Madamax

Quite a bit going on these days.

Reco on one of the numerous rapids encountered.

A strong team of US kayakists + film crew (including madagascar veterans Brad Luebben and Rush Sturges) have just completed the first kayak descent of the upper Betsiboka river.

Brad swings around holes

The river had been paddled by Sobek old timers back in 85 but that implied a whole lot of portages around major drops.

This time the boys have paddled most of the 275 kms section excepted three very short portages.

Garden of boulders, a typical channel navigation on the Betsiboka

Water was fairly low the first day, then rains on the plateaux kept feeding the river till the last day and levels rised considerably over the 12 day trip.

They dropped over 3.000 feet somehow concentrated azround short sections and crocs were gentle to them.

Josh, Rush and Brad contemplating a small specimen in a remote village

Accidentally we also had a raft who struggled to follow and took considerable risks to paddle most of the rapids.

The team on a flat section on day 2

Numerous strenuous portages were necessary to keep up with the boys, leaving plenty of time for the film crew to document the expedition and plenty of work for Sylvain (a french kayakist from Lyon/Hawaî sur Rhone).

That was a long trip but the Young Guns team finally flew back to Mama Africa. 2 more months before they bag the journey and start editing their next opus. Can’t wait to see the film, “African revolution”.

Those guys drove me insane with the most intense behavior ever, …

Despite or with the help of very rainy weather, they managed to rack a few more new rivers.

They started driving south and paddled the upper Mania in a long day!

Waters were so high that they had to portage some sections we usually raft!…

The Ranomafana area didn’t offer great paddling and after checking out an other stream around Antsirabe, they went driving toward Majunga.

The Manankazo for 3 long days in the North West, a couple of day sections on Mamokomita and Andriantoany in the same district.

That was it for their 2008 malagasy river trip. An other great one. We might have to wait two more years to get such intense activity, …

Water is flowing in Madagascar and the young guns enjoy a week of good weather while YVAN, the next cyclone of the season is aiming towards the East Coast.

As they have a few insane creeks lined up, the boys are getting all excited.

They came back in town to celebrate (infamously, I have to confess) Rush’s Birthday!…

The ones who heard about mada’s nights can imagine how loose it all ended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

despite those urban delights they took time to reveal a new pearl for rain season.

We had rafted and kayaked most of that river excepted a central section, definitely too radical for us.

The Mazy is a small river running around lake Itasy, 10 kms from Lilly (and eventually joining 40 kms further west).

During dry season, it is definitely too dry to paddle the upper part and the lower part is somehow flat.

Now, when rains are abundant, this is a beautiful day run and sweeeeet by Tyler’s standard.

Enjoy those 3 shots of this new descent and sharpen your blades for next season.

As a special treat for Valentine’s lovers, down below is an historical shot by Patrick : Edmond, the first malagasy creeker after a horrifying swim between the 2 Lilly’s waterfalls. The most impressive is probably that he manages to pull a grin on his beated up face. I swear I’m gonna buy him a full integral helmet.

Encourage him, he is the very first local to paddle drops and serious rapids.

Aaron Rettig, Ian Garcia, Patrick Camblin, Lane Jacobs, Tyler Bradt and Rush Sturges landed in Antananarivo on saturday night last week.

Sunday they were jumping the first Lilly waterfall

Monday the second Lilly waterfall. I leave you a few pics of these psychotic jumps and will try to keep up and feed you with fresh shots of what they wrongly consider as “sweet” sections, …

Those boys are somehow brainless and will go for the most terrifying and powerful falls.

Next week I’m supposed to take them around Maevatanana for more totally radical and ridiculously high waters on the big western rivers.

I maintain that there is so much water in those rivers that it could get totally out of control, but I’m getting used to them and their constant drive to push limits a bit further, ….

Enjoy and dream!

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