in the winter, takes on a whole new level of awesomeness and to be the only ones up there was incredible.

With rain over night and a strong wind on the hills, it was time to hide in the gorges of Scotland.  The Nevis was first our first port of call.  Ted Piper, Callum Anderson and Scott Robinson were all game and even with a lowish level, a lot of fun was had.  A quick bash down the Spean gorge finished a great few days on the west coast.

Cheers Ted for putting me up and Paddy, Callum and Scott for some awesome days out.