Its that time of year again! Spring has sprung, rains have swollen the rivers and there is time off work to go check out new runs. The other day we headed over to Eksingedale to try to run a river we rarely see with water. Eksingedale is an amazing valley, starting with a well know ‘Lake to Lake’ drop the river then flows over 5 ridiculously large waterfalls before flowing to what we hoped would be a runnable section! Little did we know….
23
May
Norway – Spring Flows with the bros!
23
May
Northern California – North Yuba
Leland and I have headed to Northern California to research more rivers for our new guidebook, The River Gypsies’ Guide to North America. The North Yuba drainage turned out to be a class III/IV paddling destination dream!
Check out our full update at RiverGypsies.com
Recoiling the big one on the Goodyear’s Bar play run.
22
May
Paddling in Lofer
My brother and I enjoyed an awesome paddling weekend in Lofer/Austria. Thanks to the rainfall the week before, we were able to run the gorge several times in our Ammos and had heaps of fun. Perfect water level, perfect weather, perfect weekend!
21
May
Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series – River Washburn, UK
After years of the Peak UK Challenge series Pete Astles has decided to take a break. Step up Jim from Alpkit and a slightly changed format and you get the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series. Round 1 was at the River Washburn in the UK and with a Boater X, Alpjam, Freestyle and a Pyranha Speeder Race, you were guaranteed a great event!!
18
May
17
May
TEVA Extreme Mountain Games Val Sesia
Three days of competition not just in kayak, but as well in other sports like mountain running, downhill biking and bouldering and a big party made this years TEVA Extreme Mountain Games to a really entertaining event. Friday morning it started out with a team race on the Egua followed by an individual downriver race. Due to the low water levels the slalom, downriver race and the kayak cross on Saturday and Sunday all took place on the Sorba. Apart from the team race I competed in all other races an took 3rd in the overall score. For a more detailed description see http://playak.com/article.php?sid=1265.
17
May
VDKS Canoe instructor course
Two weeks ago I went to Slovenia in order to teach people to become a VDKS (Association of German canoe schooling) kayak instructor. As the timetable for this type of course is usually quite full, Marcus, Lothar and I decided to do a good morning run on the big gorge of the Soca, getting up at five and being back to camp for breakfast at eight. Seeing the big smiles in our faces the participants got quite jealous, so we promised them to run the third canyon of the upper Soca with them the next morning.
Marcus, Grit and Anna in the thrid canyon of the Soca (Slovenia)
14
May
a California low water year ain’t so bad.
We’ve hit California to see what all we can get in this record low snowpack year – and the answer is you can still get a lot of paddling in out here!
You can view our full update at www.RiverGypsies.com.
Here are some teaser photos for you:
Andria Recoiling on the Kaweah.
Leland running Zero to Sixty, Hospital Rock section of the Middle Kaweah.
More to come soon!
11
May
