Do I look Bovered: Scouting the Bovey.

Theres Bovey in them Hills!

Well with no water in the rivers it was time to check out Ewarts' latest Tree ditch mission, the Bovey. Draining off of the South East Side of Dartmoor the Bovey Drops quickly through a steep wooded valley.

We'd heard mixed reports about the Bovey, good whitewater, steep bouldery rapids, but once again marred by trees. There was only one thing to do. Check it out on foot, rather than make a repeat of our Teign epic and launch right on into it!

We walked in from the bottom, and right from the start it was obvious that the trees were going to be a problem. The lower half of the run was fairly easy, only grade two-ish, but with trees blocking almost every rapid it would have been very hard work, almost easier to have gotten out and walked the entire section.

But the further up we walked the better the rapids got. Steep Bouldery rapids, with narrow channels, but many oppertunities for pinning.

Just after passing the low foot bridge in the middle, the gradient kicked it up another notch, and we encountered one long steep technical section of whtewater. The rapid seemed to go on for ever as we walked up the bank along side it. But as with most of the river it was ruined by quite a number of trees blocking the river. Some of the quite big, it would be a real epic to try and clear any of them!

Then the gradient eased off a bit again, before reaching the incredibly boulder syphon. The entire river dissapeared through a huge jumble of boulders, only to reappear boiling out the the boulders at the bottom. Then Just above the boulder syphon was one last rapid. An incredible steep, tight and technical boulder garden. Unfortunatly we were on the wrong bank to be able to scout it properly.

But we were left with one overwhelming feeling about the Bovey, the rapids were good, continuous, steep and technical, but totaly ruined by a vast number of trees.

The scenery however is great!