Another Telemark trip

Summer days in Norway fly really fast, especially last weeks were super busy at work, so I was really glad when the rain came and we were able to take a day off and go to Telemark area again. Since it's just hour from us we tried to get on Mar and Goest, but there were both not running.

Beautiful scenery in Telemark area

Anyway, there was good flow on Ausbygdi and lower part called California section is always good to do.

Vojta sliding down

River was fantastic. Since we've paddled it couple weeks ago, we were just not scouting and running almost everything except few mandatory portages.

Vojta was leading the way down and I kept the pace with him - pretty forward movement with some eddy catching made our day.

One of many perfect spots on Ausbygdi.

Vojta is going hard.

Within an hour we were above last big gorge before the city. We've decided to run some of the drop, but infamous Poster Drop was just a little bit too juicy, so we took out there. This drop is waiting for our next run.

Sick shot by Vojta's girlfriend. Love it.

Safety on the shore :)

What else to say, it was just another great day on water with best friends. Sun was shinning, level was good. So what more you can ask for.

Scouting Poster Drop.

Be ready for more - Dagali Cowboys just got back from 5 days trip on rivers like Strondalselvi, Rauma or Skjoli. Edit is coming soon :)

High on life....

Norway - vol.1

It's been little bit over the month since I've moved to Norway for the summer. The decision was quite easy since I had no money to travel overseas and got opportunity to work for good company as a raft guide and safety kayaker. Also it helped a lot that few other czech boaters are here on Numedalslagen as well.

Safety kayaking can be a lot of fun too

Anyway, after my arrival the water level here at Dagali was super high. Level 9 reminded me of my last summer on North Fork of Payette in Idaho, the waves were almost as big and holes also, just that it's not that continuous.
Shortly speaking rafting with clients down some of the rapids was the biggest experience of my guiding life, it's just so big and you have to work really hard to avoid all the stuff.  Last week I got my first big swim, didn't hold the rope properly and flied all the way forward and over board.

Surfing hard at last big rapid called Ismar falls

Enough about the work, main reason why I came to Norway was of course kayaking. It's true paradise and every kayaker should visit at least once. This season was unique even for Norway, because there was big amount of snow pack and during June and beginning of July it all melted during the high temperature.

Running 14 meter slide on upper Skoggsa

Basically everything was running at extremely high levels and even some rivers were not runnable. Since Dagali is really close to the Telemark area, we went for Skoggsa and Ausbygda rivers. Especially upper section of Skoggsa was true dream - drops, waterfalls, nice rapids in gorge, just so much fun.  After we paddled this one, we moved for evening run on California section of Ausbygda. It's another classic of Norway. Everything went smooth there as well, so we arrived tired but happy at midnight home.

Celebration picture bellow this beauty

Another trip which was waiting for me was week of extreme sports in Voss aslo known as Ekstremsport Veko. It's one of the biggest festival of extreme sports in the world - including base jumping, speed flying, longboarding, skiing, biking, kayaking, rafting and so on. Also every evening is good concert with today's video which is always great to watch (https://vimeo.com/45011553). Anyway, I went there to participate in kayaking and also just to paddle around because Voss area offers a lot.

One of the drops on Brandseth river

The weather was little bit agains us. High temperature and sunshine caused lot of snow melt and high levels in most of the rivers. Anyways, first few days was the kayaking competition which was held on beautiful river called Brandseth. River is full of slides, drops and clear water. I managed to get on 17th spot, which is not actually that bad out of 65 kayakers from all around the world, but made some mistakes on the way down. The victory went to Eric Dequil (FRA), 2nd was  Sam Sutton (NZ) and 3rd spot went to Italy for Michele Ramazza.

Beautiful scenery for visitors

After the downhill was over, team race was on the list up next. We formed first czech team ever competing in Veko together with Jiri Kopecny and Jakub Sedivy. Unfortunately we made some big mistakes and missed the podium, but it was great run down, because normally you would paddle this whole river in like 2 hours but during the race you're down within 12 minutes.

Racing down hard!

The rest of the week was just about kayaking rivers around and great parties in festival tent. We managed to paddle Jordalselvi and also rarely running Urladselvi which is the side creek to Randalselvi. Jordalselvi was as usual, great.

Scouting the Double on Urlandselvi

Urland was something else. Within few minutes of paddling we got to double drop combo. It's 5 meters drop followed by another 8 meter brother. After some scouting we decided to run it. Jiri went first and have a sweet line, unfortunalely hit on the bottom was really big so his skirt popped, luckily he managed to get in eddy safe.

First one down.

I was up next, first drop without any problem then final stroke on the top of the next one and tack forward. Landing was super soft, but I came up upside down. Even quick roll was not enough to avoid mean rocks on river right, went through some of them upside down, took a big hit and luckily managed to rolled up with hands. Such a great feeling to be back on light.

Second drop by Jiri Kopecny, you might just see his paddle :)

Anyway, after this one, we decided to carry on, but the level was really big and even next few hundred meters were quite scary, so after some time, we called it off and chicken out which came up as a good idea after all.

Double rainbow in Norway, love it here.

So this is basically what was my first weeks in Norway like. Lot of travelling, working, kayaking and enjoying life here in Norway with good people.
Another update is coming soon.

Spring flow

This spring has been pretty intensive for me. First was rather short Corsica trip which was one big unsuccesful mission - we left friday night and were back in Prague by monday morning. It all included travelling all the way to Corsica, looking for water there and driving back (+ 2 big parties on ferry).

Anyway, after this trip the winter was finally over also in Czech and we were really happy to have some intense days of whitewater paradise. Everything was running many times which is not always happening. Sometimes the snow just slowly melts, but this year was diferent. Snowpack was quite high and especially one weekend was just unbeliaveble.
Finest creeks were on with flow that was never there before. Check out this four minute edit that shows what it's like to paddle in 25 degrees and sunshine in mid April.

Czech it out :)
Spring flow from Matěj Holub on Vimeo.

Testing new Liquidlogic Stomper

In the end of my summer in USA I got an opportunity to test new Liquiglogic boat Stomper 90. Water level on North Fork of Payette was still quite high for the late summer, so me and WIll Stubblefield went for a whole 15 miles top to bottom adventure.




I was surprised how well this creek boat behave even on the big volume river. New planning hole was pimped up with some edges that grabs the water really well while doing ferries or eddy turns. This feature is one of the key ones to be successful on North Fork. Also Stompers nose has rised up even more from Jefe, which can safe a lot of troubles if you go deep in some hole.



There are more things that should be mention.I wrote whole article about Stomper 90 which was published in Hydro Magazine

So no more words and check this short edit from Jacob's ladder rapid.