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.
