Paula’s Funsized Adventures

Its been a pretty big year this year. I would certainly say that my best kayaking moment in 2011 was hucking the middle Palguin waterfall. Its a 70 footer near Pucon in Chile which the local boys said I was the second female kayaker after Mariann to have run… Great feeling running it and looking back up with the adrenalin pumping!

A particularly funny/ hairy moment of 2011 was the Pan-Am that I managed to do off oneof the slides on the Nevados in Chile, also near Pucon…  I was certainly worried about whether I was going to land on my head or not… Apparently the line I took was the “main line” according to the boys, but I didn´t realise that they all paddled the chicken shoot!

As ever, my summer highlight was a trip to Norway, where I had an awesome week, although there were some pretty epic waterlevels! I managed to finally get a gold winners t-shirt by winning the “horgi ned” competition – a team race with downhill mountain biking and kayaking… with me doing the kayaking section obviously!

The British festivals proved as fun as ever as well…. Wet West paddlefest going off in style. Cant wait to see what 2012 has to offer! happy new year!

 We are now basing ourselves around Pucon – and the local run here is a short but sweet section called the Upper Palguin. As with everything in Chile it is super picturesque and has a waterfall on it! These are a few select pictures from our first run on it.

Apart from that we have visited the local drinking establishment called Mamas & Tapas. Watched the Demshitz run the middle Palguin (a 70 foot waterfall). Other rivers in the area which we have managed to get on are the lower Liacura (class 3 medium volume float), the Maichin (class 4- boulder gardens with one portage),  the Magic Canyon of the Liacura (class 4 with one massive horrific portage and another easier portage), the Truful Truful (non stop class 3 rapids with around 3 eddies in 9km).

Photos: Tom Redd

I have arrived in Chile!

First things first, the boys bought a sweet truck… and we headed 4 hours south of Santiago to the “Siete Tazas” or seven tea-cups… on the Rio Claro. Then we met up with some american boaters who were kind enough to take us down the upper section known as the 22 waterfalls. Here are the pictures in no particular order!

Now down in Pucon where we have rented a house and are hitting up some local runs here. Another update soon!

Local villagers gather to wave goodbye as we leave in the morning

A month goes by quickly in Nepal, and we finished off by doing the ueber-classic of the Sun Kosi. It is a beautiful river – mainly class three. We decided to do a lightly packed multi-day and stop off in the evenings to see if we could persuade whoever lived in the local village to provide us with Dhal Bhat. The Nepal-English language cards I had been given by a friend proved invaluable for getting us food wherever we went! Since most of the commercial trips have raft support, and there is no road alongside the river, most of the villagers very rarely see tourists. As a result we were quite the novelty, and it really felt like we were seeing the “real”  Nepal – and getting a good bit of culture!

Sara and I help the village children shell lentils for our Dhal Bhat dinner

Upper Seti close-up!

After a 24 hour bus journey back from the Sun Kosi (!) I did a Bhote Kosi float trip as a safety boater for a raft trip (dam down), since no one else was keen to paddle. Then we met up with Matt Tidy and he and Jake joined us one of the most superb runs around, the Bhote Kosi (Borderlands to the dam). Continuous class 4(+) with lots of big holes and boulder garden style drops.

I had a brilliant time, goodbye Nepal!

More Upper Seti Close up!

Sara on the Sun Kosi

Photos by Sara James and Adam Dumolo

 We found some random Swedish guys wearing kayaking t-shirts in Pokhara and ended up scheming with them to do some boating. We set off on another multi-day trip starting on the Modi Khola and continuing on into the Kali Gandaki river. We started off with a crew of 7 (6 burns and only one mamba between us!), but Sara was struck with a touch of Dehli Belly and had to walk out after one day – leaving us with a majority of Swedes on the team!

the Modi!

Adam boofing on the Modi

 The MRS stove also packed it in, so we were cooking on fires. Luckily we had three vikings to build fires and protect us from the snow leopards which Fran thought might attack any minute! Apparently Maggi noodles are a nepali national dish, and they were very easy to cook and carry in boats!

Other memorable moments of the trip included finding a dead body in an eddy, which wasn’t pleasant! Especially when we had to drink water filtered from the river downstream! We started finding tributaries to camp by from then on!

Practicing my Ray Meares skill set.

 camping out under the tarps!

 The team on the last day!

Photos by Bjarne Sahlen

After the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu, it was a relief for Sara, Adam and I to arrive in the peaceful lakeside city of Pokhara. The mood here is very calm and relaxed, and we settled into a cheap guesthouse costing £1.50 a night including a clean ensuite bathroom, which had been recommended by some scumbag kayakers we met on the day-long busride between Kathmandu and Pokhara. We also met up with Canadian friends, Mark and Michelle who settled into Penguin Guesthouse with us.

The Upper Seti is a classic alpine-style river, only 20 minutes from Pokhara, and provides an excellent warm up. The guide-book says its a grade 3, but it seems a touch more challenging than that… Due to all of the group taking turns at getting slightly ill, and as most of the other rivers were multi-day trips, we have ended up doing multiple runs on this little gem. No less enjoyable each time.

I arrived in Nepal at 6pm on a Thursday night – more than 24 hours after schedule – and my friends Adam and Sara had already organised a chilled out class 3 multi-day trip on the Trisuli with a local rafting company – starting at 6am!

The roads from Kathmandu were pretty chocka with traffic. Riding on the roof of the bus made the journey much cooler though!

packing the boats full of all the kit we needed for the next two days

me a little shocked by the looks of things!

Sara and I sporting matching Burns…

A room with a view! The stars were amazing from our little tarp-shelter…

Whilst I realise that it is not always the aim of the game… I have about 3 minutes to go before leaving for Nepal, and I still hadn’t updated in relation to my amazing summer, so I thought I would just put up some of the best pictures – and promise to do more commentary for my next updates.

Norway is heaven in a kayak – and as you may have gathered from earlier posts, my first love in the kayaking world. Here are some creeking pics from the summer in Norway, and a couple of playboating pics from Canada thrown in too!

some random waterfalls near Vetlefjordan, Norway

one of the classics – the Upper Brandseth, Voss, Norway

the first rapid on the Upper Brandseth, Voss, Norway

playboating on the ottawa river, Canada

the Upper Jordalselva, Voss, Norway

My favourite river, triple falls on the Lower Myrkdalselva, Voss, Norway

Lachine Rapids, Montreal, Canada

photos by Nick Pearce and Dave Wortley

Hey guys… I got my new boat a couple of weeks back and have been testing it out at Hurley – here are some of the results… I’ve found it to be smooth and fast on the wave with forgiving edges. The molan is slightly narrower than my star, so easier on those edge to edge transitions… 

 Nothing beats Hurley in the sunshine!!

 While I’m working on my big-air… here’s one I baked earlier! Craig Ayres has a go in the Molan.

  A beautiful sunset over Hurley wier!

 OK – I’ll admit that I’m an addict. I’m not even willing to get off when it gets dark…

Me on one of the slides on the Upper Tawe

Me on one of the many small “boof” drops on the Upper Tawe

There was still snow on the ground, but the river proved a real gem – we walked up about a km from the put-in in the guidebook - past many sweet little drops, one of which was described by Matty as a “mini Ulla” – we had a great time on the first section. The day continued in a similar fashion – not many eddies were to be had, though, and our progress around the many blind bends with a relatively big group of 5 paddlers, was fairly slow. We found lots more sweet drops and slides – a real playground of a river. As we approached the entrance to the gorge, we had spent around 3 and a half hours on the river and the darkness was drawing close. We decided not to risk the gorge as we weren’t sure how easy it would be to get out if it got dark! I left the river feeling completely satisfied though – great new river, awesome day! Thanks to Craig, Will, Matty and Mandy for a great day. Apologies to Mandy for not getting any decent pics of you!

Matty Nicholas reaches for a big BOOF on the Upper Tawe!

Will Hatt does his best “Blue Steel” while boofing on the Upper Tawe!

Craig Ayres disappears over the edge on the Upper Tawe!

The next day came and the river gods continued to smile on us and Marsh weir on the Thames was high – only an inch below the wall (not that I was any good at getting on it despite that). We had a brilliant day in the sunshine, as we enjoyed not only the tropical temparatures (well, it was above zero which seemed tropical in comparison to the weekend before!), but also seeing the much talked-about new Pyranha Molan in action, as Richard had got his hands on one of the few pre-production boats.

Richard Brooks puts the Molan through its paces on Marsh Weir on the Thames

Joe Bradley shows us some BIG AIR on Marsh Weir on the Thames