Ok, its been a few days since I put anything up on this so heres whats been happening;
The water levels have come up a bit again thanks to warm weather and the occasional rain shower so that has opened up a few rivers that weren't really worth running before. The first thing we did when levels came up was head to the Sermenzino. There still wasn't really enough water to make the first few km of bouldergardens fun but everything cleaned up once we hit the main rapids and we ended up having a great day on it.
The next day we decided to take it easy and not paddle any rivers. So we headed out to Landwasser, a 25ft or so waterfall on the upper Mastellone. I had a few sweet lines on it, and got to test out a go-pro mount that I made for the back of my boat. The footage I got from it was class, I'm delighted with how well it worked!
After Landwasser we headed back up to the Sorba Slides, which were at a much better level than a few days before, when you could have ridden a mountain bike down the top slide! We ran it a good few times and had some really sweet lines on it.
Yesterday we went looking for a 35ft drop that we had heard whispers going around the camp about. We found it, after a bit of difficulty, and even though it's definatly not 35ft, more like 20-25, it looks like a sweet drop with an 'interesting' lead in. We decided that we didnt have enough people to run it safetly so hopefully we'll go back in the next few days with a few more bodies.
After that we ran down the lower Gironde and into the Sorba Slides, since it was the first time that we'd seen the Gironde at a level worth running. The Sorba Slides were at a brilliant level, much higher than the last time we ran them so we ran them once or twice and then started looking for new lines on them. Unfortunatly one of those new lines was centre line on the bottom slide, which I thought would bring me over the big cushion wave at the bottom, styling the drop. What actually happened was I crashed into the cushion wave and got thrown upsidedown against the rock wall on river left, bashing most of my knuckles and badly cutting my thumb. A pretty sickening end to the day, and I should probably stay off the water for a day or two to let it heal up a bit but hopefully it will sort itself out quickly.
A log of a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the island of Ireland in a 22ft sailboat departing in June 2020.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Egua
Another quick one from the Egua:
Getting loads of footage out here but uploading anything longer just isnt going to happen!
Getting loads of footage out here but uploading anything longer just isnt going to happen!
Egua
The weather has finally changed here in Italy and all the levels are up again. Loads of snow fell on the mountains the day before yesterday while we were getting rained on and now that the weathers warm again thats all melting and giving us some sweet rivers to play on.
We got out on the Egua yesterday which is the classic run in the area, between Neil styling top drop and cylinder drop and me landing front and back freewheels off the autoboof it was a really good day! We got lots of footage too so we're happy out!
Hopefully the next few days stay the same. The plan for this morning is to head to the Egua again and then check out the Sermenzino in the afternoon when the levels come up a bit. The forecast is pretty good for the next few days so everything should be running well!
We got out on the Egua yesterday which is the classic run in the area, between Neil styling top drop and cylinder drop and me landing front and back freewheels off the autoboof it was a really good day! We got lots of footage too so we're happy out!
Hopefully the next few days stay the same. The plan for this morning is to head to the Egua again and then check out the Sermenzino in the afternoon when the levels come up a bit. The forecast is pretty good for the next few days so everything should be running well!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Italy!!
So, for the last few days myself and Neil Slevin have been cruising around Val Sesia in Piemonte, Italy running some sweet rivers! So far the weathers been fairly chilly here so the levels are low enough but hopefully they'll come up again in the next few days before the festival.
So far we've hit the lower Sesia, the Sermenza and the upper Sesia, all without major incident but we did have some interesting moments on Mollia rapid on the Upper Sesia earlier on today! No swims but I did spend about 15 seconds pinned upside down at the bottom of a drop before I managed to push off from the rock; great way to set up for the second half of the rapid! ULKC are out here too so we've done a good bit of paddling and coaching with them. We did a pretty decent boof coaching session with them on the lower Sermenza yesterday which was some craic.
The internet connection here is pretty rubbish so uploading any decent length videos is out of question but here's a quick teaser:
The plan for the next few days depends on water levels but we're hoping to move onto some of the steep bedrock classics like the Egua and the Sermenzino. They havnt really been running over the last few days tho so fingers crossed!
So far we've hit the lower Sesia, the Sermenza and the upper Sesia, all without major incident but we did have some interesting moments on Mollia rapid on the Upper Sesia earlier on today! No swims but I did spend about 15 seconds pinned upside down at the bottom of a drop before I managed to push off from the rock; great way to set up for the second half of the rapid! ULKC are out here too so we've done a good bit of paddling and coaching with them. We did a pretty decent boof coaching session with them on the lower Sermenza yesterday which was some craic.
The internet connection here is pretty rubbish so uploading any decent length videos is out of question but here's a quick teaser:
The plan for the next few days depends on water levels but we're hoping to move onto some of the steep bedrock classics like the Egua and the Sermenzino. They havnt really been running over the last few days tho so fingers crossed!
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