After having a great new years eve in Pucon paddling the upper Palguin, having barbecue, watching the fireworks over Lago Villarica and partying hard with the whole Pucon kayak crowd we left the awesome little Chilean town and headed over the boarder to Argentina towards Bariloche. Two days later we arrived in Futaleufu back in Chile. So my first river to paddle in 2011 was the Futa – paddlers paradise, not a too bad start! And I still had two months left in chile… We spent the next two months in Patagonia paddled some great rivers like the Futa, the Baker, the Bravo and the Michimauida. In between we had some scouting missions and sometimes got rewarded by a first decent for example on the Rio Perez and the Rio Mayer down in the Villa O´Higgins area were the Carretera Austral ends. It was already march when I arrived back in Germany and it was bloody cold. So first thing which came to my mind was that I want to be back in Chile… I went for weekend trips to the Rissbachklamm, the Kaiserklamm and the Lofer-Schlucht were it was possible to find some water in the river as well as some frozen water on the banks… End of march I got my brand new VELOC and was quite happy to test it extensively on the isle of beauty . I left the icy part of Europe and spent four weeks in corsica to teach some kayaking. Back from 4 amazing weeks of fun creeking, cheese and red wine it was time for me to get myself back into a playboat and kick the German girls asses in our team trials and German Championships. Completing the mission after not being in a playboat for over half a year I decided to concentrate a little more on freestyle kayaking and started working close to Plattling to help the organization of the 2011 Kayak Freestyle World Championships. So during May I spent the weekends creeking in Ötztal and the week in Plattling – unfortunately the water level was shitty low and I hardly got any good sessions in… June was my month full of events this year – starting with the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado followed by the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games in Ivrea, Italy and finally the Freestyle Worlds in Plattling in the end. I was just rushing from event to event and in the end I was not really happy with my results in the Creek Races – I came forth in Vail and second in Ivrea. In contrast in Plattling I made it into semifinals and came tenth which was more than I expected since I am doing freestyle only for two years. July. Time for me to make some money which meant I was working on the Outdoor trade show in Friedrichshafen. End of July I packed my van again and headed to Tirol and Engadin for one week – Ötztal creeking again to get ready for my Norway adventure in August. I´ve never been kayaking in Norway before and some people may say that August is a little late in the season to go there but I just wasn´t able to make it there earlier and wanted to go there so bad. So we loaded the boats and caught the ferry. It was an awesome trip exploring some of the classic runs like Homerun, Numedalslagen different Sjoa secions, Store Ula, Rauma, Tora Bora and many more. But it was not only the kayaking which made my trip memorable. It was all about meeting friends, chilled out camping and late night cooking. To be back in Germany didn´t last long – end of August was the Lipno dam release and devils extreme race. So I got back into the van and started a road trip driving to Augsburg – Plattling – Lipno – Plattling – back home… and fast a weekend short trip turned out as five super fun days with great parties in the end. As a personal add on I was able to win the race and took home the price money – thanks to ZET kayaks to honor the women category as well! One month of fun paddling meant another month of work for me – so I went back to Tirol and Engadin and taught kayaking again till Kanumesse. Next chapter was the Sickline Race – I don´t like that race because I usually fuck up my line in at least one of my runs – so the same happened this year and I ended up in third position. Luckily it is not all about racing. The week before the race was on of my best weeks in Tirol this year. There were so many good kayakers around and the limit for running the harder sections of the river got pushed to higher levels. I even had my first time running the whole Wellerbrücke from the top – with a level where in the past most people just thought it is not runnable that high. After a few days at home I went back to the Alps to do some fall paddling. It started being cold and so my anticipation for my next winter trip grew even more – it is Chile again So ten more days kayak teaching on the Soca and then back to South America and the Futa – where I started my paddle year…
Last weekend, I headed to North Wales to the BCU Student Safety Symposium, hosted by Plas-y-Brenin. A weekend orientation for University Canoe Club members to get a rapid education to forming, running and enjoying a club. During the weekend, topics as diverse as transport and the law to trip planning, running swimming pool sessions to introducing people to paddling were covered. It’s an information max weekend. Also in the back of the car, was the new 2012 Palm Range for display (everyone loves, lets gets drawn to the one off sample Harlequin EV PFD, Palm might end up having to make it….) and 3 of the new Mamba’s, for testing. On the Saturday, I was involved with running a session on overseas trips planning and white water skills, so got to enjoy some of the great Autumn sunshine of the day.
On the Sunday, I ran a Steep Creeking Skill clinics for the more able paddler’s, who often play a leadership role within their clubs. So getting the skills right to hand on to the new wave of student paddlers is ever important. With there bing no recent rain fall in North Wales, the only option was to hit the Graveyard section on the Tryweryn, a popular dam release run. We focused mainly on tactics for river running, and then added in key stroke concept for boffin’. The boys picked it all up fast and were flying off any reason and some less reasonable boulders and bedrock ledges. The great thing in focusing in on tactics, is most paddler’s simply over look them, and follow the lines on rapids they were shown. Opening up tactics allows a paddler to get to their target, with their momentum heading in the correct direction to get some great results. On the Graveyard, you can make Class III boulders into a FreeRide fun park, with flares, grinds, spins and boofs.
The new Mamba’s were popular, we had 2 of the Mamba 8.6 prototypes and a production 8.1 available. There are several Mamba 8.1 around now, and the feedback is great, a kind of cross between the old Mamba and the Dagger Nomad, yet faster. A creeky river runner with speed to spare. During the creaking skills clinics, the new boat was a popular option.
The BCU Student Safety Symposium will be back in 2012, and if you are wondering why can’t general paddlers get a symposium, well you can, 27/29th January 2012 at the River Dart Country Park in Devon, Gene17 are hosting the very first the River’s Source – a white water symposium event
Rosie Cripps, our girl in the jungle, sent through this little round up from the World Rafting Championships in Costa Rica. The Palm sponsored GB ladies got fifth overall, a result they know only to well having manged it twice before. It sounds like the racing has been tough and the challenges of getting to and from the river even tougher – read on!
World Rafting Championships, Pacuare River Costa Rica, 2011
Sorry for the delay in posting updates on the competition – internet has been hard to get to and we became seperated from the person with the photographs!
The first day of competition went really well with us taking home a silver medal in the sprint discipline. This put us into a good place for the next days racing, giving us lane choice for the head to head. Our first race was against the home nation, Costa Rica which was a bit of a crowd pleaser! We got fast off the start and stayed ahead all the way to the finish with a good lead. Our time wasn’t fast enough however to give us lane choice against our old rivals Canada. In the last world championships we beat them to win gold however this time without lane choice we had to fight harder out of the eddy and ended up coming out just behind them, overtaking was tough and we were on their tail the whole way down. I think it was one of the best battles as the noise from the crowd was overwhelming! Well done to Canada for beating us, and to Japanese ladies for taking the win. After an exhauting day of racing we all hiked out from the river in the dark, for over an hour up a steep muddy trail. Tractors were the only vehicles capable of making their way halfway down the trail to pick up the ill and wounded, due to an intense tropical downpour.
Slalom was the next days challenge – and the Costa Rican’s certainly know how to set a tough one. The course was the hardest any of us had seen, and with limited time to scout everyone’s first run involved a bit of trial and error. There were some spectacular flips, especially from the Columbian mens team who finished an incredible run with a flip through the last gate. Unfortunately the course favoured those who strategically missed some gates due to its difficulty – not ususally the way we roll! However it was great to see all of the teams so challenged, and we were all fully exhausted by the end of 2 runs. We came in 7th out of 19 ladies teams. This was followed by another mud entrenched hike out of the river to the buses waiting high above the river. In case we weren’t tired enough, the evenings entertainment consisted of being chased around a rodeo ring by a variety of small energetic bulls! For those brave enough to take on the challenge a few horns were received to various limbs, the rest of us stayed well behind the bars and watched the chaos ensue.
Endurance was the final race of the competition. There had been a rolling debate as to how long it should be, with opinion divided between one hour 30 minutes vs a 40 minute stretch. In the end the finish line was moved to make an hour long race along one of the most spectacular sections of canyon in Costa Rica. Massive boulder gardens provided an awesome opportunity for us to overtake the USA, in one of the most daring moves of the day, mid class 4+rapid we battled for the central line through a boulder pinch and boofed a big hole whilst USA were fighting for the right line. We had a super fast exit from the hole and came out in the lead, just metres in front of them. We gained more and more ground from them over the next 30 minutes and finished 5th, only 12 seconds from the medal place over an hour long race. One of the most surreal moments of the endurance came as we rounded a corner deep in the jungle clad gorge and a helicopter swooped round in front of us with a couple of camera men hanging out of the doors rambo style, only 10 metres of so off the water. Amazing!
The final party was completely insane. There was more bull riding, this time with anyone and everyone having a free for all riding this massive muscled bull with huge horns bucking and bronking around the ring. Then Chino, one of the safety kayakers would appear on his Appaloosa stallion galloping into the ring (making Rosie and Georgie weak at the knees!) to lasoo the bull and return him to the pen for the next willling victim. Only in Costa Rica!
Overall the competition was very well organised, especially in such a remote location with very difficult logistics. The section of river they used was stunning, its setting deep in the jungle and incredible whitewater gave us all an experience we would never forget. The entertainment was second to none and atmosphere throughout the competition was brilliant. One of the best things about the whole operation was the way the safety was organised. Each day a team of over 20 safety kayakers and rafts set off to the river, set up pully systems, throw lines and safety boats to keep us safe. They all knew the river well, covered all of the danger spots and rescued numerous swimmers. They worked tirelessly all day, and still gave us a smile and cheer everytime we made a good line (or bad one!). Thankyou safety kayakers (we love you!) and to all of those who helped make the event possible. Pura Vida. We will be back.
To keep up-to date with rafting around the world take a look at the International rafting web site here.
I met a Uk based reporter called Caroline Sandry at the Teva Mountain Games earlier this Year and she followed my progress through the event and caught up with me again just after Worlds to write this piece for the October Issue of Ultra Fit magazine:-
Just had a mail from north of the border to say that new kayak movie goodness Sneaky Freeky Creeky is ready to order.
It’s been a while since the Scottish boys have combined together footage of their considerable adventures and Dave Biggin has come up trumps again, highlighting through the highlands and beyond why Scotland really is a world class whitewater venue…. if theres water!
Here’s a sweet little trailer, but if you want to get the full show and be inspired to paddle in Scotland get along to www.wheresthewater.com and get yourself a copy.
Our illustrious graphic designer, web guru and ever grinning colleague Tim Trew is up and away to pastures new.
Tim and his girlfriend Kate are taking their legendary cake and bread making skills to the other side of the world and are going to run a cafe in New Zealand. But its not just any cafe, oh no! They’ve managed to land right on their paddles, bagging the ‘Falls cafe’ right by McLaren falls – entry point for none other than the world famous Wairoa river.
So its good bye and good luck from all of us here at Palm and hello, or ‘how about an extra slice of cake’ from any of you lucky enough to be nearby.
But don’t worry, he’s promised to make us jealous with some blogs and you never know he may throw in a recipe or two as well!
River festivals are always fun and last week’s 2011 Noguera Palleresa River festival was no exception.
Well I am very pleased to report that on returning to Sort In the Cataluna Pyrenees for the first time in 10 years since 2001 when the world freestyle championships were there, and they decided to provide in gratis alcohol and food to a bunch of “ enthusiastic” kayakers, the place still has every bit of magic beauty and craziness that it did all those years ago. The man, the myth the legend Lluis Rabaneda and his team at RocRoi.com put together another amazing event in the form of the “ Noguera Pallaresa River Festival” 2011.
With Lluis behind the magic, a van loaded with the brand new Dagger Mamba test boats, throw in some sunshine, great water levels guaranteed by the dam, new friends and old, a big party, amazing locals, both paddlers and civilians, we have a winning combination. It was the perfect end to the summer paddling season.
The NPRF 2011 attracted kayakers from The UK, Ireland, Finland, Argentina, Norway, France, Canada, America, Spain, Germany, just to name a few! The festival was very inclusive for all abilities and ages and set on the Palleresa River that has really nice class 2/3 rapids over different sections with some of the most stunning scenery that I have seen in a kayak.
Over the course of the festval there was a bunch of clinics organised for folks to go on and the river is a great coaching venue. I was involved with the Safety and Rescue clinic and had a blast with the mixed crew we had on the session. There were loads of other clinics run. Eric “EJ” Jackson was doing the freestyle clinics with the kids and adults. Raphael Thiebaut the photo master was doing a photo Clinic for kayak photographers. Next year the lads should do a party clinic on the back of their performance on the dance floor during the Saturday night festivities. A memory that will stay with me for a while is EJ saying to the Mayor of Sort whilst dragging him unwillingly to the dance floor, “ have you ever tried slam dancing??!” Ej also received a special award for the 10 year anniversary since he won the worlds in Sort.
There was a “ Le Mans” style mass race down the class2/3 section from Llavorsi to Rialp, just upstream of Sort. The race was great fun with some charging hard at the front and others just taking their time and enjoying the ride down to the finish line about 8 km away.
As I was there with the toy chest filled with a bunch of the all new Dagger Mambas along with other models I was pleased to hear such positive feedback about the boats from the test pilots. People were really fired up on how dynamic the new boats were. It’s always good to see smiling faces.
It was great to see such a range of people and abilities at an event like this. It appeared as though everybody was catered for. I will definitely be gunning to hit the fesival next year. Well done again to Lluis and his very capable and friendly team @rocroi.com Cheers for the good times. That’s what kayaking is all about, can’t wait to see what’s in store for next time. Thanks to the Palm/Dagger guys for supporting such a nice event.
Our GBR team selection to pick the team to compete at next years European champs in Vienna is a 3 competition format with the best 2 results out of the 3 counting.
This weekends event at Hpp, Nottingham was the first 2 comps of the 3. One on the Saturday in the inlet gate and one on the Sunday in the Twin waves. 3 rides best 2 count.
For me I am away for the last comp of the 3 the Hurley Rodeo so I needed to do well to secure my place.
I’m not going to go into that much detail on my runs but I managed pretty sweet rides hit a few of my combos both days (2400 on Sat, 1600 on Sunday) to take the double win and give me a guaranteed spot on the team to compete at the Euros
Palm’s Bren Orton got two 2nd place finishes in the Juniors to get his place guaranteed and Palm’s Lowri Davies also made the team
The main thing about the weekend was the incredibly high standard, the level of kayaking here is phenomenal. To make the mens top 10 on Saturday you needed to score something like 1200 or more!! The Juniors and the ex juniors who have just moved to senior are killing it! Its a credit to the awesome setup of events such as the Youth Freestyle series and the great freestyle spots we have allover the UK.
All summer me, Bren Orton, James Benn’s, James Weight, Ryan Liqourish & David Wild have been paddling a lot together working on our moves and trying to develop new moves or combinations of merged moves. This event our whole group put on a sick showing nailing sweet rides as well as pretty much all of our combo’s we’ve invented.
The point we wanted to make by getting our combos in a comp environment was to illustrate the need for some additions or some changes to the current scoring. For example if you merge a Lunar Orbit with a Tricky Whu with a Loop it only gets scored a Trophy 3 (200) but if you were to do them seperately you would get 380… For hole kayaking we need to encourage people to learn these moves and go for them in comps so they need to be scored much higher in order to reward the risk/ skill involved to hit them.
Anyhow I had a real fun weekend and was super proud watching the standard of kayaking in all categories here. This last 3 years the standard and depth of talent here continues to explode, its so good to see.
Here is a video Jonny Williams put up of some of the action from Saturday:-
Pringle
All the results will be up soon on GB Freestyle website for those who want to see exact scores.
Photos by:- Simon Thorne, Chris Throne & Bren Orton
The post production phase of any motion picture is thoroughly time consuming, frustrating and tedious. A process that initially seems creative, enjoyable and generally feasible, however inevitably leads to an overwhelming feeling of sadness and rage.
Luckily, myself and Nick just love all those wonderful things and are currently deeply engrossed in the editing of ‘Vaniljesaus – A Kayaking Adventure’; A short film we will be bringing to the internet for FREE – and boy will it be worth none of your money!
Anyway, whilst we continue editing, here’s the all important concept trailer. There is more kayaking in the actual film, we promise.
Looking back to the 2011 Adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championships first thought that comes to my mind is that I had great times in the famous Austrian Ötz valley where I spend plenty of weeks this year teaching kayaking. It was great to see so many paddlers from all over the world coming into town just to compete on the Wellerbrücke.
With a starter field of around 140 kayakers out of 25 nations the Sickline race is one of the biggest extreme races in Europe. More and more slalom paddlers who just had their peak of the season few weeks ago in Slovakia came to compete against the whitewater pros. In the end it was full-time whitewater paddler Sam Sutton (NZL) who took home the win followed by Mike Dawson (NZL) and slalom paddler Paul Böckelmann from Germany in third position.
Although the organizer still didn´t manage to setup a own women category down the whole course eight girls showed up. So at least they let us race down the qualification course and ranked us in a separate result list. Martina Wegman from the Netherlands won the women class her third time in a row and slalom paddler Caroline Loir from France came second. Myself had a very bad first run and even my reasonable second run didn´t bring me further up than in third position.
Luckily it´s not all about racing. In the week before the race I had my first time down the whole Wellerbrücke – including the section above the race course. The Wellerbrücke is one of those famous and well known short and steep sections of the Ötz river about which almost every European kayaker knows a story to tell. Some early snow and warm weather with around 25degrees kept the flow quite high before the race. Usually the section was run at flows less than 180 cm so I first thought that again I will not get it done this year. But having a good team around was pushing the limit and after the first crew went down with a flow around 2 m more and more paddlers followed. So finally I got started, followed the guys and got to know that even the upper part is all good to go. I didn´t end up in a cave, sieve or on some rocks – all stories just fairy-tales again…
After having a great new years eve in Pucon paddling the upper Palguin, having barbecue, watching the fireworks over Lago Villarica and partying hard with the whole Pucon kayak crowd we left the awesome little Chilean town and headed over the boarder to Argentina towards Bariloche. Two days later we arrived in Futaleufu back in Chile. So my first river to paddle in 2011 was the Futa – paddlers paradise, not a too bad start! And I still had two months left in chile… 
We spent the next two months in Patagonia paddled some great rivers like the Futa, the Baker, the Bravo and the Michimauida. In between we had some scouting missions and sometimes got rewarded by a first decent for example on the Rio Perez and the Rio Mayer down in the Villa O´Higgins area were the Carretera Austral ends. 
It was already march when I arrived back in Germany and it was bloody cold. So first thing which came to my mind was that I want to be back in Chile… I went for weekend trips to the Rissbachklamm, the Kaiserklamm and the Lofer-Schlucht were it was possible to find some water in the river as well as some frozen water on the banks… 
End of march I got my brand new VELOC and was quite happy to test it extensively on the isle of beauty . I left the icy part of Europe and spent four weeks in corsica to teach some kayaking. 
Back from 4 amazing weeks of fun creeking, cheese and red wine it was time for me to get myself back into a playboat and kick the German girls asses in our team trials and German Championships. Completing the mission after not being in a playboat for over half a year I decided to concentrate a little more on freestyle kayaking and started working close to Plattling to help the organization of the 2011 Kayak Freestyle World Championships. So during May I spent the weekends creeking in Ötztal and the week in Plattling – unfortunately the water level was shitty low and I hardly got any good sessions in… 
June was my month full of events this year – starting with the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado followed by the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games in Ivrea, Italy and finally the Freestyle Worlds in Plattling in the end. I was just rushing from event to event and in the end I was not really happy with my results in the Creek Races – I came forth in Vail and second in Ivrea. In contrast in Plattling I made it into semifinals and came tenth which was more than I expected since I am doing freestyle only for two years. 
July. Time for me to make some money which meant I was working on the Outdoor trade show in Friedrichshafen. End of July I packed my van again and headed to Tirol and Engadin for one week – Ötztal creeking again to get ready for my Norway adventure in August. 
I´ve never been kayaking in Norway before and some people may say that August is a little late in the season to go there but I just wasn´t able to make it there earlier and wanted to go there so bad. So we loaded the boats and caught the ferry. It was an awesome trip exploring some of the classic runs like Homerun, Numedalslagen different Sjoa secions, Store Ula, Rauma, Tora Bora and many more. But it was not only the kayaking which made my trip memorable. It was all about meeting friends, chilled out camping and late night cooking. To be back in Germany didn´t last long – end of August was the Lipno dam release and devils extreme race. So I got back into the van and started a road trip driving to Augsburg – Plattling – Lipno – Plattling – back home… and fast a weekend short trip turned out as five super fun days with great parties in the end. As a personal add on I was able to win the race and took home the price money – thanks to ZET kayaks to honor the women category as well! 
One month of fun paddling meant another month of work for me – so I went back to Tirol and Engadin and taught kayaking again till Kanumesse. Next chapter was the Sickline Race – I don´t like that race because I usually fuck up my line in at least one of my runs – so the same happened this year and I ended up in third position. Luckily it is not all about racing. The week before the race was on of my best weeks in Tirol this year. There were so many good kayakers around and the limit for running the harder sections of the river got pushed to higher levels. I even had my first time running the whole Wellerbrücke from the top – with a level where in the past most people just thought it is not runnable that high. 
After a few days at home I went back to the Alps to do some fall paddling. It started being cold and so my anticipation for my next winter trip grew even more – it is Chile again 
So ten more days kayak teaching on the Soca and then back to South America and the Futa – where I started my paddle year… 
All the results will be up soon on 
