A normal white water and safety and rescue course is a couple days of paddling, swimming and learning new rescue techniques, but for the few of us that went and did the course run by Tom Parker just before Easter it was far from normal. We had ended up do the course in the worst snow seen by that part of Wales for 60 years.

The drive down started with a light snow in Lincoln but got so much worse as we went on. Motorways were reduced to single lane with snow drifts bigger than the crash barriers and roundabouts became a guessing game as to where the centre was. Even parking at the accommodation involved using paddles to did a space out of the now 2ft high now just to get the car off the road.

We woke up on the first day and decided we’d still go to the meeting point arranged in Llangollen about 5 minuets drive away. Over an hour later, after a lot of pushing, digging and avoiding fallen trees, we managed to get there.  After waiting / playing in the snow we decided, as no one had signal to get hold of them we’d go back to the hotel and try and use their landline, so after more pushing and waiting for fallen trees to be moved we got back to find that the other group were going to meet us at the hotel.

So the course began with every one there, paddling today was out of the question, so we decided to have a day of theory by the fire, occasionally going out to practice in the snow. After a bit of talking everyone put on a combination of dry kit and cold weather clothes and went outside. We practised throwing tapes and throw lines to each other and recoiling whilst running after someone, all in knee high snow. We have made a rock out of the snow with a kayak on it acting as if it’d been pinned and practiced different methods of getting it out, which turned out to be a great way of demonstrating it.

The last day was the day we actually paddled. All of us in dry suits and layers of thermals we paddled up the canal in Llangollen having to portage round more fallen trees, to where it met the Dee at a section called ‘serpent’s tail.’ We took it in turns to throw our boat and paddle in at the top of the rapid for our partner to rescue them before they got carried too far down the river. Here we had our only unexpected swim of the weekend but we soon had him back in his boat.

Further down we all went for as swim in the cold water when practicing throw lines, and then again when clipped to the end of a throw line and dangled out in a rapid for live bating where a couple people got quite bruised arses going over a few pointy rocks. Once we’d gotten out and shamelessly changed in a car park, we went for a coffee and a debrief in town.

All in all, the hotel was surprisingly amazing, the paddling was a laugh no one had gotten hypothermia and since everyone had passed it had turned out to be a really good trip.

– Andrew Sinclair