English: Wear in Spate at Stanhope Bridge. First thing in the morning, the river was a bit low for canoeing (the previous evening one of our team had said "Bah, no water, I'm going mountain biking tomorrow!"). But the forecasters said rain from 6 a.m. peaking between 9 and 12, with 30-60mm possible, so we put on at a nice high level at about 11:30. A short while later it was apparent that the river was rising even faster than we had thought, so we retreated via a flooded road. This photo was taken about lunchtime as we collected cars and was probably still not quite the peak level. Compare earlier photos on geograph, including one "in flood" 890874 where the level is a lot lower and would have been quite good for paddling. At the level seen here, apart from the speed and power of the water, with few eddies and the water flowing among trees (always dangerous), there was also a huge amount of debris, from small logs to whole trees floating down the river.