Last year I took part in a rather intense expedition to explore a jungle river in Papua in eastern Indonesia. Whilst we didn’t succeed in descending as much of the river as hoped, it opened my eyes to the huge variety of cultures, wildlife and landscapes that Indonesia has to offer.
I got married in May this year (about 6 months after the Papua trip), and suggested to my better half that Indonesia might be a good honeymoon destination. Instead of the typical week-in-a-five-star hotel approach, we decided to go for a longer holiday and island hop around Indonesia – not doing things on the cheap – but making the most of the money we had!
The southeast team taking over the nantahala wave one summer day
In the southeast in summertime, living at the Nantahala river is the place to be. With a consistent play feature and being located right in the middle of all the good dam released summer runs, the kayaking options are wide open. This summer involved playboating at the nantahala, ocoee, and pigeon, and creeking on the nantahala cascades, raven fork, cullasaja, and of course the green. Check out This har video for some footage, and enjoy the photos below.
A series of great events took place  across america over the course of three weeks.
Myself and Dave Wild flew out to take part in the series, we met some great people along the way and without the kindness and generosity shown by everyone we would most likely have been stranded, starving or eaten by local wild life.
The first event took place at Rock Island, Tennesse. I’ve grown up watching the videos of this place and so I was incredibly excited to paddle there. Set within a picturesque back drop of cascading waterfalls a small wave/hole forms, The feature was technically very challenging moves went well but sticking them was a completely different matter and a flush was likely to cost you at least 15 seconds at this spot – not ideal. Dave Wild finished well up the field in the mens category but unfortunately not quite high enough to advance to the next round.FIrst round went well for me and I came out in first with a 350 point lead unfortunately in the next stage of the competition I had 2 unlucky flushes which would put me just outside the final in 7th place, We were both pretty disappointed in our performance at this event but it provided us with some serious fire for the next event !
The second event took place at the Pidgeon river, a slow, deep and retentive hole that proved itself at this event to be one of the best holes in the world. Over the course off 5 days some of the worlds best padders threw down huge ride after huge ride. I redeemed myself after the first event and won every round, I even had the chance to throw some combos in their as well. Dave Wild finished well up the field again with some solid rides in the large Jed. Check out Paul Palmers video from the event below :
We had a few days off before the last event which gave us the chance to hang out with the Demshitz guys, After meeting the guys that work for Pyranha and borrowing boats from the warehouse we got the chance to run the Green river, I’ve been saying for a while now that I want to do more river running/creeking and this river definitely sold it on me !
After a great trip down the green river it was time to head over to the Noc site to start preparing for the 3rd and final world cup event. The Noc hole is fast, reasonably shallow and powerful, it definitely catered for the stronger paddlers and we saw more than a few beatings being dished out. I won every round once again in this event, Dave Wild threw down some awesome rides but unfortunately didn’t quite make it to the finals, However he was unanimously voted the winner of the party !
Unfortunately my two wins weren’t quite enough to grant me the title after my mess up in the first round and i finished the series in second place, big congrats to Hunter Katt for taking the overall win. It was an amazing trip and a huge learning experience, Thanks agin to everyone that made it possible.
Chris Morelli in the midst of all the wonderfulness that this year’s Beaver Fest. had to offer. Photo: Joanne Tognarelli www.five2nine.ca
This year’s “Beaverfest,” was special. Â This classic event, which has been held annually for the past fifteen years offers up some of the finest paddling in the northeastern U.S. and this year saw some stout racing competition. Â The combination of the unusually dry summer and amazing three days of weather jacked the participation level of paddlers and racers waaay up.
Fredy Riner, all the way from Switzerland enjoying his first trip to the Adirondacks. Photo: Patrick Rogers www.kayakphotos.com
Sixth year of Devils Extreme Race happned last weekend under Lipno dam. General sponsor Hiko, ZET-kayaks, TNP, Boatpark, Water Element and more other sponsor helped us realize this event. Media partners Kayak Session, Hydro Magazine, Maxim and more has been amazing with help. Organizers Jirka Kopecny, Mira Kodada and Jakub Nemec. Hiko Devils Extreme Race started earlier than usual, water was releasing by Wednesday. Organizing team took this chance and set everything up by Tuesday. World class kayakers shoed up and paddled this great section of whitewater. This year we had a biggest number of people coming from all around the world, there were amazing kayakers from New Zealand, Australia, Russia and probably every European country. Race itself started on Friday with qualification for all the categories: Hiko Elite, Session, Women and juniors. Course was about 500 meters long with technical slalom course made out of banners and buoys. (This qualifier put a World Champion Sam Sutton out of game for rest of the race) Half hour later we had a semifinal run for Hiko Elite and finals for women little ways down the Devils Streams section to right above Bloody hand rapid. Women title took Evina Fillova, second Zuzana Balejova and third Bety Brabcova. Juniors category was over by then. Team race went great over the whole Lipno section and victory took home team Kiwi Homos including Mike Dawson, Sam Sutton and Jamie Sutton. Friday night had a few bands e.g. Zbubaky or Basta Fidel. Saturday finals started at 10 AM. Fifteen fastest after semifinals run got to the whole Lipno section in race. Third was Michelle Ramazza, second Eric DeGuil and won Mike Dawson. At 1pm kayak cross kicked off the last race of the weekend. For safety reasons final heat went down without paddles. That was really fun to watch. After everyone got done kayaking for fun later the big party started. Many great bands like Locomotive, Jinovatka and The Chancers were keeping spectators and racers entertained all night long. After midnight DJ Enzym pulled out his music hits to keep the crowd dancing til early Sunday morning.
This years Hiko Devils Extreme Race was a next level event for all the international scene that showed up. Fourth stage of AWP World Series was very well organized, with electronic timing, 115 racers from 15 countries, professional entertainment program and great positive feel glowing around town of Loucovice all of last week.
Usaually the Malte River in South Austria has no water, because there is a huge damn.
In beginnig of August we had the chance to do some Park and Huck…
We didnt had enough warter to do the biggest drops.. but it has been a great day !!!
This Spring was really great, after a few weeks in Mexico in December, I could not think of stop paddling in the Winter, so we really did good Kayaking the whole winter througe.. except 2 Week where we had -25 ° C.
That is a short Clip of the best runs from JAnuary to March 2012 in the ” Salzkammergut” in Austria.
The annual Wet West Paddlefest, now in it’s 8th year took place last weekend, and as per usual was awesome. The lure of guaranteed dam releases on the Moriston and Garry rivers, in combination with the obligatory party was too much for many to resist, and there were all sorts of familiar faces bobbing around the eddies and gurning down the drops. Some hardy souls had even made the epic journey all the way from the south coast to Scotland to be there.
Hi guys!
Just a few photos and short video from my trip to Siberia this year. Some of the most beautiful rivers in this part of Russia. Wild, unique and very spectacular part of our Planet. Already looking forward to go to Siberia again in 2013.
Finally, I’ve been able to drive to Lipno/CZE for the annual dam release of the Vltavou River, which creates some of the best wildwater sections in the Czech Republic and attrackts hundreds of paddlers from basically all over the world. I’ve wanted to go there for years, but somehow it never worked out; now I’m glad I’ve eventually been there – and it definitely won’t have been for the last time!
Besides massive groups of “just-for-fun-paddlers”, several events took place in Lipno throughout the last week: Rafting (European Championships – my club mates won that race!), Downriver Sprint and finally an Extreme Race, which I competed in.
The mode of this event was great: First off, a pretty tricky slalom competition where only the first 33 of the overall 60 – 80 paddlers were able to advance to the next round. Due to the difficult setting of the course, the competition was already over after that for a couple of top racers. The next round was an individual sprint race of about 4 min. of class 3-4 whitewater. I was able to rank on the 5th place there, which took me to the final together with 14 other strong paddlers. Around 13 min. of class 3-5 whitewater meant some serious endurance paddling. Unfortunately, I was off the line a couple of times during the last third of the course, which put me in the 13th position in the end. Even though a top-10 ranking should have been possible for me, I’m pretty happy that I was able to compete in the final round as the only German. Congrats to the podium: 1st Mike Dawson/NZL, 2nd Eric Deguil/FRA, 3rd Michele Ramazza/ITA!
In my opinion it’s pretty remarkable that 5 Pyranha Shivas where in this year’s final of the Devils Race. Certainly a proof of the great racing qualities of this boat!
Together with my club mates Markus Hummel and Thomas Funke I ranked on the 5th position in the team race, which the Kiwis (Mike Dawson, Sam and Jamie Sutton) dominated.
Thanks to the couple of days of awesome paddling and joining up with friends in Lipno, I’m going to be back there next year for sure.
Ceck out some pictures I’ve taken with my Actionpro-Headcam. For more information, results etc. visit www.devilsextremerace.com. Thanks to the organisators for this great event!
