Last week the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games 2010 took place in Valchiusella and Ivrea/ITA in order to find the new “Freeride Worldchampion”. The kayaking event – which was one among many others, including mountainbiking, bouldering, paragliding and running – consisted of a downriver race, sprint, slalom and boatercross. Around 65 paddler took part in this well-organized competition with pretty good water levels. In the end it was Mike Dawson from New Zealand who took home the title and the prize money. Germany’s slalom expert Fabian Doerfler got second and Dejan Kralj (SLO) third.

I was quite happy with my result, being 6th in the overall result. A couple of times off the line in the long downriver race and in the sprint didn’t allow anything better.

The Kiwis also won the team race, which was a seperate competition, followed by the Slovenians and the Czechs. Team Germany 2 with Philip Baues, Uwe Eichfelder and myself finished 5th.

The highlight of the event with most fun to watch was definitely the “King of the Falls” race, in which a difficult, short stretch (about 1 min.) with a 10m drop in the middle had to be run. Again, Mike Dawson dominated the field and won in front of Dejan Kralj and Honza Lasko from Czech.

Altogether we certainly had some great days of paddling and racing in Italy and are looking forward to being back next year!

I’ll post some photos of the action within the next days!

After some heavy rains we got sweet levels on the home run. Creeking Ämån

We finally all got together in one place.  Dave Fairweather, Dave Goadby, Beth Hume and myself. The plan was to do something as a group, that would allow us plenty of time to chat, plot and plan. Naturally something paddling related would have been great, but with the lack of water (Its the summer now, don’t you know!) and not having the funding to allow us to head over to the Alps for the weekend, we decided to come up with something a spot more relaxing (?) we headed to the Peak District to go climbing.

The Team + my wife in action at Froggatt Edge. Dave is just finishing Sunset Slab (HVS 4b) that Becca led, Dave G and Beth have just climbed Sunset Crack (HS 4C).

The reason for this get together? – Yes you’ve guessed it, we are heading out to Japan!

I had agreed to idea of heading to Japan, after a slightly drunken conversation with Dave Fairyweather at last Decembers Gene17 weekend. Over the following  few months, with emails and text messages bouncing back and forth, we finally ended up getting our little team together to all met for the first time! We at least thought that it may be a good idea, even though by this point we had already booked the flights. And thanks to my step-sister Sally, we had already secured a baggage allowance upgrade.

Dave Fairweather just after taking his first big led fall, most probably at the shock of us all finally getting together.

After the climbing we all headed over to Beth’s parents house in Nottingham ‘to do some planning’ what this really turned into was mucking around in the pool and an acclimatisation session in the sauna. Followed by a few beers and a BBQ. When we did get up the following morning, we did manage to get some things organised, deciding what kit to take, and the general areas to visit, and most importantly our mode of transport when in Japan. All that we need to do now is work out what rivers to visit. After that the 2 ‘real’ paddlers went to HPP for a couple of hours of squirt and play-boating, while both me and Dave Goadby went off for a Sunday afternoon visit to see our respective parents.

Dave showing Becca what squirtboating is really about.

Acclimatisation session

Tune in next time and we may even have some kayaking images to show you!!!!

So far this year, it seems like I have hardly paddled at all. Particularly with the lack of water,well when I’m not at work that is, it seems that I have just been out on the usual lower water venues – The Tryweryn, The Dee, Symonds Yat and the mighty Knightwick weir on the Teme.

Playing on the wave at Knightwick Weir in Z-one. Photo Alex Bourne

Out coaching some of my Long Term students on the Dee. Photo Emily Goodman

The secret testing of the new Two person Playboat 😉

While out on the Dee, running a Moderate Water Endorsement assessment, we happened across fellow Pyranha Paddlers – Sara James and Rich Brooks testing a new design. Video Rob Wykeham-Martin.

I also helped out on the Pyranha stand at The Leam Boat Centres Demo day, in Leamington Spa, a place that I hadn’t visited for a while, so it was good to catch up with Matt and Jenna. There were a lot of people milling around after advice on kayaks and equipment. But there was also a camera club out on their annual photography competition, one of the titles was colourful, so here was my entry.

After the Teva Mountain Games demshitz headed to Glenwood Colorado to surf a badass wave.  This wave is damn nice!  25,000 cfs was pumping down the Colorado river which is the highest flow in about 13 years.  People keep telling me different stories, but I’m going to go with this one.  Anywho, hope you like this shitz!!

Click here to watch demshitz surf a really fun wave!

IM OUT!!!

Now there are not too many countries like Italy, and I say this for many reasons. There work ethic seams to, well work pretty well! The people are friendly and welcoming, the country side like many of the female inhabitants is magnificently sculptured, there weather for the main part is warm and sunny, they drink wine like its water and when there not drinking wine they are sipping the best coffee or licking the best ice cream you can get on the planet. Oh and the whitewater is pretty dam fine too.

I really didn’t think I was going to make it out Valsesia this year but luckily for me just as I thought all hope had gone I got a call from one of my oldest paddling friends & 8 days later I found my self boarding the Euro Tunnel, Italy here we come. Four of the South West’s finest paddlers made up the majority of the group, (Roger Ford, a very good and very competitively priced electrician!

Dan Westaway, Dom Crawford, Andy Iley) and I made up the numbers. Are first paddle was on the middle / lower sermenza and had some great bedrock slides and boulder garden rapids to warm up on, we then shot up the valley for some fun on the Egua. Oh how me and Roger laughed as Dan first then Dom and then Andy all got whirled around in drop/eddy together! “Maybe the water is quite High” I remember saying to Roger “maybe we should slow down a bit!” he replied then continued to laugh.

Day two took us up the Sermenzina, my memory of rivers is terrible, but I always remembered this as a great river and again it didn’t disappoint, as you fly of the trumpet drop all you can do is smile. After the Sermenzina with the sun still shining high in the sky we opted for a bit of Gronda action, this is another top river, a quick walk up a bosh down, with the water pretty sporty we then carried on down into the Sorba slides, nothing to hard but 3 big volume, great fun rapids.
Day 3 started with a distinct lacking of food! So we shot down to Varallo for a re stock, and when in Varallo you may as well have a curse down the Mastallone, and I’ve got to say I really enjoyed it, and even had a swim on at the bottom! Oops…. I haven’t swum in like 12 year, then 2 in one year! Must be getting old. After a pretty chilled afternoon we headed back up to the Gronda and Sorba for some more vertical fun.

Day 4 we had had a fair bit to eat the night before! And with 2KG of Italian cow still in my belly we met up with Mr. (Gene17) Westgarth for a Simon speed decent of the Alpine sprint section of the Sesia, and it was pretty cool nice to paddle something with a bit more volume and it ends at Campertogno (where we were staying sorry!). After this we had pretty much done all we wanted to do in Italy, and so with the storm clouds brewing we packed up and headed north up in to Switzerland / Ticino & and Ribo. The journey however was quite wet…. We wild camped at the top of the Ribo; it rained all night and all morning. The Ribo was quite high…. So we decided to have a look at the Isorno, now we didn’t know to much about this, just a few choice words from Simon, park at the end of the road walk 20 minuets get on at the big slide, get off at the second roman bridge. It took us a day to find all this and I really don’t know how far I walked that day! A lot, that night though the weather cleared up and by the time we had finally hiked ourselves and are kit to get in the water had definitely dropped a touch on the previous day, Cool so we hoped on and what an adventure we had. I’m not going to say to much as you should all go and do this river.

There are lots of blind bends, lots of vertical slippery sided canyons, pretty sure it all goes. If you can get out and look though I would strongly advise this, quite a spectacular river well worth the effort.

And so after another night of wild camping and rain we found ourselves on our last river the Verzasca. After the intense day on the Isorno I think we were all a bit tired and sore, but on ward we went and what an amazing river it is, great boulder rapids some really great bed rock slides, still not sure if we had medium or high water! But there is a great pizza restaurant at the end! Home….

Two stand out frazes of the trip……Fuck it we’re on holiday! And Oh I’ve forgotten to mention Katja (That’s not the Fraze!) Are German Brain surgeon! Not overly sure how she ended up getting stuck with us but for the later part of the trip she did. But, on the Isorno (you have to picture the scene) deep gorge, rain, interesting drop and she says in her perfect German/British “I am not paddling this shit” swiftly followed by a long scream as Roger shoved her off and into the “Shit!” Classic.

Same again next year? Cheers Guys for an ace trip hope to see you all soon.

Pictures all curtsey Andy Iley