Road Trip
So you may have noticed over the last 6 months, there has been a distinct lack of blogs on my creek and big water paddling. This was because I was focusing purely on my racing at this year’s Junior European Championships. However within 3 days after the Europeans, Joe Morley and I had started the drive out to Europe, with 4 plastic boats on the roof. Our plan was to drive out straight to Prague for a few days of Freestyle paddling on the 2008 Freestyle world cup site, also home to many international slalom competitions.
All packed up and ready to go
Creeking In Czech
On arrival to Prague a BBQ was quickly set up, at 11:30pm and steak was readily consumed after the 14 hour+ drive out. In the morning I woke early, as usual after a late night, so took a look at the river. My heart sunk after seeing the level far too high for the slalom course, leaving the channel backed up and washed out, no use for paddling at all. I quickly made the plan that we were not staying in Prague, I was having serious withdrawal symptoms from paddling. Unfortunately I did not know many Czech non slalom paddlers, but a quick look on the Pyranha Team website gave me a few names. After speaking with Katerina Migdauova she said our best bet was to head up to North Czech with herself, and a few mates. On arival to a small town called Jizerske Hory, the landscape becoming ever more mountainous and seeing swollen rivers below us really got my heart pumping, excited to run some real water. We parked in a small carpark filled fully with paddlers cars and brightly coloured boats. We followed the group up the valley, after a reasonably long steep drive, we went over a brow of a hill to see a huge bowl like valley, filled with small wooden houses, it reminded me of a western film as the cowboys look upon the Indian settlement. We paddled this small tributary which joined the main river about a km down. The river was very steep, very rocky and incredibly good fun. The top was tight narrow and gnarly which really put me on my toes after not paddling a creek boat on steep water for many months. The river then opened out following the confluence of 2 other rivers to give some bigger , deeper technical rapids.
nice technical rapid on our first river
We then decided to paddle the Kamenica, a river which I would describe as a steeper wider bigger Washburn. This river was exceedingly good fun, continuous rapids all the way down. It ended with a 15-20 foot weir, one that the locals were wary of due to the shallow landing and strong tow-back. After a careful inspection, and giving Joe first the camera, then the throw-line I was psyched to run the drop. I got some run on the boat, and looked for my line, a strong boof off the lip landed me flat at the bottom, with lots of speed to clear the tow-back.
Final drop on the Kamenice
My experience of the rivers in Czech was very positive, and I would definitely encourage people to go paddle their more often and get it on the map!
Wild Water Racing World Champs
The next place on our trip was Opava, Home to the 2011 wild water racing junior world championships. A week was spent there, learning the lines and racing. The river was exceedingly flat, favouring the bigger stronger paddlers, however GB fought hard and came out with some reasonable results! It was a great week and it was especially great to meet up with friends which I had met over the previous 2 years. It was especially to see the amount of paddlers that were not just wild water paddlers, Haley Popp, a fellow NRS team paddler raced well, along with her brother Bryson who raced in C2 class as well as many slalomists who competed in wild water alongside their slalom paddling.
Team race in Czech
Time for the main event
On arrival in Austria life was once again balanced. My slalom and wild water paddling had been the priority, but now it was just me and the rivers, able to choose what to paddle, what lines to take, and ultimately how hard I wanted to push myself. Many rivers were paddled during the ten days we were in Austria but I will only speak about the highlights. We started the trip with a medium level run of the Inn Shoot and Landeck gorge.
Inn Shoot and Landeck Gorge
The Inn Shoot is one of the best bits of water to date that I have paddled. It is a continuous 3km run with large waves and huge holes. Joe had told me about this run, saying it was a lot of fun, so it was on the hit list for both of us. Joe made a call to Oz Rowdon, a slalom paddler he had paddled with in Austria last year with, and we were set to go. We got to the get in, and started a decent towards the gorge. My heart was pumping., egerly awaiting to see what the river looked like at water level, not 100 feet up! The whole run was non stop paddling, powering threw the edges of holes and fighting over waves to see what the next section would bring. The river flattened off after this until Landeck gorge approached giving a nice short ending rapid.
Lower Venter Ache- My favourite run to date!
The Lower Ventre Ache was quite simply amazing. Large (very large) continuous rapids for 6km. Joe and I had paddled the top half earlier in the week, and were determined to paddle the rest. We headed up to the get in and met with a group of Czech Guys. The river was high still due to glacial melt, way over the guide books high water recommendation however the Czech Guys had ran it once that morning so, despite it being a higher level Joe and I decided to give it a go.
The river is fast, and narrow, a little wider than Trywern. The river had continuous high peaky waves and large holes, some of which went across the whole river. The gorges were seriously steep with no exit, intimidating when in the middle of them was some of the biggest water I had seen. The river was still rising sharply when we got off the water, but one more run seemed like a good idea. The river was bigger still and so fast we did 3 breakouts on the whole 6km.
First rapid on the Venter Ache this starts on exit of the get in eddy
Lower Oetz
The lower Oetz is the classic run, in low water it is a run much like the Tay, in high waters it just keeps getting bigger with large standing waves and munchy holes to punch. The highlights of the Oetz for me, have to be the standing play wave below the “extreme danger weir” which had me doing clean spins and surfing all day, and the rapid on the following corner, where there is literally a wall of water standing in front of you which you have no choice but to punch threw.
just a fuzzy screan shot - new photo comming soon :P
Brandenburger Ache
I had been pretty excited about this run all week. Joe had been bigging it up for the past 6 months, so I was anxious to see it for myself. Getting on to the river, after briefly looking at the first gorge from a foot wide path, literally cut in to the cliff, left a lot of unknowns, especially how big the water was going to be down there. The first gorge was steep fast with small drops all the way down, ending with a curl off a wall in to a deep recirculating hole which had me quickly flipped and rolling. The best thing about this river was the length, 16km ish I think was the section we paddled, the even better thing is the river doesn’t really slow for a great distance before you are in the next over hanging gorge working your way down the next rapid. It was quite an exhilarating experience paddling threw a gorge not much more than 3 meters wide with cliffs towering above, and indeed over your head. About half way down there was one shot portage, due to a drop with a tree in the hole, however the portage was so steep and tricky at the time it almost seemed safer to run the rapid. The last section was again in a gorge and had a small drop with a nasty hole at the bottom, which saw a few of the team having to bounce off a wall or fight their way out of the hole.
And thus ends the post, I had the time off my life paddling out in the alps, something I plan to do again as soon as possible. The experience I have gained from my time out there, has made me much more confident and I am now really looking forward to Sickline in a month or two’s time!
Upper Pitzbach
The Upper Pitsbazh was also a good run, a technical rocky 8km made us on our toes. It also had a nice little boof half way down…
Small Boof on the Pitzbach
Thanks
I would firstly like to thank Joe for joining me on the trip, he was great to have along and made things run smoothly. I would also like to thank NRS, Lightning Paddles and Pyranha as my gear really did serve me extremely well throughout the trip. In addition to this I would like to thank White Water Canoe Centre, Nelo kayaks and GoPro for their continued support. I will also thank Desperate Measures on behalf of Joe for supporting him.
Over and out,
David Bain
