Leon droppin´the 1st one

Lower Rauma is not an “everyday” run in Norway. Even when some of us did it before, everytime you go there to run it, you feel different, before and after.

That day was one of those days. Our crew for that run consisted in Leon Bedford, Colin Furmston, Josh Firth, and Thorpie Thorp from Australia; Jussi Tanskanen from Finland Gigo Castillo from Chile and myself.

Lower Rauma really shows the highlights of Norway in one single run. Big slides, drops, more slides and a massive waterfall called “flemming fossen” at the end of the run for those feeling inspired.

jussi boofin´the 2nd

From the first moment you will feel small as you run those beautiful and powerful rapids.

josh holding his breath @3th

The good thing about Rauma: everything is happening in a pool and drop type of run which gives an extra sense of confidence when you make your decision to run each rapid.

Faces of high tension, happiness, fear and joy are there during the run….all the time

Colin getting the precious boof @5th

For us this was a different run…After some good lines through most of the rapids, we arrived to the “big slide”. This looks awesome, and it feels even better when you run it, but yeah, from time to time it claims for victims. Last year I was there with my friend Diego Castro doing a double run on this rapid, I was right behind him when I saw him dissappearing under the horizon line formed by the “autoboof” drop at the end of the slide…too far right! And Diego ended up with two broken ribs.

Thorpie riding the 7th, my faivourite

This time was Josh turn, who first went upside down on the slide making some good marks on his face, then, after a quick roll, his boat went vertical down the last drop and hit the rocks at the bottom making his foot looks like a big football the next morning.

After he got some help to get out of his boat, we were quite happy to know that nothing serious happened. But there was something else waiting for that run. Flemming Fossen is right there and some of us looked at this waterfall many times waiting for that moment. We stood up by the lip of the waterfall just trying to find that “inner voice” that tells you what´s right and what´s wrong. Gigo made his mind to run it.

josh getting some help after a bad line @7th

This is a technical entry and a high freefall of nearly 20 mts I guess. You start by an eddy right above the lip, and you have to ferry across all the way to the other side to escape from a death line, then, almost by the lip, you hit a curly wave, trying to get on top of it, and then drop with the flow as you feel the adrenaline rush all over your body….awesome….

Gigo took a pretty good line, but the curly wave on the lip, launched him into the air, making an unvoluntary boof and landing flat at the bottom. Luclky the only one that got hurt then was the boat as we saw gigo smiling and celebrating…

After watching Gigo´s line it was difficult to decide….i had to think about it twice more, but I was feeling calm and confident with myself. And so, I got the line pretty well over the lip, and went with the flow with no problems….happy days…

Gigo opening @the monsterous flemming fossen

Thorpie also made his mind to run it. Gigo and myself were waiting at the pool below the waterfall and we saw him going over the lip and down….at first it looked like a perfect line, though, his boat kept rotating forward and we saw him disappearing in the mist. We waited those long seconds until we saw his boat coming out, and his paddle, but no signals of him. I started paddling hard to the waterfall and gigo went for the boat, realizing that Thorpie was still there unconscious. This was one of the most scariest kayaking images I saw so far…we pulled him up and to the rocks on the side. He was sleeping there for some good 5 minutes until he woke up. Finally after some stitches on his head and one night in the hospital Thorpie is out there back on the game.

myself going for the biggest horizon line in rauma

From time to time you will have those “calls” that put you in your place. That day was one of those. Kayaking is a sport that motivates your spirit, and the will to take care of your life as well as your friend´s, family….

and droppin´

Many people thinks there is no point on risking your life in that way, interesting topic, but, there is another face of the story… stay tuned, we will try to show this in our next movie coming up!!!

Santiago Lo Greco

screen shots

This is me (Claudio) and my brother Kurt hucking pozo azul in the area of Sarapiqui

on our kayaking trip to Costa rica .

Aqui estoy de nuevo (Claudio) y mi hermano Kurt Corriendo “Pozo Azul” en el área de Sarapiqui en nuestro viaje en Costa Rica…
disfrute….

Claudio Vega

Here there are some pictures of some runs in the states , farmlands in the White Salmon WA, Punchball falls of Eagle creek WA and lower mesa falls Idaho. All those run we did it with my friend kurt hotchkins . we dirt bag all spring getting new runs in the States.

Aqui les dejo unas fotos de algunas corridas en los Estados Unidos, Farmlands en el río White Salmon (WA), Punchball falls del río Eagle Creek (WA), Mesa Falls en Idaho.

Estas corridas las hicimos con mi amgigo Kurt Hotchkins. Fué una temporada exitanto realizando nuevos descensos en USA.

Claudio Vega (Chile)

Around mid of june, Asier, Eneko, jorge and myself  (Haritz) decided to meet up in “Torla” river, in the entry of Ordesa National Park, to run the “Bujaruelo” slides section, a classic run over the Aragonian Pyrenees (Spain). Luclky we had the company of Tomás, who was our photographer for this mission. We took a look on the river as we were driving up to the put in, specially on “the big ramp”. At first look it doesn’t look difficult, although we knew that you must run this rapid well to avoid the right side of it at any cost.

The run started pretty easy, paddling through some small-rounded-boulder rapids, though Jorge had to quit due to a minor back injury. Asier did the run a weel earlier, but we still had to stop to check out some lines because of the gradient that the river has in this section, which consist pretty much in the main feature of this section. You would be surprised how much it drops in only 3 km!

After enjoying the first hour of white water fun, we made it to the portage, just before the main slides.By the time we arrived to the main slide (35 mts) The tension in the crew came up pretty high, specially to me, as the boys laughed about that, you can imagine the expression on my face…..Once we where sure about the line, we went for it! One by one, the adrenaline rush was an amazing feeling as we dropped this pretty one. The following slides came one after the other without much air in between and happy faces came along with them too….We did a successful run, “happy days-feeling” was burning in our veins, hugs and beer were the perfect elements for a good end of day….

A mediados de Junio del 2009, Asier, Eneko, Jorge y yo ( Haritz), quedamos en Torla, a puertas del parque nacional Ordesa, para kayakear en la sección de las rampas de Bujaruelo, un clasico del Pirineo Aragonés ( España). Junto con nosotros vino Tomas, que fue el que nos sacó todas las fotos. De camino al rio, paramos para echar un vistazo al paso clave: la rampa grande; a primera vista no estaba demasiado complicado, aunque como ya sabiamos de antes, era muy recomendable hacer las cosas bien y no irse a la derecha.

El descenso comenzó tranquilo, abriendo camino por bolos pequeños, hasta que Jorge tuvo que evacuar por un tirón en la espalda. Aunque Asier ya habia corrido la sección una semana antes, tuvimos que parar u par de veces para mirar mejor algunos pasos que ganaban desnivel, y discutir la mejor linea. Una de las caracteristicas de esta sección es el desnivel que acumula en sus alrededor de 3 km de descenso.

Después de disfrutar de la primera hora de aguas bravas llegamos al porteo que precedia a las espectaculares rampas de este clasico. La tensión subio considerablemente cuando llegamos a la rampa de 35 metros, especialmente a mi, de la cuales se rieron un poco mis compañeros. Una vez evaluada la mejor linea por diferentes puntos, nos echamos por la rampa uno por uno, descargando adrenalina por todos los poros. Las siguientes rampas vinieron una detrás de otra, gozando con el rio en cada una de ellas. Cuando superamos los ultimos intensos 300 metros de rampas, sifones y troncos llegamos exitosamente al final de la sección, abrazandonos y tomando ruta para celebrarlo con unas cervezas.

It was late in the last summer when we took a look on Tora river (see article “back to Norway”) and we really wanted to paddle, including “Store føysen”, a couple of very nice drops above the normal section, in one of the tributaries to the Tora. We had to wait until this spring to get our chance to check out those drops and make our line down these pretty ones.

vertical take out...

We couldn’t find any good information about the drops, we just knew that you have to walk for a while “a few hundred meters” and then you will see the spot. The canyon is very narrow, and there is a huge rock that seemed to roll down the hill and now it looks like a perfect bridge across the canyon…..quite impressive.

santi running the first drop

We just drove there, took our kayaks, with the idea that it would take a while to find the drops, so we started….after a couple of hours, we just decided that the drops where too far and actually, Miguel walked so far up, that he even couldn’t keep on walking because of the snow….mission failed!

We came back home with the bad feeling of a failed mission, but we would have our second chance. A couple of days later we drove back to Tora, with some more information. We were pretty sure that the drops were closer than what we thought, and we might actually pass them without notice them. So we were right!! It was only 20 min hike, easy!!! We couldn’t believe how close they were….we sat there laughing for a while until we decided to make a plan for the run.

The level looked quite high but still good to go. To get the put in, you will have to rappel down about 10 meters, just above the first one, and the take out is quite similar as you would have to use a rope to get out of the canyon.

miguel boofin´ the first one

The most intimidating thing of this short mission it was that the second drop, the biggest one, didn’t had a pool as big as you would like, and just after the drop (with biiig boils at that water level) it comes a nasty one, and then one more, and one more…..you wouldn’t like your deck to pop or your paddle to brake in this one…….still, it was a clean run, mission accomplished!! Enjoy the pics!!

just about to land....

Era tarde en la temporada (2008) cuando tuvimos la oportunidad de ver el río Tora (ver artículo “back to norway”) y decidir remarlo, incluyendo “Store Føysen”, un par de cascadas increíbles aguas arribe de la sección normal, sobre uno de los tributarios del Tora. Tuvimos que esperar hasta esta primavera para poder ir a ver las cascadas y correrlas.

miguel droppin´the second one

No contábamos con información detallada sobre la ubicación exacta de las cascadas; sólo sabíamos que había que caminar por un rato, algunos “cientos de metros” hasta ver este lugar. El cañón es muy estrecho, y en este lugar, hay una roca que parece haber rodado desde arriba de la montaña, hasta posarse gentilmente sobre el cañón haciendo las veces de un “puente natural” algo bastante imoresionante!

Manejamos hasta Tora, tomamos nuestros kayaks, y comenzamos a caminar con la sensción de que tomaría un rato largo hasta encontrar las cascadas…Luego de un par de horas, decidimos que las cascadas estaban muy lejos, de hecho, Miguel caminó tanto en la montaña, que no pudo continuar debido a la nieve…misión fallida….

Volvimos a casa con la mala sensación de haber fallado la misión, pero tendríamos una segunda oportunidad…Un par de días después volvimos a Tora, con un poco más de información. Esta vez estábamos casi seguros que nos habíamos pasado las cascadas sin notarlas, ya que parecían estar más cerca de lo que pensábamos…Y así fue, era una caminata de sólo 20 minutos, fácil!! No podíamos creer lo cerca que estaban y cómo no las habíamos visto cuando las pasamos dos días antes. Nos reímos un rato, hasta que empezamos a hacer el plan para correrlas.

El nivel parecía bastante alto, pero todavía aceptable. Para llegar al put-in, hay que realizar un rapell de 10 metros justo arriba de la primer cascada, así como la salida del cañón también exige el uso de cuerdas para salir.

Quizás, lo más intimidante de esta misión era que después de la segunda cascada (la más grande) había que salir inmediatamente a un Eddy pequeño en la izquierda, ya que después viene otra cascada más grande y muy sucia, y después otra, y otra y otra….No era el lugar correcto para romper un remo o que el faldón implosione y exija una nadada. Después de analizar todo, hicimos una corrida limpia, y volvimos a casa, misión cumplida!!!!! Disfruten las fotos!!

runing the last section of this amazing canyon

Time for our next one, this time it was another classic, Lågen river and its Rusty (I like to call it like that) canyon. We put-in at medium to high water this time, which made things to look very different from last year. As soon as you put in you will start with a nice grade III section to warm up, and not far from there you will have the first big one, which was looking like a big monster at that water level, with two main possibilities: a left line, just avoiding the biggest $%”#$# or right in the middle of it, trying to paddle through a big diagonal first, then a huge crashing wave, to end up by punching a big hole at the bottom….full on!!

Diego runing the left line @ first rapid

Diego went first and took the safe line by the left, then Miguel fired up the center big-balled line and he just did it like a pro, so that gave the rest of us some extra motivation to hit the same line. Silvio took a smooth stroke by the big diagonal and then went into the big stuff….

Miguel showing some southamerican style

So, as I was getting in my kayak to run it I just thought: “that is easier than what I thought!” then, I lined up my kayak to take exactly the same line than Silvio and Miguel, but this time, I went too relaxed to hit that diagonal, so, by the time I went into the big wave I was in the wrong spot….got surfed, and then , into the hole without any speed at all…

Big line, wrong spot!

surfing again, but this time, for quite a long time, though, swimming was not an option, a waterfall (portage at that water level) was waiting for me just about 70 meters from where the hole was playing with me. Luckly I managed to get out from there, and we kept our run going as we enjoyed the rest of the run like kids in a candy-store! Enjoy the pics!

where is the way out of this hole!!!!

El próximo, esta vez era otro clásico, el río Lågen y su cañón rusty (me gusta llamarlo así). Entramos al río con un nivel de agua medio-alto, factor que hizo verlo muy diferente a la última vez que lo corrimos el año pasado. Tan pronto como uno se echa al agua, el río desciende formando un rápido largo y contínuo clase III, un muy buen comienzo para ablandar…

Half the way.....silvio

No muy lejos de terminar con esto, aparece el primer grande, un rápido que hace ver los kayaks de creek como si fueran playboats. Dos posibilidades: tomar línea segura por la izquierda y evadir el mounstruo que había por el centro, o simplemente tomar la línea del centro rompiendo una diagonal, para luego cargar sobre una ola rompiente con mucha fuerza (pero una ventanita en el medio) y luego un hueco bastante cerrado al final….

once you are sure you can´t help it....just padlle hard...

Diego corrió primero, eligiendo la línea de la izquierda, y luego Miguel, quien estaba inspirado, tomó la línea del centro para probar que sí se podía, muy bien! Luego Silvio hizo lo propio y demostró lo que hacen los años de experiencia con su kayak. Cuando me metí en mi kayak pensé “esto es más fácil de lo que esperaba” entonces remé hacia la diagonal con demasiado relax…pum!! La diagonal era muy fuerte! Para cuando pasé la diagonal, me di cuenta que estaba en lugar equivocado, no iba a alcanzar la ventana que me permitiría mantener la velocidad para golpear con fuerza el último hueco; en cambio, después de que me detuvo por completo, me dejó sin fuerza para atacar al hueco, entonces ya se imaginan lo que pasó…

después de una larga surfeada en el hueco, logré salir un poco exhausto pero felíz, ya que si hubiese nadado, muy probablemente el río me hubiese llevado gentilmente hacia el próximo rápido; una cascada que a ese nivel de agua era portaje!!!

Después de esto seguimos remando y disfrutando de este río como niños en una tienda de chocolates!! Disfruten las fotos!

Greig Mccolm running Åmot, our local run

So…..this is a new summer for us working here at the peaceful Sjoa Valley, in the heart of Norway. Myself and my partner Miguel Covarrubias wanted to get some warm up before to start running the big stuff here in Norway. After some runs over our local “homerun” grade IV section called Åmot we were ready to go!

first rapid, Tora river
First mission then was Tora river. A couple of hours driving west from Sjoa you´ll find this piece of white water-nature-art called Tora. This river has a very short and full on section. Slides and drops are coming one after the other, and depending on the water levels, you might have the chance to put in little further upstream and run an amazing combo…

This time we were 6 paddlers, though there was one of our crew who decided not to paddle due to a leg injury he was trying to get heal as soon as possible…..good choice…

Miguel running one of the slides

I think the best rapid in this 800 mts section is the last one which is a long slide, fast and fun!! Tora is a perfect run to do in the beginning of the season, mainly because you will have the chance to scout everything from both banks before you put in, and also because you could portage those rapids you don’t feel ready to run….perfect!!

“Under the bridge”…Martin Vollen
Otro verano comienza en Noruega mientras nosotros nos encontramos aquí en el tranquilo valle de Sjoa, en el corazón de este país increíble. Mi compañero Miguel y yo decidimos entrar en calor antes de comenzar con los “grandes ríos”. Algunas corridas sobre la sección que tenemos aquí cerca de nuestra casa, llamado Åmot y ya estuvimos listos para entrar en acción…

Nuestra primer misión nos llevó a correr un río llamado Tora. Manejamos un par de horas hacia el oeste hasta encontrarnos con esta pieza de arte de la naturaleza llamada Tora. Este río tiene una sección tan corta como intensa. Slides y drops vienen uno atrás de otro, y dependiendo de los niveles de agua, también da la posibilidad de entrar un poco más arriba y correr una combinación increíble.

last rapid…

Esta vez fuimos 6 kayakistas, aunque uno de ellos decidió permanecer afuera, ya que todavía se recupera de una lesión importante en su pierna…buena desición.

Creo que el mejor rápido es el último, una perfecta despedida para esta sección de 800 mts. Tora es una opción perfecta para correr a principio de la temporada, ya que te da la chance de observar todos los rápidos desde ambas orillas antes de meterte al río, y, además da la posibilidad de portear los rápidos que no te gusten…perfecto!!

Hope you like the pics!

Photography by Greig Mccolm

Hi folks! Be welcome to the FreEky media blog, where you can check out updates about kayak missions, new products and more!

Let´s get to know this new thing is called “Freeky”. Whitewater fans and some people dedicated to outdoor sports gear, came out with this idea a couple of years ago. Then, FReeky got into reality. Argentina is a country with loads of whitewater d

estinations, many first

descents to explore, many good athletes in all kind of outdoor sports and fantastic girls (its always good to remember this last thing no matter what!!). This combination brought Freeky into life, being the first Argentinian brand on getting very good quality on their stuff, with the potential of getting expanded as paddlers spread the brand around the globe.

His co-founder, Pablo Gulino, started this dream, and push it into reality, as the local paddlers where happy to know there is an argetninian brand keeping them dry and safe as they run hard stuff.

Now FReeky is ready to move on and be part of the global family called kayakers around the world. Every year, Freeky would come up with better designs, that means, the holy dynamism that leads any company into the good way. With much efford and hours of drawing, cutting, drinking and so on….top quality materials are combined with cool design to bring freeky products to paddlers.

Visit the Freeky website at : www.freekyweb.com.ar and chek out the products. WARNING! The website is still in Spanish, soon there will be an English version available!!

See you all in the river, GO FREEKY, GO ARGENTINA!!!