Llyn Brianne Under Guard

According to this BBC report, extra security patrols are in place to discourage kayakers making the almost 100 metre plunge down the spillway at Llyn Brianne reservoir after all the publicity of the last couple of weeks.
Security officers have turned away at least three groups of kayakers and dam officials have reduced the flow of water down the spillway hoping to make it unusable for kayaking.

Even More on the Spillway Kayakers

Here's another article on kayaking Llyn Brianne, this one courtesy of the Daily Mail.
This one interviews Shaun Baker, one of the first people to ever kayak down it. He says:

I can't believe how stupid I was and I would urge anyone else not to go near it. If you don't hit the bottom dead straight and fly over the wall, you can either break your back on impact, break your neck on the steel sill or just drown. The boat just went ballistic. I spun 360 degrees clinging on to my paddles for dear life. I must have worn three inches off the blades and if I'd lost them, I'd have worn my fingers down to the first joint just trying to steer. If you don't steer and you hit that sill, you'll just shear your head off. I managed to get it right just as I hit the bottom.
Suddenly, I was being forced under and thrown around like a pair of socks in a washing machine. I must have been stuck under for about 40 seconds before I surfaced on the edge. The whole episode was just very scary. I just look back on it and think: "I shouldn't have got out of that."

The article also has a short interview with Gary Connery who bicycled down it.

More on the Spillway Kayakers

Further to Bernie's post re the kayakers at Llyn Brianne spillway, Wales Online also has a story on kayakers zipping down the 1:3 gradiant at 70 kmh.

These pictures were taken by James Davies as he passed by on Sunday afternoon. An onlooker is quoted as saying, “They zipped down at incredible speeds then disappeared into a mass of white water only to surface seconds later, apparently unharmed. I just could not believe people would have the nerve to paddle to the top of the spillway then calmly shoot over and downwards towards a virtual sheer drop.”
The article qutoes the power company which of course forbids this sort of activity at their facility.
But the article also quotes Richard Harvey, the chief executive of the Welsh Canoeing Association, who, while acknowledging the risk of extreme kayaking, says, "We are not policemen and we are not some kind of nanny state. If no-one else is going to be harmed and the environment does not suffer, people can make their own choices. Some people just want thrills and when it comes to being in a canoe going down such steep gradients it is hard to draw the line between canoeing and sledging."
While this looks really fun, it also looks really dangerous. These people are taking quite an impact at the bottom of the run.
But you can't outlaw stupidity and/or adventurism, and there's often a very fine line between the two. It's usually an adventure only up until the point that someone breaks a neck. Then it becomes stupid.
Still looks like fun, though.
A quick search on Youtube reveals some videos of kayaking Llyn Brianne, including this short clip of a run filmed with a helmet cam.
And while we're debating the merits of adventure and stupidity, I came across an article with some great pictures of Pat Keller going over the 40m drop at La Paz in Costa Rica ealier this year. There's some amazing pictures of it here.

Kayakers' 300ft dam drop attacked

Okay, not a pure vertical, but still this looks like fun--fun like bobsledding or luge.

A high-speed run down the slope of a spillway and then into the standing waves at the bottom.

It doesn't look particularly brilliant or even scary really--as long as you're facing forward, you're good.
That the dam owners have condemned the attack, well, that what they have to do, innit? You can't just open your doors to anyone, 'cause then you've got a lawsuit on your hands.
Anyway, footage and article are here at the BBC. The photos are by James Davies, Swansea, and are posted in a sequence over at the Beeb.

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