Hitting up the back channels

We've been based back up at the NRE station for a few days now and I'm still trying to tame the Silverback and actually get down it without a roll. It's an ambitious task because there's so much luck involved but it's possible so I'm going to keep trying to get a clean run.

I've also started paddling the back channels of Bujagali Falls to tick them off the list. I've run Brickyard a few times now at different water levels it's a great little run with some big holes to punch and a pour over to dodge at the very end, but it's a nice steep fast run as long as you can stay off your tail and not get looped. Which, I've managed to do so far. Blade Runner is the leftmost of the back channels and is a really picturesque rapid. The line is relatively simple to run but finding it if you mess up the entry move through a sticky hole would be difficult and it's definitely one you want to avoid a roll on. I'll definitely be heading over to that part of the river again to get some pictures of Blade Runner, though I'll have to borrow a camera as mine has stopped working for some reason (Junior, you'll be getting a call when I get back).

I also went over to do Escape Hatch, which is just above Widow Maker and earns its name from the fact that you start running Widow Maker and then ferry HARD left for about 70 metres across the river right above the drop into Widow Maker. Unfortunately for me I dropped into some holes on the run in which took off a lot of my speed so when the time to make the move came I didn't have the speed to make the ferry to the left. Widow Maker at the current water levels is aptly named, it'd be a terminal run. Thankfully, having missed the move to run Escape Hatch there's still a last ditch option before Widow Maker. I paddled like I've never paddled before, ferrying to the hard right hand side to catch a last ditch eddy just above the lip of Widow Maker from which (after taking a few minutes to compose myself) I was able to run down another channel and into the second part of Brickyard.

Shaken and somewhat stirred I called it a day for paddling that day and went back to camp to review the footage from the headcam. Unfortunately the video quality doesn't show Widow Maker very well. But I can certainly say I've had a good look at it and been as close to it as I'm planning to go unless something drastic happens the water levels before I go home.

On the lower section, I ran Kalagala the other morning which is a very impressive looking drop on the channel next to Hypoxia. The run itself is mainly psychological, the hardest part is paddling out of the eddy. After that you just avoid a small hole and then paddle hard down close to the right bank so that you don't drop into a keeper hole on river left of the drop. There is a significant amount of water going over the drop so the landing is quite violent and regularly breaks paddles. That said it didn't thrash me around quite as much as I expected. However, I did end up caught in an eddy that is fenced off by the outflow from the drop. After battling for about 10 minutes there was a gap in the surges and I managed to paddle out and down into the rest of the rapid. I think next time I won't go quite as far to the right and won't have to deal with the eddy. Enda took some good photos of my run, which I'll post up once we're back to civilisation and reasonable internet speeds.