I am way too lazy on reporting, but before i head off to norway next friday, i try to sum up and recall what happened:
March:
Still winter around us, i went with ron to check out some more of the Flem.
Video Clip on eyespot.com
April:
The water levels were quite low, but still we had fun easter in the Tessin:
First i met up with ron, luc and severin, and we run the upper gorge of the Rovana, which is known as unrunnable or better not to attempt, which seems to count only for higher flows.
What we found after difficult scouting is a deep canyon with good bedrock and boulders. It was way better than nothing, and with the great feel of the unknown.
Next we went on the classic lower Verzasca, which always is awesome, even if it is as low as 3 m3/s…
Finally we headed to the Ribo, which is quite famous for his big drop, but less known, there is much more, if you go higher.
We went up as high as the road reaches, and ran a drop there with really minimal flow.
Notice in the video how i am chased by the following water, which gets stopped by the boat…
The next day we ran the classic lower Ribo with the big drop, still on minimal water.
more Easter-Trip Photos by ron
May & June:
Since then, we paddled a lot, but did not take much images of it, except from the Plessur.
An incredible discovery, 6km of awesome, continuous boulder and gravel bed. Another completely unknown run in a so well known area, we really could not believe it…
see Image Gallery on kanuschule.ch
July:
Finally, last Saturday, we went to the Schöllenen, an ominous bedrock gorge on the River Reuss.
This Place is quite famous to all swiss people, for all the history behind it, and also for the impressive alpine scenery.
To a Paddlers eye, it really looks like California, but rather unrunnable on the first glance.
There are lots of rumors about the paddling there being awesome to impossible…
Sure is one thing, it is not too easy to hit it with reasonable flows.
But we were Lucky. In short, after the most complicated scouting- safety- and takeout- rope-work that all of us had ever done (5hours for 5 Paddlers to run the first Slide/Waterfall Combo, 3h for the remaining 2km), i think i have two new entries in my ‘top 10’ of the coolest rapids i know.
The Schöllenen Story told by Ron (german)
more Schöllenen Images by Ron
All Images by Ron Fischer