I intended doing a short, consise write up of the first week of the trip, only covering the important parts. However since I started writing I sort of realised that pretty much every day was epic craic and deserves a mention! And leaving anything out would mean the context for stuff that happened later on in the week would be lost. So apologies about the length of this post, but I hope I've managed to capture just how good this week was!
As I said before, the first week of the trip consisted of a training week, where the focus was on improving people's personal paddling, rescue and river leading skills. Usually this week would involve official level 4 training courses and assessments but thanks to the unprecedented number of level 4 qualified paddlers in the club at the moment we set this as the minimum standard for people to come on the first week of the trip. We had 15 people there for the first week, all either qualified level 4s or comfortably at that standard. Pretty impressive numbers for a college club Alps trip, especially considering many of them were first and second years and not mainly fourth years and OFBs.
Since everyone was at level 4 standard, the next logical step would be to put people forward for level 5 training courses. But due to the high cost, and the fact that people will more than likely have graduated from college and left the club by the time they go on to do the assessment we don't run club level 5 skills courses. Hence the need to come up with a plan for the week to train people in key aspects of the level 5 syllabus. Myself and Andrew sat down and came up with a loose plan for the week, which was pretty much to start off by focusing on people's paddling skills, followed by rescue skills and finishing on leadership/river reading stuff. In the end the weather and river levels really worked in our favour and the whole week worked even better than we could have hoped!
Thursday
After our ideal start to the week with an afternoon run on the Alpine Sprint section, we decided to dive straight into the creeks the next morning and hit the Lower Sermenza. With it's easy, flowy start leading into a tight gorge, at the water levels we got the lower Sermenza is the ideal introduction to Alpine steep creeking. We spent ages at a spot called boof graduation drop, running it many times each and trying different lines, different techniques and really focusing on getting peoples flare and boof strokes dialled in. It was a great session and people's paddling improved immensely just in the time we spent there. It was definatly useful for everyone when we moved down into the gorge, which is full of little flare lines that feel great when you get them right. Everyone managed the gorge perfectly fine and when we got off the water in the afternoon we decided we should step things up a notch.
We travelled out with the intention of paddling two rivers a day for the first week. Most of the group were perfectly content to run the Sermenza again as a further warm up and it was with some anxious faces that they agreed that everyone was paddling well and we should go up and give the Egua a go. When we reached the get on of the Egua, levels were pretty low but it was definatly runnable, a pretty ideal level for people's first time on the river. We chilled out for a while, got lunch (the first of many ham, cheese and pesto sandwiches!) and then hopped on the water. Since we had a few people who knew the lines, we broke up the group and were able to read and run most of the river, giving the lines to anyone who didn't know them and setting up rescue anywhere we knew it was needed. Thanks to the water levels, everything was pretty forgiving but we did have one or two swims. Thankfully, no damage was done bar bruised egos and robbed dignity for the rest of the night. Although we had expected the evenings that first week to be very quiet, all the Irish were in Campertogno at the time and being unsociable and going to bed early was never really going to happen. We had a great evening chilling out with the lads over a few jugs of the local speciality frizzante or sparkling wine, swapping stories and hearing about some great lines and dodgy swims that people had over the previous few weeks.
We travelled out with the intention of paddling two rivers a day for the first week. Most of the group were perfectly content to run the Sermenza again as a further warm up and it was with some anxious faces that they agreed that everyone was paddling well and we should go up and give the Egua a go. When we reached the get on of the Egua, levels were pretty low but it was definatly runnable, a pretty ideal level for people's first time on the river. We chilled out for a while, got lunch (the first of many ham, cheese and pesto sandwiches!) and then hopped on the water. Since we had a few people who knew the lines, we broke up the group and were able to read and run most of the river, giving the lines to anyone who didn't know them and setting up rescue anywhere we knew it was needed. Thanks to the water levels, everything was pretty forgiving but we did have one or two swims. Thankfully, no damage was done bar bruised egos and robbed dignity for the rest of the night. Although we had expected the evenings that first week to be very quiet, all the Irish were in Campertogno at the time and being unsociable and going to bed early was never really going to happen. We had a great evening chilling out with the lads over a few jugs of the local speciality frizzante or sparkling wine, swapping stories and hearing about some great lines and dodgy swims that people had over the previous few weeks.
...while in Decathlon on the way over, Andrew had the genius idea of putting together a swim outfit and accordingly bought a bright pink, womens, small vest top, with matching shorts and wrishbands. The idea was that the last swimmer of every day had to wear this for the evening, and endure the ridicule and complete loss of dignity that went with it. It definatly added a lot of banter to the trip, and meant that we had to be careful that whoever was due to wear it that evening was never put on rescue duty!
Friday
That evening it started lashing rain, which continued uninterrupted until the next morning. The rain was as heavy as any I've seen and I spent a while before going to bed moving my gear around the porch of my tent trying to avoid the worst of the leaks. When we woke up the next day the first thing we noticed was the increase in volume of the noise of the river. When we got out to have a look at it, the river had risen several feet since the day before. It was only about a foot below the level of the land bridge leading to the island campsite and that left us with a conundrum of what to do that day since our plan to go to the Sermenza or Egua for some rescue training was obviously out of the question! We ended up heading to the raft run section on the Sesia, which is usually a chilled out, bouncy run which is suitable for all levels of ability.
It definatly wasn't suitable for all levels of ability that day! Huge wave trains and cushion waves hid monster holes waiting to gobble up any unsuspecting kayakers who floated their way. Since the river was flowing so quickly and decent eddies were few and far between, we split the group into semi-independant groups of four people who would stay close together and look out for each other and could be pretty much self sufficient if sh*t hit the fan. At the same time the groups would stay pretty close together to provide back-up to each other if needed and everyone was warned to do their very best to stay in their boat no matter what happened, as a swimmer/boat chase scenario in that kind of water could easily turn into a disaster. The group consisted entirely of experienced paddlers with solid rolls, people who could be relied on not to pull their decks unless it was completely unavoidable. Still, we had a total of seven swims that day. Some were due to deck implosions in holes, other people were pulled out of their boats in holes and some people got worked in holes where the only way out was swimming.
It definatly wasn't suitable for all levels of ability that day! Huge wave trains and cushion waves hid monster holes waiting to gobble up any unsuspecting kayakers who floated their way. Since the river was flowing so quickly and decent eddies were few and far between, we split the group into semi-independant groups of four people who would stay close together and look out for each other and could be pretty much self sufficient if sh*t hit the fan. At the same time the groups would stay pretty close together to provide back-up to each other if needed and everyone was warned to do their very best to stay in their boat no matter what happened, as a swimmer/boat chase scenario in that kind of water could easily turn into a disaster. The group consisted entirely of experienced paddlers with solid rolls, people who could be relied on not to pull their decks unless it was completely unavoidable. Still, we had a total of seven swims that day. Some were due to deck implosions in holes, other people were pulled out of their boats in holes and some people got worked in holes where the only way out was swimming.
On the bank of a super high Sesia talking through how we're going to run the river safely. Photo by Eoin Howard.
This was big volume paddling with consequences like I had never seen before! I'm definatly far more used to steep creeks than this style of river. Emer and Gav got body surfed in different holes and went for nearly 30 seconds (counted on GoPro footage!) of downtime each before being released. The other swims were less bad but still far from pleasant. Thankfully our rescue plans worked perfectly. Whenever the first group of four saw a tricky hole they would hop out and set up safety, meaning that anyone who got badly worked was roped out immediatly. Anyone who swam while on the move was looked after by their group of three others who were right on the spot to get them and their kit out of the water straight away. For all our drama, there were no injuries, all the rescues were dealt with as well as they could have been and serious respect to anyone who swam, none of them let the experience phase them at all. After the first run we went straight back up and ran the section again, which went much smoother since we now knew where all the worst holes were. We packed up that evening tired but stoked after a great day on the river, and called the rescue section of our training week finished since everyone had got more enough practise barging boats and roping and carrying swimmers to prepare them for what was coming up in the next few weeks. That night we hit the sleeping bags early since water levels were dropping back down to sensible levels and we had another big day planned for the next day.
Scouting Little Canada before running it. It's pretty interesting at those water levels! Photo by Eoin Howard.
Saturday
The next day was planned to be the focal point of our training week. The idea was to head to the Egua and run it as if it was entirely new to all of us, with the intention of getting out to scout everything and work on reading the river, planning rescue set-ups and picking lines. We got up early to make the most of the day and headed to the get on, where we found the levels still 'chunky' after the rain two days before. On seeing the levels some of the group became very unsure of the wisdom of running it at all. However after much talk, a group yoga session and some more talking everyone decided to get on the water. Thankfully they did, because in the end the day turned out to be perfect!
Top Drop on the Egua from a cool angle. Photo by Eoin Howard.
The high water level made the river a solid step up compared to the previous time we did it but it was still easily manageable by everyone in the group. Building on the work we did on the Sermenza everyone got some great experience planning lines based on key strokes and executing them, and at every drop we talked through what rescue set-up was needed and why. It worked great and since we were scouting everything everyone's lines were much cleaner than the previous run a few days before. We spent the whole day on the one run, and by the time we got to the bottom everyone was in great form and delighted with how it was going. Whereas the previous time we ran the river only four of us decided to run cylinder drop, this time by the time we got to the bottom the group was so stoked that nearly everyone wanted to fire it up. So we set up a dope on a rope, told everyone which rock to paddle towards and let them have at it. And it was awesome to see, almost everyone styled it! No-one completely melted it, but it was at the level where anyone who didn't nail the line perfectly was only coming out on the end of a rope. Which was fine, a few people got to practise being the dope at the end of a rope and no one swam in Cylinder drop at all. In fact, throughout the entire day we only had one swim, which is pretty good going! Everyone finished the day on a high and we headed back to the campsite and the Gene17 river festival in great form. That night a stonking great party went on till all hours and we spent the night generally running around the place and having the craic.
A STOKED crew after a savage day on the Egua! Photo by Eoin Farrell
Sunday
The Sunday following the festival was scheduled to be a bit of a rest day, since lots of people were worn out after the last few days of pretty full on paddling. Some people decided to take the day off, and the rest of us decided to go for a handy chilled out run on the Alpine Sprint and keep going down to Scopello. For several reasons that plan didn't really work out. Firstly, water levels were much higher than the first day we were there and the section wasn't the easy chilled out run that we remembered! The steep sections had become pretty full on and continuous, with several holes that would easily catch out anyone who was off line. The group had several swims, which wasn't a problem but dealing with them meant that people didn't really get the rest that they were hoping for on their day off.
When we reached the eddy at Mollia falls, the rest of the group started portaging but I decided I wanted to take a look at it. After a few minutes looking at it, I decided I could make the line and started looking more closely at the individual moves in it. ...for anyone who doesn't know, Mollia is a long, technical rapid on the Sesia which is usually walked around. The rest of the lads in the group said they were happy enough to do rescue on it so we had a chat and came up with a plan for how they would deal with it if everything went wrong. After quite a while looking at it I thought I had figured out how I was going to make it through. Unfortunatly, the super clean line that I had imagined didn't exactly happen! I screwed up a flare move half way down and rolled, which left me backwards and on the wrong side of the river dropping into a little pocket with no exit. What happened next can be seen in the video. Eventually I get pulled out with most of my gear while my boat continued on it's merry way down the river.
After sorting me out, reuniting me with my various bits of gear that had floated off downstream (fortunately we had put a few guys covering another drop and pool downstream in case of this exact scenario) and paddling on down to the campsite, we decide to call it a day and scratch the plan to paddle down to Scopello. After getting dinner we go for an early night to try to recover from the days activities. ...taking an early night also meant that I had to spend less time in the luminous pink swimmer's outfit, definitely a good idea for both my dignity and anyone who had to look at me wearing it!
When we reached the eddy at Mollia falls, the rest of the group started portaging but I decided I wanted to take a look at it. After a few minutes looking at it, I decided I could make the line and started looking more closely at the individual moves in it. ...for anyone who doesn't know, Mollia is a long, technical rapid on the Sesia which is usually walked around. The rest of the lads in the group said they were happy enough to do rescue on it so we had a chat and came up with a plan for how they would deal with it if everything went wrong. After quite a while looking at it I thought I had figured out how I was going to make it through. Unfortunatly, the super clean line that I had imagined didn't exactly happen! I screwed up a flare move half way down and rolled, which left me backwards and on the wrong side of the river dropping into a little pocket with no exit. What happened next can be seen in the video. Eventually I get pulled out with most of my gear while my boat continued on it's merry way down the river.
After sorting me out, reuniting me with my various bits of gear that had floated off downstream (fortunately we had put a few guys covering another drop and pool downstream in case of this exact scenario) and paddling on down to the campsite, we decide to call it a day and scratch the plan to paddle down to Scopello. After getting dinner we go for an early night to try to recover from the days activities. ...taking an early night also meant that I had to spend less time in the luminous pink swimmer's outfit, definitely a good idea for both my dignity and anyone who had to look at me wearing it!
Monday
The plan was that by Monday morning everyone would be recovered and back in top form after their day off, allowing us to do one more day of solid paddling before our week came to an end. So we got up early and headed to the get on of the Sermenzino, another beautiful steep creek that is similar to the Egua only less technical and slightly bigger. However when we got there we realised that no-one was in the mood. Sunday had turned into another hectic day rather than the rest day it was meant to be, meaning that most people were still knackered after nearly a week of solid paddling. Forcing ourselves onto a difficult river in that state would have been a bad idea so we changed plans and headed back down the valley. Most people went back to bed and took the day off completely while a few went up to the start of the Alpine Sprint and finally fulfilled their dream of paddling all the way from there to Scopello village. I ran shuttle and took video of the guys on the water, since I really wasn't feeling it for another full day of paddling, no matter how easy the river. It was a slightly low key end to a very not low key week but what can you do, there's only so much paddling that the human body can do before it says stop!
...what did we do after our training week? What were we training for? Stay tuned over the next few days to find out!
Great piece Keyes!! Lovely to read up on what you guys are up to! :)
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