My year 2011 – Anne Huebner

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…