GoDeep

old kummerbrucke edit

2011-10-25T02:28:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-07-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

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!

vercazsca

2011-06-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

just spent a weekend in tessin and tirol so i managed to get on the awesome vercazsca, flows were low but that was good for the lower section, would of been real full on with anymore water, sorry about photo quality, iv'e been real slack with photos and film lately.

alex probably a little more left than he wanted to be

wicked as s turn boof

funky slide thing

there was a log pin at the end of this rapid that brought closer to drowning than i would like to be

awesome slide

clean boofs

and nasty recerc!

right so blogs wont be coming for awhile but when they do the will be coming from norway so they will be freckin epic!, there are more photos on my facebook page if you want to check them out

cummerbrucke dam release

2011-06-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

just 45 minutes from my house is one of austria's most premiere kayaking runs the cummerbrucke on the enns.......unfortunately it has a dam on it, much like everything that has more than a slight trickle running down it here in europe!

fortunately we have had some very strange weather here in wildalpen resulting in 2 days hard rain which meant that we had a dam release!

i have to say that this section of white water has been one of the best i have ever paddled, not incredibly challenging probably class 4 but steeper than your average river, it has everything from tight squeezes to drops and cool rapids, if you ever have the chance to paddle the cummerbrucke with anywhere between 20-50 cumecs you are in for an absolute treat!

enjoy!

short but sweet, this river is stacked with drops

dropping into sweet as s-turn

this feeling is just great

getting mad bow air

lukas getting his boof right, if you don't this has a tendency to back loop

georgie nails his line on needle ear (1 metre squeeze)

been dry here all spring so it was a real treat to get on some quality whitewater, looking forward to norway! photos from vacazsca coming soon

untertalbach

2011-06-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

so i just got back from switzerland and i finally got round to getting the pictures from the untertalbach! it was a pretty epic creek, unfortunately i took a swim and my boat (by which i mean the boat i borrowed) went downstream without any air bags and put 2 huge dents in it......so now i own a huka! hopefully might be able to get ahold of a mini mystic for norway though!

getting burly

line looks really good here

but not so much here =/

damn

so more photos from the verzasca and cummerbrucke to come!

check out the video from untertalbach here untertalbach video

gesuase eingang photos

2011-05-23T04:14:00.000-07:00

the gesause is a biggish water class 4+ rapid on the enns. big water is not my forte so i f**ked up my line abit lol......ohwell

riverbug tour of northern italy

2011-05-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

so i have been bust since my last update, just got back from a week of test tours around northern italy which was great. even managed to get a run in on the ahrn in the puster valley (class 4+) unfortunately we were to busy trying to read and run to take photos, but we also got a nice little run on a little gorge of the sermenza (class 4ish?) which was quite nice but low like pretty much everything in europe at the moment =(.

i also managed to squeeze in a run of the gesuase eingang before i left (class 4+), check out the pics on my next blog

la sesia very nice river

test tour crew training some guides

la sermenza! fun little gorge perfect for bugs

committing to a drop backwards is always interesting

unfortunately we didn't get time to run everything, but rest assured i'll be back

a real italian bbq!

all in all a successful tour, a lot of promotion and interest for river bugs!

hopefully with a little luck salim and myself will be able to take a week off to back down and kayak some creeks!

video footage

2011-04-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

just uploaded a bunch of vids check it out http://www.youtube.com/user/jandalsarefun?feature=mhum

kayaking ausrtia

2011-04-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

had a good weekend over easter, salim came over from switzerland so with no delay we went out and hit up the river! heres some pics from the salza, laussafall, enns and a river which name escapes me but has over a 100 weirs!

salim dropping in to the big one

placing that crucial stroke

this didn't end well

salim mid back loop

getting amongst it

can anyone say uber stomp!?

this weir is about 3m tall and probably the best place ever to learn and perfect your boof or even stomp!

please stomp responsibly

salim mastering his boof

the water taking the full hit of my stomp!

picture speaks for itself

so all in all one of the best weekends out kayaking i have had in along time, stay tuned for some action on the rothbach; a class 5 series of slides and waterfalls! just waiting for it to crap down with rain then i'll be out there!

europe!

2011-04-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

so i have been here in europe for a week now and what i have seen so far of the culture is quite to my liking(eg. eating alot and drinking beer). had my first day on the river in a month today, on a river called the saltza which is about 50m metres of my door step!. nothing hearty maybe class 2 but good to be back on the water again!

anyone want to try this chocolate cake i baked? i made it with my own secret ingredient!

the man cave

one of the put ins for the saltza

sweet

anyway just a taste of what's to come of austrian white water. hopefully we will be going for a drive to go paddle the enz, which will be awesome!

first blog entry

2011-04-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

hey guys, so since i figured that you are all going to miss me so much once i'm in europe i thought i would make a blog to keep you all updated on the stuff i'm doing!

so here are some random pics from my time over summer in nz, enjoy!

me going real deep with rata doing her booty

attempting a front loop

picking my way through my first descent of glenroy

nice mid action pic on whale creek rapid

phil sliding it up! on the mid matak's

my little house nestled up on a the hill deep in the buller gorge. lived in this bad boy for almost 3 months all on my lonesome!(totally worth to run the stout!)

ignoring signs

phil showing what his biological hunk of meat can do!

so leaving for europe tommorow! hopefully i can get some pictures of the stout over there in a couple of weeks for you kayak junkies back in nz to drool over deep in jealously!

until then peace out!