May 18th for a few weeks...
This was a trip
that should have happened last year but got postponed. It was good to actually set off south with a
whitewater kayak, a pushbike and a tent
- simply to start a new adventure
is a great feeling. Usual logistics of
the endless boring motorway down across the Borders and through England to
Dover, great brasserie lunch on a fairly empty ferry, and then a rest overnight
in Belgium.
Day 2 was driving down through Lux, Germany into Austria, back in to Germany. Camped near the border in the alpine foothills and had “warm-up” paddles on the river Loisach and the Scuol’s gorge section of the mighty Inn.
Went on to be
in the Italian ski valley of Valsesia by Sunday evening where the Gene17 river
festival was in its second day. This
kayaking mecca is centred on the campsite “Il Gatto e le Volpe” ( “the Fox
& the Cat” is from the Adventures of Pinnochio apparently - did
you not know this!?).
Just great as a
boater to arrive in somewhere with daytime temperatures 25-30 degC, with a
grade 4/4+ river running past the entrance, loads of other kindred spirits, and
a bar/pizzeria onsite. Alberto is in
charge here but he’s well used to having a good number of paddlers turn up and
behave/get excited as paddlers do. At least half of those present in camp seemed to speak english so getting to know folk wasn’t difficult.
In particular, cheers go to Oli, Tony & Colin, Chris B, the Stalker family, Wavesport Wayne and his crew, Scott & Paolo, Beau, Alex, Tom, etc.
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| Tony, Colin & Oli planning the next mission... |
And so to the
paddling itself….. In the 13 days I was
there I paddled on 7 different river sections across the valley, and only the Lower Sesia was below a
grade 4. Lots to go at and try to
perfect, some sections were lapped in the same day, some were simply revisited
a couple of times in the week. I certainly
haven’t exhausted the area. What was
noticeable was that even 2 km sections (eg the Egua, grade 4+/5 in the
guidebook) took us several hours to get completed. Shuttle, bank inspection time, setting safety
time, all adds up.
Here's a selection of the river Egua ( the classic "steep" creek),
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| View from the roadbridge at the get-in with first drop forming the horizon line |
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| The first drop is a ramp and then a boof off the end |
Second time around and in time lapse...
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| Matt goes one better and tries to throw a hammer |
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| Tom & Scott pondering |
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| Chris B on Flare Rock |
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| Innspecting Gunbarrel |
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| Tom doing Live Bait duty on Cylinder |
And of course, once boating was done for the day there was always the bar/pizzeria, or simple social gatherings in the campsite with sufficient wine/beer to keep everyone happy. Plans for the following day were nearly always made but were pretty vague in an evening – the next morning after croissant things got hardened up.
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| Chris B and Mike doing apres-paddle |
Travelling down to
Italy solo was always a bit of a risk for me but I got along well with a great couple of
guys (many thanks to Oli Kershaw and Tony Becker) who had been in the area
before. We had quite a good crowd of
their other associates / mates / long-lost cousins that evolved through the
fortnight. Oli and Tony were going one
better than me, in that they were on a 6-week paddling tour with their van.
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| The Guys,... Oli & Tony |
So the main river flowing past the campsite was the Sesia, and it comprised 3 main sections for paddling; the Alpine Sprint, the Middle, and the Lower. We must have done the middle section 4 or 5 times by the end as it was such a continuous blast of alpine style "read & run" with 2 great features in it - the Quare falls (a portage for me) - and the Piode falls (ran with different levels of style!).
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| Tony showing his style |
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| Rich Stalker, Quare Falls |
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| Rob Stalker, Piode Falls |
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| Oli plus ice cream below Piode Falls |
Around the
locality are a number of high mountains (the campsite itself is at 800m ASL) so
any walks were generally fairly energetic – historically, there’s a big
Catholic influence and so there are shrines and chapels built on various
pilgrim trails and generally seem to be on the edge of a cliff. As it wasn’t ski season the area is pretty
quiet in May/June with some of the ski infrastructure shut-down. The area at the top of the trail is at 1180m and is like mini-switzerland.
I must compliment
the boaters present in Campertogno.
Everyone seemed open to help/assist other groups, to rescue as needed,
to provide first aid, and that was a perfect environment for folk to step up
their boating. The valley is afterall
nearly all grade 4/4+/5- full-on
whitewater. You definitely got the
feeling that no-one would leave you stranded or struggling.
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| Posh pizza up in Alagne with Oli, Tony & Colin |
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| Entrance to Sermenza gorge |
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| Great boof from Colin on the Sermenza |
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| Exit rapid, Mastellone |
By the last day of
May, the threatening thunderstorms around the peaks were not producing rain in
the rivers and so levels started to drop.
Valsesia’s season is pretty short and as the water disappeared so did
the boaters. Still time to lap the Sorba Slides in the evening though and have a wander up through Rassa village.
I had a day out mountain
biking up the valley but by June 2nd I too was ready to move
on. Phase 2 was going to be in Austria on the way north, story in the next blog update..
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| Alpine Sprint section above Molia |
Photo credit for some of the above to Oli Kershaw and to Andy Holt.
Oli Kershaw appears in this production courtesy of NEXT LEVEL COACHING & GUIDING
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This was a trip
that should have happened last year but got postponed. It was good to actually set off south with a
whitewater kayak, a pushbike and a tent
- simply to start a new adventure
is a great feeling. Usual logistics of
the endless boring motorway down across the Borders and through England to
Dover, great brasserie lunch on a fairly empty ferry, and then a rest overnight
in Belgium.
