Next weekend is the Val Selesia festival and along with fellow Palm paddler Dave Carrol, I will be running the Palm Throwbag Olympics (Thursday and Friday evenings) so I figured it would be good time to share some of the top tips I regularly teach on white water safety and rescue courses ready for the competition.
1. Plan. Using a throwbag is usually proactive, as in you have time to plan where and how you’ll be using it rather than reactive (jumping out your boat as someone swims passed?). Use this time to think about where a paddler is likely to swim, and whether there is an eddy to swing them into.
2. Throw. Too much emphasis is put on the throw itself, as long as it reaches the swimmer, no problem! Roughly I use underarm when I want accuracy, an overarm when I’m throwing down from a cliff or I want the swimmer to feel the rope hit them and a wide bowling action for distance, like putting a rope across a river.
3. Belay. Key for me is managing the forces just as the rope goes tight. The load is same for you on the bank as it is for the person in the water. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, your grip on the rope or the ground if the person in the water is tired, they won’t be able to hold on. You, as the rescuer, must anticipate the force and brake appropriately. The easiest way of doing this to move downriver and away from the river, space you planned for in step 1. It is possible to let rope out or use a body belay but again doesn’t matter how you brake someone in the water as long as you do, allowing you to rescue any sized person. The bigger they are, the stronger the water, the more braking distance need.
Next Month’s Dispatch will look at tactics for bigger water paddling as many of us head away to France and Austria for some summer sun.
Chris Eastabrook offers year round safety and rescue courses and has Palm PFDs, throwbags and other goodies available to try out on the standard and advanced courses. Click here for www.chriseastabrookcoaching.com.
The photos for this blog came from David Fairweather, check out www.davidfairweather.net for more photos and stories. Thanks Dave, Thave.
We’ve had an epic trip involving Lemmings, stitches, hiking, driving, and of course, lots of paddling!
We’ve enjoyed first descents in the Baieraaga, Tverraaga, and Graataaga (the rivers up north are called aaga, not elva), and lots more!
The above photo is of Jasper Polak on the first descent of a big slide on the Tverraaga.
We camped for several nights on the shores of lake Krutvatn:
This year was a lemming year; every 3-4 years the population explodes leading to mass panic and bizarre confrontational behaviour from the lemming population. This means regular hilarious standoffs with a brown furry ball the size of a hamster.
One of the highlights of the Hattfjelldal (Hat-mountain-valley) area of Norway was the Upper Susna, with its classic pool drop fun.
It features one of the most fun drops in the world, the Dusj boof (shower boof) which involves boofing and disappearing completely into a white curtain. here Hugh Graham prepares to take a rinsing…
After a few days in Hattfjelldal we headed further north to Beiardalen in search of new adventures and first descents…
First up was a river called the Graataaga, which involved a beautiful clean, bouldery class 3 – 4 gorge, a perfect warm up.
After some further scouting, and a couple of projects to save for higher/lower water, Hugh and Jasper stumbled across an absolute gem, in the form of the Tverraaga. This involved a steep hike in the baking sunshine, but we were rewarded with a steep continuous selection of amazingly fun slides, boofs, and a picturesque swimming pool at the takeout!
A super clean, fast slide – I claimed 1st run on this baby.
A bouncy number – some carnage on this one, but nothing major!
My run of the big slide!
Catching some air off a kicker half way down. This one is pretty fast!
Finn Burrows at the exit of a tight gorge:
Stay posted for more pictures to come soon! There will also be a mini movie with footage of all of our adventures!
Big thanks to the team, which was Finn Burrows, Hugh Graham, Jasper Polak, Tom Parker, Sarah Nash, Yours Truly (and shuttle bunies/chefs Em and Tebb).
I have been in California for the past six weeks enjoying one of the craziest seasons in history. A record snowpack has meant a super long and late run-off and the paddling has been nothing short of amazing! We have hit most of the classics from The South Feather to West Cherry as well as a few of the lesser known drops hidden away in the Sierras. I have been rolling with the posse’ from River Roots and Bomb Flow and the content we have collected is epic!
For the duration of the mission I have been wearing the new Atom dry top and Stikine thermal ‘bunny suit’ along with the now trusted Amp vest and the performance has been spectacular. The new breathable fabric on the Atom performs super well in and out of the water and is really comfortable to paddle in. It keeps the cold, snow melt water out but lets your skin breath when hiking on the exposed granite here in Cali. I can’t recommend this top enough, it is easily the best dry top I have ever used.
Anyway, here are a few pics from the travels – more to come!
On a mission!
BB
Line up the 50 footer, lose the paddle, close eyes & hold on!
HIGH speed testing on Tenaya Creek.
The intimidating Heath Springs 2 on the Royal Gorge of the American.
Get some coaching from top coaching providers including Palm’s Lowri Davies. Whether you want to gain confidence on grade 3/4, perfect your playboating, or simply fancy a guided trip of the scenic lower Tryweryn, these guys will be able to help you out. Sign up when you arrive.
Race in the PALM 8-BALL! This is full contact paddling. Think head-to-head boaterX mixed with Robot Wars. The aim? Get to the bottom of the section first and avoid being taken out by one of many inflatable kayakers in your path…. (Exact time to be confirmed although probably Saturday afternoon)
Leave your car at the takeout and take advantage of free shuttles throughout the weekend. Leaving you with more time on the water! Ace.
Outfit your boat. Do you struggle getting the fit of your Dagger kayak just right? Come see us and we’ll help you pad it out to perfection!
Discover Palm’s 2011 range. We’ll have experts on hand to talk you through the range and our design process.
Bring your bikeand take part in the multisport challenge.
Sounds good! How much is it?
Tickets are £25 and on sale now! Call the centre on 01678 521 083 or pop in to reception to book. Please advise of any dietary requirments at time of booking.
As with last year there will be shuttles from the lower river, camping at Bala Mill on Friday and Saturday night, evening entertainment and meals provided on Friday and Saturday night.
I’m convinced, now show me some shots of last year’s 8-Ball Carnage!
I thought you’d never ask. Here you go.
This all sounds a bit advanced to me, is there anywhere I can go to try paddling for the first time?
Don’t forget, we’re also in the East Midlands this weekend at the Midsummer Great Escape in Belvoir Castle. The perfect opportunity to get on the water for the first time…
Me & Katya are now half way through the Whitewater grand prix event in Canada.
The event comprises of 3 freestyle and 3 creek competitions on huge rapids and waves to determine the overall winner. We’ve now completed the first 3 and have 3 more to go.
Stage 1:- Big Trick Contest – Gladiator Wave
We did expect some big water&waves here in Canada, but the first event held on the Gladiator wave on the Ottawa river showed it can be even bigger. Here in Canada people enjoy huge tricky waves in the middle of the rapid, it also must have a huge hole behind for extra excitement.
You paddle out and down through the top half of the rapid then onto the wave do your best to hold on and throw a move then paddle as hards as you can to avoid the ledge hole. Most paddlers took quite a few attempts at the wave before they mustered up the courage to catch it and with such a big, surgy wave to surf getting a move was never easy. I managed to get a big Air screw as my best move that placed me 11th. Ben Marr (1st), Dane Jackson (2nd) & Rush Sturges (3rd) had the best moves of the day for sure.
Girls event was about who manage to surf the wave and longest surf wins. Lou Urwin 1st, Emily Jackson 2nd, Katya took 3rd, was very glad she did surf it at all, as even after one day not every competitor managed.
Stage 2:- Big Water Boatercross – Gauntlet on the Rouge river
Next up we headed to the Rouge river for the big water boatercross, big waves and big water awaited us but it was no where near as intense as Gladiator had been so they decided to do a mass start boatercross to cut the bottom 6 then 4 at a time head to heads to decide the rest.
The mass start was full on with 22 paddlers trying to race together down through the chaos, I had a great start reaching the first main rapid in 2nd position but that all went a bit wrong as i tried to dodge around Casper and ended up in the main hole, i never really made it back up after that so got cut out of the future rounds with the other bottom 6 paddlers. Top 3 was Nick Troutman 1st, Bryan Kirk 2nd and Anton Immler 3rd.
Ladies had not as mass start, it was only four of them, but they made it to the finish with some carnage and one swim. Katya had two runs with a good line, ended up on 2nd position.
Stage 3:- Steep creek time trial – Petite Bostonnais
Third up was a creek race time trial on the Petite Bostonnais 2 runs best 1 counts. On the drive up there was water & flooded out areas everywhere we passed through so it wasn’t a suprise to get there to find way too high flows to paddle safely but luckily for the actual competition day they managed to get the dam to reduce the flow for the event with just enough time to scout and do one practice run before the race.
The run was the hardest creek I’ve ever paddled never mind race. At the top was a double drop waterfall followed by a tricky third drop and then an absolutely massive rocky slide maybe 250m long with a big hole near the bottom.
My practice went well, apart from missing my boof on a top drop, and i really felt there were many opportunities to hurt yourself on a slide, where I felt no control and couldn’t see very much at all except from whitewater. So I wasn’t too sure about running it again in the race with already quite a few swims by some top creekers on their practice run but then i decided to at least do one run and take my chances.
I was fourth to go and on the radio as the paddlers before me set off i heard that all 3 had swam, pretty unnerving for sure but i felt good as I set off I didn’t paddle like a race at all. I took it slow got my boofs and only really started to speed up towards the end, got really good lines down all the drops/ slides but wasn’t super fast on the flats. I was the first to make it down to the finish line and was super fired up! I decided not to go for a second run being happy enough with my first. I finished up 14th in the race with the top 3 being, 1st Even Garcia, 2nd Dane Jackson & 3rd Ben Marr.
In total their were 12 swimmers during the race so I was pretty happy to have made it down fine especially since I’m not really a creeker, you know the section is full on when solid creek paddlers like Tyler Curtis, Joel Kolwalski, Nick Troutman and Aniol Serrasolses end up swimming!
Also we get to surf some waves in between competition stages. We went to the White Dog wave on a Rouge river in another day, it was the best spot here in Canada so far for freestyle as we know it in Europe – with eddy, no hassle to get on, but still big, green and fast
We keep been blown away by the scale of the rivers here, we’ve never seen so much water and rivers in an area!
The organizers keep bringing us to these amazing full on locations and putting us up in nice hotels and cabins, they even feed us sometimes it really is amazing how their pulling off the event with all those helicopters flying around..
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…
It’s the weather report every kayaker waits for, and every non kayaker dreads…. A Heavy Rain Warning. Earlier this week, the remnants of a slow moving easterly cyclone and a cold and wet front roaring up from the Southern Ocean collided over the North Island of New Zealand. This was bad news for Easter holiday makers but it was good news for us. As per normal when heavy rain is approaching the cell phone lit up, plans were hatched and a restless night ensued…. The rain arrived as predicted and it was game on. Our destination for the day, The Wainui River…
I had been itching to get on the Wainui after missing the first descent several years earlier due to food poisoning that I picked up the previous night from drinking a large number of dodgy beers… Or something like that! Since then there has been a number of descents and the reports filtering back have been all good! Stories of epic slides and big drops were more than enough to wet the appetite…. Finally, on Tuesday, it was my turn!
- Only a kayaker knows the feeling! The moment we live for…. rolling off the lip of the big one.
- Inside the beast… About 50 feet into the freefall and preparing for impact!
- Tucking in and hanging on….
- This drop in the middle of the Wainui is about as good as they come… Who says kiwis can’t fly.
- Pretty stoked, and a little dazed and confused!
- Watching Simon take his run.
- Jamie taking flight.
- Big old air boof on little brother.
- Airing it out on little brother.
- The other end of a 30 foot boof… This would explain the stiff neck!
- Simon styling it!
- One epic slide after another…
- Letting gravity do the work on another rowdy Wainui slide.
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