kayking in europe/ film project

so it's been awhile since i posted anything on here, but anyway i'm back in wildalpen again and this year it is full of english speakers, so naturally i befriended the 2 young irish paddlers and we have been ripping it up around europe (so to speak) we had good couple weeks in italy running some pretty darn steep white water and now we are back in austria working as guides to pay off for our trip to norway (which is hopefully still happening) in any case we are trying to get out and run some whitewater around central europe aswell, and i've been piling up heaps of footage that hopefully will result in a 20 minute kayak film. despite not uploading anything since my last film from norway last year i have been working on my cinematography and editing, also i purchased a great new camera, personally i am totally over the gopro and the pov trend that is polluting the internet with amateur videos that are over using and abusing the twixtor effect (super slow motion) alongside dubstep music. now i myself have to admit that i followed the trend and made such videos, but after becoming a couch kayaker (60% watching kayaking 40% actually kayaking) i have become tired of the same style of video coming up over and over again so i have put a bit more effort into my filming trying something original catching different angles and learning proper techniques etc.

anyway i thought that i would show you the kind of footage that my new camera can catch so here is a short clip of my friend eoin keyes throwing ends in the local play hole the helli welli, enjoy

old kummerbrucke edit

awhile back i made a post about the kummerbrucke run which was my go to run when we had some rain. It's not incredibly hard run but there are a few nasty consequences if you don't find your line, but a great run to practice your boofs and cross current moves, catching eddy's etc. we like it with somewhere between 20-40 cumecs but i had one friend who had soloed it at a whopping 70!, before i left europe we did a low water run of it, something like ten cumecs =( but still better than nothing.....anyway check out the footage!

oh and cheers to my friend georg friedl for editing it, other paddlers are matthias zeiner and corrina rebnegger

longer norway edit

this is the first edit that i made for norway but never uploaded due to some spelling mistakes and general dissatisfaction, but it's got some shots of other stuff that wasn't in my previous upload if you want to check it out

mucking around on laussafall

so andy and luke hit me up again this weekend so we rallied off to laussafall and kummerbrucke, kummerbrucke was dissapointingly low but the guys got some shots of laussafall, so i made a quick edit of me trying to boof, stomp and freewheel off her.

http://vimeo.com/28128365

laussafall

hey guys, so ever since i got back from norway i have pretty shitty problems with my ears and have been sitting on my computer instead of boating. so when luki and andy came me and jamy went down to laussafall and took some great shots, heres the video with sound this time!

http://vimeo.com/27915894

norway edit

so it took me a long long time but i have finally managed to upload the video edit from my kayak trip to norway! check this one out guys!, also i might be uploading a previous longer edit that i made sometime

check out my other videos at my channel http://www.youtube.com/user/jandalsarefun?feature=mhee

NORWAY!

norway, mosqitos that eat you alive, rain all the time, cold weather, perpetual sunlight that keeps you up for hours, ridicously expensive, 90km/h speed limit. but by far the worst thing of all about norway........is leaving.

living and kayaking in nz i had heard and seen a little bit of norway boating, but seeing as it's about as far away from nz that you can get, i never really thought that i would be going there, or kayaking there for that matter!. so when georg, matt and corrina asked me to come with them it was a little bit surreal, in all honesty i didn't think i was up for it. but the guys assured me that despite my inexperience (maybe 2ish years kayaking) they thought i would have the skills to hold my own. so as soon as i had confirmed my attendance to the trip i started training on all the challenging water in the alps i could (in other words i got a grade 4-5 beat down, which also resulted in me having to own and paddle a huka =( but that's another story).

on approaching norway it would be appropriete to say that i was a little scared, so i tried to remember quotes i had heard and what my friends and family had told me "have fun, be safe", "the best paddler in the world is the one having the most fun!", "know your limits". but i must have ignored these because it seems as if i ended up on some of the craziest water i had ever paddled. but despite that i was making the lines and having the best time of my life!

so.......heres norway (hope you have alot of spare time!)

telemark region

our first stop on the trip was in the telemark region. we were blessed with high levels which was good because we were quite late in the season for this area.

austbigdai

class 4-5

we spent day 1,2 and 3 on the austbigdai, upper section was great! except matt took a nasty swim and put a dent in his boat. we dropped in for the lower (california section) but it was to full on so we pulled out and headed back up for the upper. day 3 saw us for park and huck on the mighty sparmenfossen!

matt stomping the 2m sneak line

matt on 2m slot

big granite slides with big features

ran this thing 3 times! then did it backwards

me coming off the lip off sparmenfossen, 

ended a tad over the bars and out from the curtain so it hurt a little

mär

class 5

this is the best waterfall combo ever!

here we found an excellent camp site at the takeout of the homerun section, so after spamenfossen we moved to home run, scouted it and ran it on day 4 and 5

number1 (this hurt)

number2

number5

number1 round 2

number4

corinna on number4

on round 1 i discovered a flaw in the huka boat design, came off the first drop side ways and landed on my paddle which resulted in the graphic inlay on the side of my boat to remove the skin from my knuckles, once you drop in for 1 you have to run2 but after that i was done for the day. came back the next day and stuck every drop! by the way i neglected to mention number 3, its only 2m high and had a shitty hydraulic, we took the chicken line

numerdalslagen

class 3-5

at the numerdal we camped at the dagali raft base which was awesome! we also managed to get on the mighty zambezi section!, i'm not very good on big water and we had a medium flow so i was a little nervous, but we had a great day out with absolutely no dramas!

some latvian guy?

dagali camp 360 swing!

otta and co region

so after a short discussion we decided that our next plan of action was to move to the otta region.

we stayed at the the sjack camp, which was cold but we had sun almost the whole time we were there!

store ula

class 5

now before we left for norway georg showed me some pictures from his last trip to norway, and when i saw the photos from the waterfall section on the store ula, i had to run it!

this was by far my favourite river on the whole trip, we had medium low flow so the parts between the slides and drops were bony, and the trip isn't very long but the quality and challenging nature of the drops and slides made up for it, never have i encountered such a mix of fun and difficulty!

georgie enjoying one of the long slides

me dropping into fun in the form of granite and water

waterfall combo! drop 1

and 2

and the biggest to finish, this is the 3rd drop. in fact there are 5 of them! but number 4 is 16m high and is very dangerous so we set up a throwline across the river in the pool of the 3rd to make sure noone went over it!

all in all a fantastic day out!........apart from when corrinna got pushed into a fuck you undercut on the very last drop of the waterfall combo after styling every drop!, which caused her to drop her paddle and swim. we spent an hour trying to retrieve the paddle from the undercut but had no luck, its probably joined along list of missed paddles under there.

there was also a really good 4m waterfall with slide in entrance but the camera died so no photos =(

bovra

class 3-4

we didn't take any photos this day but that's not to say it wasn't gnarly! i scouted a rapid and thought it was good to go, as soon as i dropped in i got pushed into an undercut, i managed to hold my self upright on a shelf to prevent my self going under it but had to let go of my paddle to do so, after getting out of my boat the boys towed it in and matt climbed down to help me get my paddle, we found it after ten minutes, i had to hold him by the legs while he reached into the undercut with a retrival stick! cheers matt!

voss region

voss was tricky for us, almost everthing was in the class 5 region so finding runs that were in our ability level was difficult, especially because the levels weren't very good and not many things were runnable

lower myrkdal

class 5

we heard that the lower was at a good level and wasn't as hard as the guide book said so we headed over to check it out, the first drop was big, but clean. the book (or die furher) said that this was what it was like for pretty much the whole way with a few crux moves and a lot of towbacks to scout and safety. so we dropped in!

dropping in for the first drop

getting huge air of the kicker!

we maybe paddled the first 5 or 6 rapids when corinna took a swim, clean up was quick and she was fine but she wasn't paddling with a very good paddle (spare paddle i found on the vercazsca), she decided not to go on and matt wasn't very keen so we had to pull the plug and hike out

upper myrkdal

class 4-5

despite the fact that it looked quite low and bumpy we all decided the next day that the upper would be a better run for us,  turns out that it wasn't do bumpy and we had a great day out running some quality drops and sides

this one was admittidely a little bumpy

make your boof count here! apparently tyler curtis almost drowned on the very dodgy underwater ledge just after it

corina on the nicest drop on the upper right at the end

upper was good fun but i would really like to get on the lower one day to see what wonders lay down there

strondelvi 

class 2/4-5

the strondelvi is a fun run with few rapids and drops, but the un-challenged high light is of course the money drop!

i watched 3 people go before me with varying lines and results, they all came out fine but i was admittedly the most scared of this drop as i have ever been. but i looked at the line and knew i could hit it so got in my boat took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.

line was perfect! softest hit ever!

raundelslevi

class 3-4

the other guys were taking a day off so i paired up with some slovenians and paddled the raundalselvi!

this river is infamous for many movie drops, such as nose breaker, the tunnel and voss vier. but i was assured that i would be on an easy section, second rapid in i took my first swim of the whole trip! i dropped into a rather large hole but held my shit together for a good 60 seconds while anrush got to the side and throw bagged me, i got out of it with my boat but the rope wrapped around my paddle and it was pulled from my hands! so i had to pull the deck. then after a clean up on the next rapid i boofed over a drop and landed on betty stuck in the recerc! she got out but i didn't! swim number 2, so after looking like a fool with a bunch of people i had never paddled with before my spirits were uplifted by a 7m waterfall with a kicker at the end!

i didn't have a camera so waiting for an email from rok with the photos, they will be in my next blog

jodalselvi

class 4-5

when we first came to voss the river that was on our minds was the jordal, low volume creeking with slides and drops and a clean 10m waterfall!

but upon scouting it we discovered it was to low... a measly 3 cumecs, but unbeknownst to me while i was off with the slovenians matt and corina went to check it out after some rain, it was still low but also runnable, they paddled it and we all came back again the next day to check it out

interesting line from matt

corina showing what slalom style is all about!

got balls anyone?

it was quite a boat scratcher but it still had some quality drops and slides in there, i would love to get back in with 10 cumecs. matt ran the waterfall with only 4 or 5 cumecs but even i don't have balls that big! as he said "that's what seperates the men from the boys" but i don't feel bad about it at all, it will be there for the next 1000 years!

so this river brought an end to undoubtedly the best kayak trip of my life!, check out more photos on my facebook album, also a video edit to come soon!