Nordic Kayaking

Here’s the second part of the Scandinavia road trip 2007 update. From the Trollforsarna White Water Festival we decided to head to Gaustaälven. There was still fair amount of snow banks higher up at the put in which guaranteed a healthy flow (considered a bit over the optimal by the locals) of ice cold water. Combined with the cold overcast weather and the 15km stretch of class 4 and 5 white water it proved to be a rough day on the river and fair enough we weren’t able to get off without carnage (two swims).

The next day we paddled the Gåsvasselva which is a really nice class 4 run with a one fairly big slide as a cherry on top. We bid farewell to Aapo, Jussi, Samuli and Satu who went south to Sjoa while we kept going to north. Our next river was Krutåga which has plenty of drops, but the most memorable are a double drop, triple drop and an un-runnable monster of a slide of which Mikael was giving a serious thought of running it, but decided not to. Crazy guy.

The next day we had a look at the tourist attraction of Laksforsen. Laksforsen is a major rapid which ends up in a 8m near-vertical drop. The water level was too high to consider running the main line, but Mikael decided to put-in from an eddy above the last drop and run the line on the left side. The run went smoothly thought the landing looked a bit rough as Mikael was bounced back up in the air on impact which resulted nothing but a sore neck for few days.

We had plans to paddle few more river further up in the north around Mo I Rana, but it started raining heavily which caused the rivers to flood. Everything was off the scale so we decided to start driving in the rain to home marveling the epic run-off.

Remember to check the Adrian’s blog for detailed updates of the trip!

Anyways, here’s the video. Paddlers: Samuli Suokko, Jussi Tanskanen, Satu Vänskä-Westgarth, Aapo Halonen, Juho Vaarala, Adrian Tregoning, Sami Pyhäjärvi, Mikael Lantto and Tuomas Vaarala (me).

Click To Play

To download the full 81mb high resolution version right-click and “save”.

It was a time for the annual road trip to Sweden and Norway. This time I was joined with Adrian Tregoning from South Africa. Adrian is doing pretty good job with detailed articles about the trip so I won’t go into details here. Read the Adrian’s account of the trip from here.

The plan was to drive thru Sweden to southern Norway, back up to northern sweden for the Trollforsarna White Water Challenge, and then end the trip with a short tour to the Nordland of Norway. Paddling rivers and meeting people along the way. And that pretty much how it went down.

Here’s the first part of the video of the trip. The first part of the update covers our trip down to Norway and then back to Sweden. Paddlers: Adrian Tregoning, Colin Furmston, Jussi Tanskanen, Leon Bedford, Mikael Lantto and me. Thanks guys!

Click To Play

To download the full 61mb high resolution version right-click and “save”.

This spring turned out to be a big water event. The Torne river peaked at about 3100 cumecs (109 500 CFS) which is just third time in the last 50 years its been this high. The previous years were 1968 and 2005. The abundance of water created some sweet waves. The Åretsvågen and Kattilakoski Megawave actually doesn’t require extreme water levels but are in every spring and sometimes even later in the summer after heavy rainfall in the large drainage area. The Finnvågen on the other hand is at best when the volume of the river is reaching 3000 cumecs and works only at high water years.

Click to play

To download the full 29mb high resolution version right-click and “save”.

When the rivers have finally broke free from the ice cover and the snow pack up north is releasing it’s magic the primary location for many local freestyle paddlers is the Kattilakoski. Kattilakoski has a wide variety of different play spots at different water levels - at some levels you can easily count 7 different good play spots in the rapid. I have yet to seen any single rapid that has a better variety of different playspots. Not only the quantity, but the quality of the playspots is very good. Especially the upper wave and the horseshoe hole offer a really good air when going off.

The whole rapid is about 2km long and the playspots are located at the start and at the end of the rapid. There is, however, a ledge on the river left about half way down the rapid that forms a wicked looping hole at medium levels and a huge wave at very high levels. The upper part consist of a two channels which are divided by an island. The horseshoe hole and the secondary wave behind it are in the smaller river right channel and the super fast upper wave forms in the main channel.

Miku looping the horsehoe hole.

The secondary wave just behind the horseshoe hole.

The upper wave.

Juho blunting the upper wave.

The lower part consists of a wide variety of different holes and waves. There is a 20m wide sausage shaped hole, a smaller hole and the lower waves. Again the lower part of the rapid is divided into two channels and there are waves forming on both of the channels which are called the lower waves.

McNasty on the lower wave.

Miku clean blunt on the lower wave.

Click to play

To download the full 75mb high resolution version right-click and “save”.