16
Jan
Over the holidays Santa sent several inches of rain for a present and I had a change to jump on Overflow Creek with some high-school boating friends for super relaxing and low stress day. High water the first lap and medium water the second what a great day. I had forgotten how nice it was to be 45 minutes from the Overflow takeout, it was a real blessing growing up so close to such a sweet drainage. These mediocre pictures are from the second lap so the water is a little low….
14
Jan
2012 was a stellar year for me.
It started with a huge NZ Summer followed by a 6 week trip to Madagascar then on to North America for another 6 weeks of gettin’ busy. Back home in Spring, I got to bag some of the steepest steeps NZ has to offer, and generally just hang about the “Best Coast”.
Enjoy the pics from Mada and North America. NZ photos to follow soon.
If you’re thinking of going on an expedition, then I can highly recommend Madagascar. I will be back there for sure. Beautiful people, food, wildlife, scenery and most importantly, insanely good kayaking.
Spirit Falls. Ldub. Photo: Reid Morth
This river is being flooded for hydro. We were potentially the last kayakers to run it. Save our rivers. Kokish River, Van Island. Photo Blair Trotman
Titan Waterfall, Alberta, Canada. Photo Ryan Lucas
Ram Falls, Alberta, Canada. I was fortunate enough to run this with the late Peter Thompson in June for the first descent. Photo Pavel Bendl
A typical scene in the streets of Madagascar. Photo Justin Venable
A rainy season slide in Madagascar. Photo Justin Venable
Namarone River Madagascar. We rallied ourselves to the South Eastern corner of Madagascar with crossed fingers hoping to catch the flow, and got it bang on. Photo Justin Venable
Rolling into another Malagasy slide. Photo Justin Venable
Plugging another big hole in Madagascar. Photo Justin Venable
10
Jan
03
Jan
Descente du gave de Pau pendant les crues d’octobre dans les hautes pyrénes.
Le gave se déchaine by pyreneesextremkayak
28
Dec
Here’s an edit from our summer in Norway. This edit is an effort combination of myself and my brother Aniol, producing it under SBP (Serrasolses Bros Productions) together with a lot of footage from Substantial Media House. Hope you like the edit, filming this and paggling in Norway was just great. Featuring is Pyranha paddler Anton Immler.
https://vimeo.com/56299170
About:
Follow the SBP boys & substantial media house on a month and a half trip through Norway. There’s nothing like this country in terms of high quality whitewater without extensive driving!!! Norway is unbeatable!
Also make sure to check out the real Norway episode and tons of other sick videos at:Â vimeo.com/substantialmedia
Principal footage: Gerd Serrasolses, Evan Garcia & Fred Norquist.
Additional footage: Anton Immer, Adrian Kiernan, Josh Neilson, Alicia Casas, Aniol Serrasolses
Recorded with: Canon 7D & Go Pro HD2
Featuring: Gerd & Aniol Serrasolses, Evan Garcia, Fred Norquist, Anton Immler, Mathias Fossum, Mikael Gillis.
Special thanks:
SUBSTANTIAL MEDIA HOUSE: For providing us a lot of this sick footage and let us use it for this video and mostly for all the good times we had paddling and traveling together.
Mathias Fossum : For being a bad ass, let us use his van and show us all around the best whitewater in Norway.
Martin Vollen: For his hospitality and good vibes with all of us, thank you bro!!!
Evelyn Borge, Benjamin Hjort, Erik Martinsen
As well check out the Substantial episode one of Norway, super sick!
27
Dec
The exposed mine shaft to the right of the gushing torrent draws heavy on the eye.
Hidden deep within this mine pure gold, true Welsh gold and a royal favourite.
The fall, a large stepped affair, sits to separate the classic upper and lower Mawddach in Coed y Brenin, Wales
Its splendour enticing generations of young tigers to scout, to dream a line and to be one of the limited few..
Each new descent taking inspiration from the past.
The latest 11 descents, the new generation, taking place from 2011 a full 3 years since the precursor.
Jonny(08), Dave and myself (05).
We filled the middle years of exploration a decade and more after true pioneers Mel and Phil.
Although Loels solo trip a while later is amazing in its own right.
Its no mistake that some of these names are lost to history.
Its a fall of legends both new and old. A fall of stories and myth.
The latest descents, with the rising stars of the paddle scene the so called Dembrits.
Bren, Dave and Jen show how influential this rapid is to the culture of river running in Wales.
Dave Bain says “Since you and Cookie took me down the Mawdach at aged 13 I have always been inspired by the drop”
The first descents taking place at the birth of the mountain bat, a descent older than 18yr old Bren Orton.
Descents over the last 20+ years are still under 20. The line is committing at best.
Dave Thompson, one of the first paddlers to run this cascade describes it:
“it doesn’t matter what the line is, gravity will win”.
Is it no longer a dream but reality.
What of future games, of generations coming through the ranks does it still hold the gaze?
Ask yourself what if…
…What if the sister fall Pistyll Cain ever gets run…
it’s a video of the PEK team whis 3 french pyranha team members
fafa poueyto fred dumont and max mitaut
Le gave se déchaine par pyreneesextremkayak
Posted on:
December 21, 2012
20
Dec
Graham Seiler rollin into Frankenstein on the Green River
So I will start out by saying that I was a big fan of the Ammo. Now I know that the Ammo had it’s issues. It was very edgy, deep high knees, and not really that fast, but I still liked it’s down river freestyle capabilities.  Making the Nano spot on was super important to me. This type of kayak makes most runs that I do on the day to day much more fun and exciting. In the last 4 days I’ve done 3 laps on the Green river and 1 on the Raven Fork river both in North Carolina. These are steep runs, but runs that I feel pretty comfortable on. For example, the Green river is usually run in a larger creek boat or long boat, however the Green is full of great splats, rock spins, micro eddies, 4 to 10 foot freewheels (which I love), and a few little surf waves. Having the Nano out there just makes all those moves more possible.
Myself back freewheel, Groove Tube on the Green
For a typical day river running the Nano feels very fast for it’s size. It has fairly low stern rocker. This is giving the boat the speed as well as good tracking ability. There is good bow rocker in the front and obviously a boat this length is easy to boof. One thing that I was afraid of was tripping up on the edges of the kayak. I found that the Nano is not edgy and very stable. I think part of the reason is the more aggressive part of the edge stops about 1.5 feet from the back of the boat.                                                             Surfing the Nano is very very easy. Combing the amazing hull of the Jed makes it spin and surf super well. This is going to make the boat very appealing for folks interested in some wave shitz.  The cool thing about the Nano is with the volume you will not get edged around on your way to that sick wave.
Graham floating a boof at Frankenstein.
Overall, I am super pleased with the Nano! I have been charging pretty hard in it so far with now problems anywhere with the boat. I’m heading home for X Mas then off to the Grand Canyon for 3 weeks. I’m going to be leaving out of the Fusion!! Self support should be interesting. Follow us here http://www.facebook.com/DemshitzDoesTheGrand?fref=ts Other than that I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a brown New Years!
Myself on Gorilla.
Graham at Boof or Consequence.
Here is a short video of the Nano in action on the Nantahala River.
 https://vimeo.com/55991650
20
Dec
After two months of straight work I arrived in Santiago de Chile. My friend Nicole Mansfield happen to have a same plan so we decided to rent a car together to be able to travel more and have cheap car rental. We got to the mecca of kayaking and outdoor sports Pucon and next thing we know Evan Garcia and his Substantial crew Fred, Anton and Logan we driving behind us. We did Palguin top to bottom including well known Stout ten into middle Palguin falls. Amazing day of kayaking after two months of work. J Moved on around the area and kayaked everything runnable in the area. Sunshine and low snowpack kept the number of options really low though. We did V+ lower llancaue, where my kayaking ended for a few days because I hurt my ribs doing backfreewheel off 30+ footer. Slowly and steady I got better just in time for Whitewater Grand Prix. I am sure you know about this outstanding event organized by Patrick Camblin and Emily Meredith. It was awesome to see and live with 50 kayakers and media team travelling Chile and racing on the steepest and most technical creeks like GolGol, Puesco, Nevados and two races on Futaleufu to get our big water fix. Props to Dane Jackson for winning this thing on and off the river. For more info visit whitewatergrandprix.com Right now I am back in Pucon catching up on updates and emails. Sick like never before. Three weeks of rain and cold weather got me. Most of the rivers are running so I am hoping to get better soon and hit them. I am anxious to go kayaking which is a good sign. J Have a nice Christmas! 
I dont know why these pics look like this because i put them in in the high resolution…. Sorry. i ll try to figure it out.
Praise jah!
17
Dec
For the last two past years I’ve always wanted to go and visit Mexico during fall, however summer injuries have forced me to stay home and recover for the spring. Finally I could kinda made it this year, but was definitely bummed my bro couldn’t make it with me this time to show me around as after two years they say he’s a legend over there!
Tlapacoyan
So last October I packed all my stuff and took a plane to Mexico, having quite a few problems and more layovers that desired (4), I finally arrived in Mexico after a couple of days of traveling without my boat. I took a bus straight to Tlapacoyan, one of the coolest towns I’ve been in the middle of the jungle of Veracruz.
Tlapacoyan’s church
Sunrise from Aventurec’s terrace
Even though I didn’t have my boat for the first week I was lucky enough to borrow from friends and go kayaking everyday. We were staying in Aventurec, a super nice resort in the middle of paradise. Great food, orange trees everywhere, tidy gardens and super nice people make Aventurec the perfect place to stay. So everyday we would go paddle one of the many great runs that Alseseca and the Jalacingo have to offer. We started running the second half of Big Banana from Silencio as the drive, shuttle and hike in were a lot easier, and I think that’s become the classic run now. Super nice start with Silencio, and then plenty of other cool rapids down to Tomata bridge. Short run, so you can lap it no problem.
Silencio
The Tomatas, one and two are just downstream of the take out, so you can keep on going, ran both of them and then paddled the Tomnata gorge aka the Seven Sisters/Siete Hermanas; as the name says, seven consecutive different style drops. Super nice section, and if you don’t feel like T2 you can rappel into the pool which looks sick!
 Dirty Sanchez
The upper Jalacingo offers some great bed rock slides and rapids, however there’s a bit of wood now so gotta walk some too! The lower is super clean and nice, offering three major drops; Twisted Pleasure, Dirty Sanchez and Dungeon, but the stuff at the start and mostly in between is just amazing, plenty of little boofs and continuous white water makes it one of the best sections around. Last is a massive portage known as the Black Hole, definitely not runnable!
Twisted Pleasure
After about three weeks of boating I was lucky to have paddled most of the sections at least twice, however there’s still some stuff that I’m missing… gotta go back sometime!
Overall, a great trip to one of the best destinations in the world, tropical frute everywhere, cheap food/life, great culture, nice people and good times!
Viva México wey!
Pics by: Tait Trautman and Jeff
