The Hawkesbury: picking a paddle

I’m training for the Hawkesbury  Classic  again (http://www.canoeclassic.asn.au/). Eighth consecutive year, the second time I’ll be doing it in a single. On the last weekend I did a 40k return training run from Wiseman’s  to the far side of Last Pit Stop. I joined Raewyn, Neil, Mark Schroeder and Roger White

Ready to go, Rae's Flash in the BG. My Mirage in front, with Aleut on foredeck.

 Most of the other times I’ve done the race have been in a  Mirage 730 with Cathy, but this year she’s paddling with Rae and I’ll be striking out into the dark on my own again.

Mark Schroeder , the start of a pretty wet training run. 

When I last paddled a single(Mirage 580) I did 12h09m, and was pleased with that. This year I decided to try something different, to leave behind the competitive pursuit of the best possible time and instead take a leaf from Richard Barnes’ book and enjoy it by stretching it out, though I certainly don’t want to relive the 18 hour time our first Classic took.

This year, seeing I’ve been having a lot of fun with Greenland sticks and my trusty Greenland T , I thought I’d paddle it with a stick and  test out different boats. Been an interesting experience.

My options for boat were Greenland T or Mirage 580. Paddles: Novorca Greenland, Novorca Aleut, my own wooden Greenland, Werner  Corryvrecken or  a wing blade.  I’ve doen a series of test paddles now, though I haven’t included the wing blade or the  wooden stick: the wing blade isn’t a split blade and so it’s hard to carry at the same time as other paddles.

Rae in the Flash. Couldn't catch her once she got away from us. 

So for what it’s worth, here’s the results of several weeks of tests. I’ve done several 20k runs up Lane Cove, swapping  the Greenland, Aleut and Werner blades, a 26k run with Dee to Balmoral and the recent 40k Hawkesbury  run swapping Greenland and Aleut  paddles.

I expected the stick to be 10% or so slower than the Werner, but to my surprise when I checked this with frequent  swapping they were effectively too close to call: on the Lane Cove River in the Greenland T , I clocked between 8.5 and 9.3 km/h overall with both paddles, with variation from tide and wind.  I did find that paddling with the Corryvrecken was frustrating because of the huge resistance the blade presented when it hit the water, as opposed to the gradual build-up of resistance from the GP.  I just wanted to get back t o the GP and found I had to consciously  control my desire to change blades as soon as I  used it.  I also tried the Aleut and it seemed to be a little faster though it took a lot more control to stop it  fluttering and  developing turbulence.

On the trip to Balmoral ( about 22k) in the Greenland T I tried the Aleut for a longer period, trying to get it to behave. After a few K I found I could  eliminate the uncontrolled behaviour but because it’s such a big  thing it had a slower cadence. It did about 9 km/h averaged.

Homebound

And finally on the Hawkesbury I used the Mirage with both  the Aleut and the GP. I Only paddled five km with the Aleut: I found the cadence slower than I liked and to my surprise it wasn’t  any faster over distance than the much smaller GP.  With the GP I averaged  9km/h despite  contrary tides, and strong winds. It got up to mid-10s with tide and wind and down to mid-8s without.  The Mirage is unquestionably faster than  the Greenland T, probably by about 1 to 1 ½ km/h.  I think over the distance the Mirage would be a much more comfortable  boat.

I had sore shoulders and the next day some tenderness in my left wrist, but on the basis of that trip I would be coming in at a shade under 12 hours. I haven’t managed to subsume the desire for a fast time, so that  would be just fine by me!

The other water sport

Pic: Doric Swain

Does cross-country skiing count as a watersport? On the last trip, I’d say so, I was almost as wet as I’d ever been in a kayak.

Kozzie from Tor Camp (Ramshead)

I’ve long found a correspondence between xc skiing and sea kayaking. They are both about wilderness, body skills and self-reliance: in both, the environment is a plastic traversable space outside the norms of terrestrial life, with a rhythmical beat interweaving on human and landscape scales.

A snow expanse has the same long and short cycles that the ocean does: speeding down a hill is very like catching a wave, crossing an expanse is like a long offshore run. Both reward commitment to the turn. The glorious and intoxicating rhythm of telemarking maps sweetly to carving down a long swell, and skating across a snowbound plain recalls the sensuous twist of a long run with a Greenland stick across a gentle ocean.

Alex heading to the Chimneys. Pic: Doric Swain.

I used to think of myself as a  mountain person, not the sea, and found my most transcendent moments at the top of a hard-won isolated snowbound prominence. The language of my dreams was the language of cornice, spindrift, sundog, blizzard and boilerplate. Since then I have learned another tongue: swell, tide and waves. In dreams the paddle springs now to my hand. Nevertheless, I can’t help wondering if sea kayaking is my all-year substitute for xc skiing.

pic: Doric Swain

In mid August the three doughty buccaneers - myself, Doric Swain,  Alex Taylor (and the Captain of course) – set out yet again on our annual cross-country epic. We had six days: Doric, in another life a ski instructor at Thredbo, had wanted to go to the east of Deadhorse Gap for years. Although the season had lost a lot of snow, we decided to venture it. 

Leaving Deadhorse. Hi Ho. 

The two routes. Southern leg first.  Not huge distances, but snow sadly not so flash.

A late start saw us leaving Deadhorse at 2pm, into new territory. On the eastern side of the range the landscape is wide bogs with rolling wooded hills, still bearing the scars of the 2003 fires. There was enough snow to navigate  comfortably but from time to time the bogs got a bit… boggy.

Debate about directions. Alex skeptical. Pic: Doric Swain.

We arrived at Teddy’s Hut after dark, a dirt-floored single room with outstanding ventilation. Plenty of gaps between the boards for the snow and wind to howl in.

Teddy's. Very glad to find it. Pic: Doric Swain.

The new wall: still plenty of refreshing gaps. Pic: Doric Swain.

Alex and Doric loll by the fire. Dirt floor. Bloody windy. 

That evening we strung up the fly inside the hut, and passed a very comfortable night. Next day a flog up through the  brush to the top of the Chimneys. I got completely bushed, thankful for the trusty GPS.

Somewhere in the distance is the hut. 

Rainy night, then out late the next afternoon via several small herds of brumbies. Never seen them before – they don’t cross the road often it would appear. They appear out of the mist and are gone.

Doric and Brumbies

Same brumbies. Pic: Doric Swain

Rather than camp in the rain at Island Bend, we spent the night at Thredbo where Doric caught up with a couple of his old skiing mates and we had a few agreeable drinks.

Very odd. Doric and Alex decidedly out of focus. Half a litre of pilsener will do that to a camera. 

Next morning up the chair and off towards south Ramshead, intending two nights out. Bluebird day but the rain from the last week had delivered a crust of ice a half-centimetre thick. Very hard going uphill, lots of stamping to break through, and diabolical downhill as any turn would crack the crust, catch an edge and send you over. We gazed down on the Cootapatamba valley but in the end decided to camp halfway up the tor of North Ramshead. Two other camps nearby, both snowshoers.

Tor Camp, North Ramshead. Pic: Doric Swain.

The buccaneers.

That night had a spectacular sunset with the full moon rising opposite: quite astounding. Bloody cold though, with clear skies.

Sunset over  Victoria

Moonrise over the three camps.

Full moon. Pic: Doric Swain.

Next day, overcast, essayed an excursion to the south but only made a few km as the snow was very hard to traverse and no fun to go down.

South Ramshead. Note crap snow. 

Me demonstrating the distinctive Australian powder. Note ice layer. Pic: Doric Swain.

Back at camp at 2pm, bit of desultory harrumphing and we chose to pack up and leave. Dumped the packs on the chair and had a run down the liftline at Thredbo, almost the only tele turns in the whole week.

As if emerging from a glacier. Pic Doric Swain.

Overall, a patchy sort of week. Great seeing some new country, and we didn’t have to grind up Munyang.  The main range was frustrating : the snow looked so widespread but it was all ice, and very hard to travel on. Still, ait provided that step outside the normal that the backcountry does so well.   


Doric's account of the trip is at http://forums.ski.com.au/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1418384&page=1#Post1418384

Thanks to my sterling buccaneer comrades for another fine epic.