River Einig 3rd September 2009

As we headed up to Oykel Bridge, the rain continued and rivers were starting to show signs of rising. We made our way to the bridge over the Einig, an Oykel tributary we knew had been paddled. Sean had said not too much water was needed. Left a bike and headed up. Met the estate keeper Ali who said river had risen 8 inches in last hour and that his anglers had stopped fishing as a result. We hurried on to put in. The river was already going hard. It raced down and into the canyon. After the preliminary drops which were good grade four we came to a major cascade which looked seriously ugly and class 6.

This was followed by many rapids and powerful water, including this runnable class 5 that Chris led over.


Here Callum follows hard right over the drop.

We raced on and exited the first gorge, worried that the big flood was coming.


There are many fine rapids in the canyon ................

The final big event on the river comes in he form of a two sided, double tiered fall, grade 5+.
At the prevailing level, the upper ledge was horrible, a huge sucking horshoe hole, so we portaged on river right and climbed back in our boats to run the second half of the drop.

River was rising visibly as I waited below to take a pic of Callum running the last major ledge.


Easier water leads soon to the takeout. A magnificent river. At the takeout bridge the water was up to the concrete on the north side of the bridge support. In the time it took me to cycle up for the car and get back to Callum, the river had come up another foot. A really big flood was imminent and we were relieved to be off the river. We headed to SLEEPERZZZZ at Rogart.