The boys at Palm have asked myself to run a twitter feed from the World Freestyle Champs at Thun, check out simon_in_thun, plus I will be running a bunch of audio coverage interviews and video segments from Monday when things start to heat up.
Until then, Twittering it is
Ciao
Simon
Well as you all know a couple of weeks ago I was on the Keener program in Canada so I just thought that I would do a quick round up of what I got up to there.
Where I was staying, “Keenerville”, was right by the side of the Ottawa river with Phils hole and McCoys wave about a 2 minute paddle away. When I first got there it was night time so I didn’t realise how close to the river the site was. When I realised I was thrilled and went straight out for a paddle. I even got peer pressured in to swimming Phils.
Every day we would get on the water at around half 10 and be given the choice to either run the Middle or the Main channels. Both of them had great features on. The middle had Angels Kiss, Butterfly (two of my new favourite waves) and Upper and Lower no name. The main had Buseater (which sadly wasn’t in when I was there) and Wikiki. Most days I ran the Middle channel but on the days that I ran the Main I really liked Wikiki wave and Collosseum.
As well as all the great paddling we did there we also got trained in Swift Water Rescue and First Aid. We took a day off to do our SRT training where we learnt about log jams (something that never really happens in the UK but happens lots in America and Canada), how to get out of a foot entrapment and practiced a lot with throwlines. We did our First Aid training two nights after paddling and one Saturday. In this we learnt CPR and how to care for injuries such as 2nd degree burns and broken bones. The funniest bit here was when we had to fix our “injuries” with whatever we could find lying around. I ended up with my hand covered in neon orange duct tape for a broken finger and one of the boys had both his legs tied together for a dislocated knee.
Everyone in Canada was so nice and it was great having such great coaches there everyday to help me with my tricks. I can now roundhouse and handroll and my flatwater cartwheel has come on really well. Probably the best thing was that everyone was having fun just being on the water. I definately want to go back next year now its just a matter of getting mum and dad to fund it.
Here are a couple of pictures
Tasha
Me running Phils
Me on Upper no name
All of the Keeners
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here, for which I must apologise. It’s been a busy summer of paddling! I spent most of the past 3 months in Norway where I have been doing a mixture of creeking, extreme races, coaching for Gene17, playboating and freestyle competitions. I have been a little better at updating my own blog, so for more on that stuff, check out www.lowridavies.co.uk.
Right now I have made it to Switzerland, ready for the Freestyle Kayaking World Championships 2009. Official training starts on the wave tomorrow (hoepfully – if the spectator stand ever finishes construction!). Competitors from over 30 countries have been arriving for the past few days and search out waves for last minute training.
Here’s a few pics from my recent training:
Donkey Flippin” on Skjak Wave, Norway. Pic: Will Eldred
Sneaky practice at Sierre Wave, Switzerland, without the queues. Pic: Emily Wall
Clean blunts at Skjak Wave, Norway. Pic: Tom Laws
Dave Bainbridge going large at Bremgarten, Switzerland. Pic: Lowri Davies
Switzerland: it’s very pretty here. (Islay Crosby styling the clean spin at Bremgarten). Pic: Lowri Davies
If you would like to keep up to date on what is happening here at the Worlds, keep an eye on the official website at http://www.icf-thun2009.ch and the finals will even be streamed live on Freecaster (www.freecaster.tv) on Sep 6th. If you are at a loose end over the week of 1st-6th, please come and support us! Thun is a beautiful town set in dramatic snow capped mountains and there will be plenty to do and see here throughout the event, not just the kayaking… and of course the parties will be legendary. Flights can be found pretty cheap and the public transport this end is really easy.
So wish myself, Flea Jarvie and the rest of the Palm Team competing here luck and we’ll do our best to keep you all up to date on the latest news n gossip!
Happy Paddling.
Lowri
Thom Brown on the top drop of the Moriston
The problem with summer…… is its so flippin dry. In a country where rain rules the kayaking world, this is not a great thing. I think we highland kayakers have made the best of it though….
for me it was: The End of the World
Garry sessions galore only go so far in the quest to stay sane and soon you end up doing anything. Anything at all to get your fix. I even talked myself into walking into the middle of midge hell nowhere to spend the night in a wet tin shack with Lil Rich an Ed Smith. At least the River Kinglass that we paddled the next day was really full of water…Not! Oh well at least it was an adventure and there were some very very cool rapids up there somewhere.
The walk sucked but the bedrock slabs didn't
Ed Smith Goin Turbo on the River Leven
The million k’s of flat water, the forever walk, no sleep, and way too many midges somehow made me forget about pretty much anything good about the trip though. Maybe I’m just being a grumpy boxtird though; I guess I’ll just have to go back to check! There was some amazing stuff up there…. I think the other two enjoyed it when I wasn’t whining too much. I guess its a good thing that the epics are way more fun to recall than the best of the best days.
Dave Martin on the Leven Trib Drop Entry
Cliff huckin has been my saviour this summer and Thom Brown and I have desperately been trying to sack up. It just difficult though when you’re just not man enough. Luckily Thom had loads of Original Sauce orange energy to boost us on…. (surely you’ve seen the ad??!!)
It did rain a few times though and we got out here and there: the best trips were on the Leven. A few weeks ago I headed up with Thom and did some cool stuff on the upper section before paddling some awesomely powerful water below the End of the World. More recently I had a great trip with Ed Smith, Dave Martin, Lil Rich and Chris Radnuts. We paddled an awesome waterfall on one of the tribs then got some magic action on the river. We hucked, and survived, End of the World before enjoying the lovely lower section. Check out Ed’s post about it below…
Summer Aint That Bad....
I put a wee video together of the summer footage using some offcuts from my big giant movie project. Its all filler I’m afraid, but I can assure you that there’s no talking and there may be some rapids you haven’t seen. Bring on the rainy months and don’t forget to love yourself.
Here- Would be a bad place to swim
The video link…
http://www.wheresthewater.com/summer
Dave B
Had a great day on the Leven yesterday with Rich Waterworth, Dave Martin, Chris Bell and Dave Biggin. Miraculously the day was carnage free, despite good levels and some trib huckage on the walk up to the river which provided a good warm up/slap in the face!
The trib, seen on the left as you walk in to the Leven, has a short but pretty horrendous walk in through thick bracken (should be called the bracken burn!). In hind sight, wearing shorts sucks for this walk but the up shot is that you’re not going to back out of running the drop.
Dave, thinking of his career as a leg model and certainly not about to walk back through the over growth… rumor has it those legs are insured for over £10,000,000.
… and off he goes. This ledge right above the slide adds a bit of spice, although the best solution is to not look at the drop for too long from this angle, instead scramble down the right bank and get a much more appealing view looking down on the whole thing.
The river level view from my ‘carnage cam’ of Mr Biggin completing the warm up routine.
A scared Biggin is a happy Biggin. On the Leven in anticipation of ‘End of the world’ and ‘Mackays falls’.
Yours truly lining up for the second drop of ‘End of the world’ having just resurfaced from the first.
… and heading into the third and fourth drops which form the crux of the rapid.
Dave Martin holding his line through the crux on the fourth drop.
Rich taking a deep breath on the fourth, quickly followed by a sigh of relief!
Biggin on the drop directly below ‘End of the world’, aptly named ‘I’m feeling fine’ while Rich and I collect boats having taken our turn setting safety above.
… Chris keeping it clean through the tricky slot below.
Rich flying down ‘Mackays falls’, staying well away from the cave behind the drop.
… and myself on the same drop, the last of the day. Certainly a highlight of the summer so far, Scotland will have to get flooded to top yesterdays Leven session, although I’m hopeful for some freestyle action soon!
Hope you got out on a wet weekend!
Ed
Hi, Tasha here
As I wrote a few weeks ago, I’m writing this from the Ottawa river in Canada – I’ll give you a full update when I’m back home and I can put in some pics, but just to give you a taste of a week on the Keener programme:
So this Monday we had to do speeches. I did what my experience of being a girl keener’s been like. This was great as we got to choose the subjects that we wanted instead of being given something boring to do.
On Tuesday we went on a river trip to the Gatuneau river (which meant getting up at quarter to six!). I only got one surf on high tension because I was a bit freaked out by it, but I got to take some great pictures of all the other Keeners getting great tricks in it.
Sadly, my backs been really hurting this past week which meant I missed out on race Wednesday but I was back on the river today for Big Water Beat down Thursday. I didn’t get trashed anywhere though some others definately got worked in one hole for a while! Then tonight some people got to repell of the tower at WT, the rest of us are doing it next week. We also had great fun climbing the wall there.
I’ve got one more week left, apart from the climbing I have to pass my first aid and CPR and also I want to work on my roundhouses and maybe blunts.
Pics to come soon!
Tasha
x
At this very moment , intrepid duo Nick and Ed are about half way around the Isle of White on a 24hr charity paddle.
Check out the web site for info on the trip- maybe make a donation. Below is the message we got from their support crew first thing this morning as they set off.
Mr Biggin gave Rich Waterworth and myself a call last wednesday, trying to rally a small crew who were game for the painful hike in and paddle out of the River Kinglass. Dave had been working so hard in the office to get ahead of schedule, which allowed him two and a half minutes to check the weather reports which were looking good for a friday night hike in and saturday morning dawn patrol.
Due to the Kinglass being west of Bridge of Orchy, flowing into Loch Etive, we dropped a car at the head of the Loch with dry clothes for the following day. Just before setting out on the hike, Dave brought out a bag and confessed to having bought five subways, apparently you can tell a lot about someone from the food they pack… whilst Dave had bought out the Fort Bill subway, Rich now had shares in the Balloch Co-Op and I was seriously lacking man points with a Warburtons seeded batch loaf full of jam and humous (not combined!).
Rich in a midgie swarm… The map had a building marked about seven and a half km’s up the track which we hoped would be a bothy. On arrival this turned out to be an old cattle shed. It did the job though with a three foot by six foot patch which was dry-ish. The only problem was the midgies in the morning.
Dave on the final three km push to the river. He pushed through, despite all the blisters on his fingers from the non ergonomic keyboard at work.
Although it had rained hard in the early hours of morning, it didn’t seem to be enough and we realized on reaching the river that it wasn’t anywhere near optimum level. Despite that, the first rapid (above) got our hopes up that we weren’t going to have to bump and scrape.
Dave cruising in above the twenty foot ledge. Numerous streams and burns joined the river, picking up the flow but unfortunately not enough for what could be a nice twenty footer in higher levels.
After a fairly good continuous section we came to the first decent horizon line formed by two slabs. The first was good fun with no real hazards.
Rich in the middle of the second slab. The ledge has a fairly considerable hole at the bottom but the slide that leads in gives plenty of speed to clear it. At this level we just had to make sure we missed the rocky outcrop which backed up the hole but otherwise great fun!
Getting boosted off the ledge. After this the river leveled off quite a bit, but still had some nice ledges and rapids which we all said we’d love to see in really high levels.
The last two km’s of the river is just a simple grade two paddle to Loch Etive. We timed it to make sure the tide was going with us for the final straight up the loch. If you are going to do this run, make sure to double check the tides as it wouldn’t be that fun if you got it wrong.
All in all a fun mission. Dave did eat all of his subways, despite Rich’s best efforts.
Catch you on the water
Ed
This past Spring has been one of the red letter seasons, that you hear about from of the old guard, going on about big snow pack years, where the Piemonte paddling season lasted into June and even beyond. In recent years there has been good to excellent snow conditions, yet all to often the whole lot comes down the river in mid April with some freak Easter hot weekend, or near monsoon rain for 10 days. However the Spring of 2009 was very different, the snow melted in a timely fashion, means that every day was world class, nearly every popular run was in high water conditions and even more special were all the lesser known, yet highly prized more remote runs were prime and good to go for all of May, and what a feast of sunshine steep creekin’ it was. Here is the Cervo, a small run from low altitude that faces mainly south dropping into Biellia close to Valsesia. The putin is a sun spot, check out all those sun lizards, plus see the red kayak in the river left eddy, well that was Dr Stefan from Vienna giving an example of the near prefect roll to the bikini clan ladies, I think he liked their smiles….. 
In late May the boys from Palm came over for a little photoshot and some fine paddling……….
Too read the rest of this blog entry go to: Simon Westgarth’s Blog
It was a good day for kayaking in the media yesterday. After Radio 1 had finished telling the kids to go paddle the Wye this weekend, we switched on the TV to see this:
Nice one all,
Tim
