Sunday, July 22, 2012

News from Wildalpen

Having a great time here in Wildalpen at the moment, lots of work broken up with the odd day off due to the water level being too high to run trips. Up untill yesterday the highest most of the guides had run the river was 250cm. Then yesterday morning we woke up and the level was at 330cm and nearly over-flowing into the campsite! There was no way any commercial trips were going ahead at that level so we called around all the guides and headed out paddling! The trip was made up of one raft full of guides from Liquid Lifestyle and a load of kayak instructors from all the different companies; it was savage craic! The Salsa at that level is definatly the biggest volume river I've ever run, full of massive waves and holes that you really want to steer clear of! A few of the waves were big enough to get massive bounce in the playboat and the rest were savage for wave wheels, kick flips and macho move attempts!

Whenever the river gets a good bit lower, about 160cm, the local play hole, the Helli Welle, comes into it's own. We've had a few sweet sessions there recently, heres a video I put together from last week:

The footage is a bit blurry but you get the general idea. The best footage is being saved for a movie that I'm working on, 'Current Affairs'. Keep an eye out for it September sometime!