We’ve been on a mission filming and boating in sunny Valdal this week, and this morning we stumbled across this beauty! Pretty sure it’s a first descent, and it’s called Storfossen, on the Herdalselva.
Stay tuned for more pictures and updates coming soon!
Nick & Finn
Hello all!
I’ve just returned from a last minute, unplanned trip to Ticino + Piemonte. After a frustratingly dry winter season I was desperate for some boating, so last week hopped in a car with Adam Dumolo and drove south on a whim in search of some steep action. Starting in Ticino we had some low water fun on the Verzasca and Ribo rivers, before heading south to the incomparable Valsesia for some freeride practice on the Egua, as well as an adventure into the Sorba’s Sawmill cataract.
In a hole – low water Verzasca…
Here are some images from the trip – Check out the new Atom Jacket in action, it’s the comfiest I’ve ever paddled in, and bombproof too.
The highlight of the trip for me was getting the chance to run the Sorba’s Sawmill Cataract, home of the Devil’s Slide. First run by Shaun Baker back in the 80s, this drop remains one of the big challenges in Val Sesia, and I’ve scouted it a few times over the years, but never at a good level.
With the sun shining, and water levels low, but not too low, we headed into the canyon, which features 3 incredible drops, with the Devil’s slide the final and biggest one.
This is the slide as seen from above, and the angle from which you first inspect it. Looks pretty different once you’re down there…
The second rapid of the canyon is an amazingly fun 6m twisting boof into a small canyon, which then drops over a small (2m?) ledge:
Once here, the options are to either abseil down the rocks and jump in below the slide, or commit to the big one…
The crux of the Devil’s Slide is a super boily, retentive cauldron half way down, which a few people have had severe beatings and long swims in. From above it looks friendly, but once down in the canyon it’s a different story, and landing in this cauldron in control, is a tricky but crucial move.
With only two of us there setting up safety wasn’t easy, but with some nifty ropework Adam was able to cover the pocket for me and snap a couple of pictures too.
The whole thing went super smoothly, and once in the slot it was white out all the way to the halfway cauldron. Definately one of the more intense yet fun rapids I’ve ever run.
From below the thing is pretty spectacular, you’re a long way down in the bottom of a deep canyon.
After a day’s missioning it’s back to Campertogno for some fresh Italian coffee.
We also took the chance for some Freeride practice ahead of the Gene17 Valsesia River Festival in May. This drop is amazing fun, and the competition should be ace!
A video still of a big hammer…
Spring is here, and I’m fired up for the summer’s adventures, so watch this space…
Also, best of luck to Pringle & Katya in the Whitewater Grand Prix next week!
See you on the river,
Nick.
Hey all, I managed to escape for the day on Sunday for a quick mission to the beautiful Mellte in South Wales. The river was at a really fun level, and as well as the usual fun lines, we went for a scouting mission nearby.
The spectacular put on for the Mellte – Pic from Tom Layland
Finn Burrows and myself scouting a huck. My Stikine suit is now 3 years old and still going. Top piece of kit. – From Tom L
Here are a couple of video stills for the day, we started filming for a short movie project I’m working on, so watch this space.
Filming by the ever talented, though currently injured Finn ‘Magic Ankle’ Burrows.
Thanks to Tom Layland and Finn B for a most excellent day out.
Spring’s not far off now, keep it wholesome, and pray for rain.
Nick H
So I’ve been stuck here in the lovely UK for a while now, technically a student again, but pretty much working a full time job as a teacher. With the exception of a few cheeky runs in Devon and South Wales, the paddling season hasn’t been the busiest. The brutal cold has now briefly let up, but with the rain gods still not offering any proper rain, I’ve found myself longingly looking back at this summer’s adventures. Here’s a recap, I hope to have something new and exciting as soon as some more of the wet stuff comes around…
Here are some of my favourite pics from the season to inspire anybody else who’s cold and can’t paddle. Enjoy!
Hang time on the Gronda – if you hit this one right you can fly!
Throwing down on the Egua – Look out for the Gene17 Freeride cup, coming this spring…
An epic trip down a very short section
Something new in the Heart of Norway – A hike is worth the reward.
Hugh ‘Huge’ Graham steps up and straps on…
My Favourite River – Pocket sized fun for all the family.
The first time you run this one, you’re not allowed to look – follow the rules and you’ll be rewarded!
Another pocket sized classic, and one of Fleming’s ex homeruns – the Bygdelva
Always time for some soul surfing on the Sjoa playrun – this, for me, is why we kayak.
Some more shots from Satu V.W. – an Evening session at Jolgens, back again this year!
Paddle throw – pushing the frontiers of freestyle.
A Helix in the Crazy – Yours truly
The ever creative Finn B bringing back the old school:
My Vengeance – fast, spanky, and radical.
Hope you liked the pics, Here are some key lessons I’ve learned this Year:
1) Say yes to yellow – My colour scheme was on fire this year, but just wait for 2011!
2) Go for a hike, you never know what’s waiting for you!
3) Don’t always just pile on down after your mates. Better to take a little longer but make it look good: Inspect, and then throw down!
4) If you’ve got Gnarly Boots, put them on, it’s time to get extreme.
4 b) Before you put them on, make sure everybody knows about that cave.
5) Never underestimate the energising power of a soul surf.
Check out some excellent footage of this summer’s adventures in Norway, as well as excellent action from Iceland, Russia, Nam, Thailand, and some other parts too in Max Bilbow’s new film which premiered last month, available now from mopmovie.com, or your local kayak shop.
Means of Production 2 from Max Bilbow on Vimeo.
Glitz, glamour, and kayakers – the Mop 2 Premiere:
Some of these adventures are also available in Finn and Hugh’s Norway adventure, an excellent series of vids, which can be found here:
Enjoy!
‘It’s probably 100 metres long, in a gorge, but clean, and totally runnable. It doesn’t look very Norwegian though. The rock is kind of sharp…’
This was Hugh’s opening gambit, and the first thing I heard of the slide. He and Finn had been on a hiking mission and discovered what sounded like an absolute gem with a short hike in. Two days and a short-ish hike later, and we were stood looking at the thing. 100 m it turns out, was a conservative guess, and ‘clean’ had been downgraded to ‘pretty clean’. After scouting the rest of the river to discover a jagged Icelandic nightmare, we were just left with what later turned out to be about 170m of twisting slide, at the bottom of 30-50 m of walled in gorge.
Based on expert navigational information from our expedition technical adviser Gaute, we had chosen the shorter, steeper ‘over the mountain’ route (see above photo – x marks the car and the arrow our route over ). This turned out to be a bushy nightmare followed by a loose scree slope, which as you might have guessed is less than fun to climb with a kayak on your back.
So feeling a little sore yet keen for some actual boating, we decided that the slide was good to go, and I immediately discovered that somewhere on the hike I had lost my helmet. Hugh was keen to go first, and I (feeling like a prize chump) offered to photograph his run. After crossing the river and hiking down to the slide, we were gutted when Hugh signalled to us that the entrance drop didn’t really go, however the rest of the slide was still looking good and after finding his way down, Hugh had one final scout, and pushed out into the current…
The slide itself forms a long twisting s-bend, and there is no point on the bank from which you can see more than half of it. We were therefore only able to watch Hugh negotiate the first half of the monster before watching him come flying out of the exit a worryingly short amount of time later.
Having watched Hugh style the top half and come out grinning, I was feeling confident, and he kindly lent me his helmet for my run. As it turned out, the second part of the slide, after the right hand bend is significantly steeper, bouncier, and harder to control than anticipated. Curlers which looked insignificant from above turned out to be head high , and once into the steep part of the slide it was a white out all the way to the bottom.
After our two successful runs we were stoked but pretty worn out, and decided to hike back to the car, leaving our gear up by the river, to return the next day. My helmet, it turned out, was embarassingly still perched on the roof of my car.
The next morning Finn, who’d opted out of carrying his boat up due to an ankle injury, borrowed Hugh’s boat, whilst I crossed the river to find a photo angle of the steep part of the slide from river right:
The above picture shows the steeper part of the slide with Finn for perspective, and below is the final part.
Finn and Gaute both had sweet lines, although a slightly lower water level and a bonier ride resulted in them both coming out backwards, if still mostly in control.
So after two epic days adventuring, involving around 8 hours of hiking and 60 seconds paddling each, we headed to the nearby Bakery in Lom for coffee and the world’s best cinnamon buns.
Team photo from left to right: Myself, Hugh, Finn, and Gaute.
After close examination of satelite images, we measured the slide to be around 170 m long, and we think it loses 25 – 30 m in height. Throughout the mission we’d come to know it affectionately as ‘The Megatron’, which seems for now, to have stuck.
I’ll leave you with a photo of one of the local ‘guardians of The Megatron’, thanks to Finn Burrows.
Stay posted for more pictures and adventures, and a full video coming soon…
Take it easy,
Nick
(Photos from Nick Horwood and Finn Burrows.)
It was a beautiful warm spring evening when Luke and I found ourselves in the Aosta Region of northern Italy, on the banks of the beautiful Ayasse river, with a good level and a bottle of wine.
Having arrived late in the evening, we camped out by the river for the night, only to be disturbed by a savage boar with an insatiable (and frankly undertstandable) craving for pesto alla genovese. Luke poised himself, ready to fight back, whilst I racked my brains for literary examples of heroes coming face to face with wild boar. The best I could come up with was the mythical gaul Asterix, and as we’d run out of magic potion just that week this was of no use. In the end we chose the bold tactic of going back to sleep, and thankfully woke up in the morning having escaped a tusking.
Having survived the night’s excitement, Luke and I were pretty fired up to blast down the lower gorge first thing. The section is about 500m long, and includes a selection of small slides and drops, including a spectacular triple slide combo at the canyon exit (see picture above). We figured this would serve us well as a pre-breakfast wake up.
Things got off to an entertaining start when both of us misjudged the lip on first boof of the day. Luke got away with it and I got a shoeing. Thankfully I managed to fight my way out with only a bruised Ego. Check the photo, this line was certainly sub optimal:
After negotiating the remaining slides without incident we found ourselves committed to the lower triple combo, which involves a short portage over some big boulders to a sketchy seal launch at the lip of the 30 footer. Here Luke carries his boat, before tucking up and taking the hit.
Luke’s line was exemplary, however this is quite a low volume river, and the hit at the base quite hard. He found himself therefore in a C1 situation in the boily eddy at the base of the falls. After sorting all this out, a cheeky minute or two spent in an innocuous looking cave, a terrifying hidden siphon and an abseil to retrieve an accidentally abandoned camera, we found that it was much later in the day than we’d hoped – more like dinner time than breakfast time.
This was a prime example of how a ‘pre breakfast blast’ can turn into an all day comedy of errors, and feeling somewhat beaten, we took the afternoon off for some cheese and meat appreciation.
More Fun to come soon from Extreme Sport Week in Norway, but for now here are some more shots of epic fun and freeride action from Valsesia this spring, enjoy the pics…
Photos from Luke Farrington, Joe Casey, Nick Horwood.
For the steep creeking connoisseur, spring in Piemonte is always a treat, and this season has been no exception. This year the Gronda racecourse became pretty much part of our daily routine, offering 391 metres of steep technical fun, finishing in a truly classic ski jump drop that will leave you grinning for days.
Here are some photosfrom the last month of this golden Italian mini classic.
Photos from Luke ‘The Boar’ Farrington, Clem Holgate, and Nick Horwood, stay posted for more updates from the land of Pizza, Ice cream and Grappa, in that order.
Keep it steep,
Nick
Palm’s current line up of products are out on the water and on test by paddlers all over the world. We’re really pleased with our products and glad to say the good reviews have been pouring in.
Check out this in-depth review of the Aleutian Sea kayaking suit from solentseakayaking.co.uk:
(click on the image to go to the review).
Jon Best on form, Nile Special, Sunset.
With the cold and dark turning paddling in the UK into a truly character building experience, It was decided that we had quite enough character already, and some warm water paddling was in order. With this in mind, and with the completion of the Bujagali Falls dam drawing closer everyday, Tim T and I booked some last minute tickets, packed our flip flops and suncream, and boarded a plane to Uganda.
As the sun rises through the mist, the local fishermen are already at work.
Almost a mile wide at its source, emerging from lake Victoria 1100m above sea level, the Victoria Nile is a geographical marvel, and kayaking aside, would be worth the visit purely to look at.
Sitting almost squarely on the equator, the Nile enjoys year round warmth, with an average daily temperature of ‘very hot’, and water which can only be described as ‘quite warm’.
Amy Simcock, right hand line, Bujagali Falls
Sadly, several of the section’s classic rapids are very soon to be lost, as the final stages of the new dam are completed. The building site is now starting to look more convincingly like a dam, and is simply breathtaking in its scale. Estimates as to when the section will finally disappear range from sometime around Easter to a couple of years time, however if you’ve not paddled there before, I can’t reccommend a trip strongly enough, and sooner rather than later. Clicking on the link here will take you to Google’s satellite images of the Nile, showing the Dam’s current progress, and what is soon to be lost.
www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=0.494808,33.147554&spn=0.042914,0.055189&t=h&z=14
For those unfamiliar with the situation and the river; here’s a link to Sam Ward’s video ‘A Dam Shame’, filmed exclusively on the section of whitewater which will be lost upon the Dam’s completion.
Although the classic ‘Silverback’ Section is doomed, the Nile thankfully still has a huge amount to offer besides, with some of the world’s best waves, and incredible freestyle paddling. The standout wave on the river is the world famous Nile Special, which serves as the warm water training ground for the many of the world’s best freestyle paddlers.
James 'the artist formerly known as Pringle' Bebbington, in flight.
Some of the River’s mightiest Rapids will also still remain after the new dam is built, and probably the most well know of these is Itanda Falls. Once classified as a grade 6 monster, but now downgraded to ‘still one of the biggest rapids you’ll probably ever see’, this 300m long maelstrom of white chaos (beige disorganisation at lower flows) contains several of the biggest holes on the river, and has handed out some severe beatings to some of paddlesport’s finest.
This December however, saw the rapid’s 2nd successful (4th attempted) descent in a Topo Duo. With the unflappable Tim Trew at the helm, and a fearless Max Coney providing the Ballast up front, the pair navigated the craft flawlessly through the beast, much to the disappointment of the carnage hungry spectators.
Tim and Max, leaders in the tandem kayaking revolution...
If you can make it to the Nile before the new dam is completed, then do so. If not, then go anyway, whenever you can, it really is as good as everybody says…
Saturday night's talks had the bar jam packed - possibly for the talks, or for the free goodies given out in the interval...
This weekend marked the annual Gene17 Adventure Paddlers’ Weekend, bringing together boaters from across the UK and further afield to enjoy some of the Devon’s finest rivers. With good water levels on both days, and a huge turnout both on the rivers and in the bar, the weekend was certainly one to remember
Saturday night’s talks were as always among the weekend’s highlights, kicking off with Adam, Pete, and Spike’s Peruvian adventure, followed by Luke’s series of Vietnamese epics, and some stunning as ever footage from Big O himself Olaf Obsommer. Saturday night also saw a moving and hugely entertaining photographic tribute to Chris Wheeler, offering a brief insight into his incredible life and adventures.
Here are some photos from the weekend, thanks to everybody who came down and got involved. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event, so if you haven’t yet been, we look forward to seeing you there…
The group of miscreants collectively known as Team Palm pose for a photo in their shiny new PFD's.
Ed Smith on the lip of Euthanasia Falls.
An anonymous yet noble hero reaching out to a paddler in need.
Paul 'Cheesy' Robertson showing off some silky smooth skills in the Axiom
Tom Parker did sterling work whilst everybody else was dancing, managing to move all 78 of the imaginary boxes which littered the dance floor.
Germanic paddling Legend Olaf Obsommer enjoying the Plym on Sunday.
All Photos thanks to Paul Wilkinson.
