slovene Vir
What to say, the Winter was a strong one, so its grip on Spring was so much so the season decided to hold on for quite a while. April Showers were more like a month of rain, thus my little plan to get the final few shots needed to complete the much delayed new instructional DVD was thrown out of the window. I’ll need to wait until June. In spite of the weather, Gene17 had a bumper month in April, with many new faces and great laughs too. My brother in law join us, he has only been in a kayak 5 times before, so for him to ace the different sections on the Soča was a thrill for both him and myself.
Dave Carroll enjoying high water on the slalom site in Trnovo.
A G17 paddler flaring a rock grind on the Upper Soča River.
Dave Carroll in hot pursuit in the Third Canyon.
High water and the beginning of the Spring melt, allowing the Boka Waterfall to flow. The water source for the waterfall is a cave on the lip of the cascade, a classic Karst rock formation.
Myself inspecting the final stages of construction and renovation at 22 Trnovo. Its been 3 year since I purchased my ruin in Slovenia. No one lived there for 40 years or more, so there was a huge requirements to completely install all the services and insulate the property to modern standards. I had the ex-president of the AKC doing most of the technical work with the under floor heating, plus a team of Balkan workers doing the general construction. The house has been considerably transformed to cater for G17′s expanding instructor training programmes, the first of which D4DR WW starts in a few weeks time. From 2009, G17 will offer the property for group accommodation, details to come this Autumn.
With demand on the increase my hand was finally forced to purchase a new van for G17. Now for UK tax reasons this is always fun and days, and I understand the advances of leasing, yet there is something about spending that amount of money and having nothing to show for it, that just is not in my comprehension. So instead I borrowed the funds, and went to Germany and brought a MB Sprinter. This export purchase will be registered in Slovenia, so my slow migration of the whole of G17 to Soča takes another step.
Towards the end of the month, just as I was about to depart, the sun arrived for the first time in weeks. One day it what 25′C, so short sleeves came out, and the snow started to melt….fast. Since I left and have been in Piemonte, Soča has been in major flood. For the last 2 weeks it has been all around high water Kajak.at This picture has and is continuing to be the picture of runoff in the Alps this Spring. Often when the Winter’s are strong with high snow pack conditions, the regional micro climates are dominated by heavy rain fall conditions. All this tends to continue until late Spring, after which stable conditions can finally arrive to start melting the snow, and the melt water all comes at once. Expect high water conditions for a while yet if you are in the Alps.
Be careful out there. A Ticino and Valsesia report to come soon.
Cheers
Simon
