Season 2014

It´s been quite a long time since my last entry. Actually I´am going to write something about my last season of boating and travelling around Europe. This season has been awesome. I could paddle on many different rivers with good flows, had epic parties and joined the season with awesome dudes.

After my long Chiletrip I was a littlebit excausted and had more energy for hiking mountains or doing some cycling. But it didn´t take long and so I was motivated again.

- ready to go, pic: mom :D -

  Together with Joop Hermann, Quirin Haslberger and Matt Karli I could manage to go to Tessin and Piemont for my first time.

Tessin and Piemont was just amazing. Quirin owns a old VW-van, including space for 4 people to sleep.  

-Quitschie´s LOVE, pic: me-

Our first stop was the Vercazca river. Famous for it´s tourism attractions and the possibility tot o any outdoorsport you can imagine. The river itself flows through an amazing little gorge with big boulders of granit. Cristal-clear water and one of the best rapids I´ve ever paddled in the alps or even oft he hole planet makes the vercazca to a uneblieveable paddledestination.

-Vercazca, pic: Sven Lämmler-

 After 3 days of paddling, crossgolfing and drinking beer we went to the next valley. Another big classic in Tessin ist he ribo. Back in my beginning of kayaking I´ve seen a lot pictures of this nice 16 meter clean waterfall. At that point I told myself that I wanna run this rapid once. And so we did. Running waterfalls is one of my favourite style to paddle. It´s a addiction, coming off the lip and watching down into the pool.

-The ribo-fall, pic: Dani Kazemi-

After the Ribo we kept on travelling.  We could catch rivers like Calasima, San Bernadino, Melezza and a lot more .

All in all form e it was defenetely really worth to go and for shure to come back into the country of readwine and pizzas.

-Matt on the ribo, pic: me-

-Quitschie, pic: me-

-Joop in the big Calasimagorge, pic: me-

-Severin and me in the ribogorge, pic: Phillip Brunner-

-Ribo, pic: Phillip Brunner-

 Next stop was Soca. I was maybe 5 or 6 years old when I had my first contact with a kayak. This was on the Soca river together with my family. The only thing I can remember is that I tried to do the eskimoroll. Logically I had no chance and ended up swimming in one of the big pools the soca owns.  Round about 13 years later I made my way back together with Matt. At the same time the socatestival started. So many kayak and paddelbrands brought all their stuff to the soca river, in order to try all the gear you wanna test. Weather and flow is allways great at this tme of the year. At the end we had 5 great days together spending on the famous soca gorge.

-early bird, pic: Matt Karli-

-dropping into the first rapid, pic: Matt karli-

-Matt in the crux of soca, pic: me-

-First rapid of the crux, pic: me-

-Somewhere in the gorge, pic: Matt Karli-

-First nice move after the gorge, pic: Matt Karli-

-Matt doing a nice boof, pic: me-

-Wonderfull soca, pic: Matt Karli-

The time between the trips is usually not the time where you can paddle pretty often, excepting you live close to the alps. I´am very lucky to be  able to live in Rosenheim which is close to many rivers like Saalach, Brandenberger Ache, Ötz, Rißbach and many more. Every weekend and also some days during the week I spent time on these rivers. Paddling on my homespots allways blows my mind. So good rivers and everywhere you go you meet nice and friendly people you can paddle with.There are allways special events like the loferrodeo or the Rißbachfliegen. Everybody meets up just for one reason: having fun. It allways reminds me, how beautiful the place is where I grew up.

-me with the new EXO-XT-CREEK in the Rißbachklamm, pic: Sandra Jennifer-

-Dropping into my favourite run in the Alps, pic: Moritz Kuhlbars-

-Partytime in Lofer, pic: Whitewaterslaves-

-Loferrace, pic: Whitewaterslaves-

Like it´s normal for a student you have a lot of time. So our next big trip for this summer was norway.

Two years ago I´ve been the first time to the land of Trolls, lakes and mountains. Within was Martin Kaltenbach, Moritz Engl and Matt Karli. Afterwards I would say the best decision to go with those guys. Everytime you travell up the long way to the very north you are not shure of  the weather there. Sometimes you have lovely sunshine with 30 degrees and sometimes completely the opposite. Actually we had a good mixture of both. Round about 20 degrees and sun, mixed together with also heavy rains which made the flow of the river nice. After 30 hours of driving we arrived happy at the put in of the sjoariver. Actually I met a good friend from chile: Ben Hawthrone. He is managing the Sjoaraftingcamp every year and so he was our hoast for the upcoming time. The sjoa has many different sections. The most spectacular is maybe the Amot-section. A short but intense bigwater run.

-In the Amot, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

The past few years norway got well known for kayakers. It is a really special country. On one side there are huge fjords where you can sail or fishing, and on the other huge mountains where skiing is more than possible. Rivers are clean and big, People are friendly and you can sleep whereever you want. All that combined makes Norway to one of my favourite countries for kayking.

-Boof on the Bofra, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

-Raundalselvi, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

-Nice waterfall on the Lagen, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

- in the Amot, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

-Lagen, pic: Martin Kaltenbach-

-The boys on the put-in of train-station,pic:me-

-sunrise on the bofra,pic:me-

-norwegian landscape,pic:me-

-The upper sjoa,pic:me-

-sjoavalley, pic:me-

-enjoying breakfast,pic:me-

After Norway I spent some time in the mountains hiking and enjoying the nature without paddling. Together with my bro Lücke, my girlfriend and my sister we did some nice hikes in the alps.

-Peakperformance in a special way,pic:me-

Most of autumn we were paddling in the Ötzvalley. The Ötz has some famous sections like the wellerbrücke, destination for the adidas-sickline-race...

-take out lower ötz,pic:me-

Once again my girlfriend and me decided to go to the soca. Again we didn´t get dissapointed, no we could paddle all the sections during 5 great days.

-Lady is following down the slalomcurse,pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-Somewhere on Slalomcurse,pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-Slalomcurse,pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-Amore grande :D, pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-View from the top, pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-synchronrolling, pic:Mona Dlugosch-

-lovely morning in the soca-valley,pic:me-

In the summer of 2014 I was allready planning the upcoming winter. Like allways, I was really motivated for some good stuff. So I asked Matt, if he would be keen to come on a trip. After a week of deciding where to go, we´ve chosen mexico. Since my very first trip to mexico in 2010 I was able to go there one more time in 2012. I couldn´t believe that I will go there once again. Mexico is really special for me. I love the style of the whitewater there. If somebody ask you whats the style over there, you can answer with a simple word: Waterfalls.. Mexiko owns some of the best, biggest and most techniquel waterfalls which the hole planet offers. Many people came to the land of tequilla and sunshine, just to run all the famous cascadas like Tomato, Big-Banana, Twisted-pleasure and a lot more. Within was like everytime Matt Karli, my Bro Peter Hohenwarter Helga Lehner, Lena Grüb and a lot more. Our flight left on the 18th of november, our flight back home was booed for the 5th of january, so we had 3 awesome weeks ahead.

-fired up on the airport, pic:me-

-probably the biggest city I´ve ever seen:Mexico-city,pic:me-

After we arrived in the capital of mexico, we jumped into the next bus, which brought us to the paddlemekka so called Tlapacoyan.

-Mexican way of travelling, pic:me-

Tlapacoyan is a small city in Veracruz state, close to the East-Coast of Mexico. 5 km out of the city there is the raftingcamp AVENTUREC. If I would start now to explain how life is at the camp, I think it would take me hours, so I just use some words to explain: best owners ever, best food, swimming-pool, close river access, friendly, best rivers, beautiful, bananas, oranges, tequilla, friends. The next picture shows a normal day at the aventurec: Going boating, hanging out ate the pool and having fun.

-Poolsessions,pic:me-

From the first day on were started the hucking fest.The area around Tlapacoyan has 3 main rivers, which owns a lot of sections. Those 3 river are the rio alsesseca, rio Jalacingo and the rio Filobobos. Every rivers of those are amazing for itselfs. Most of the paddlers are coming for the rio alsesseca and rio jalacingo, cause many well known rapids are in this sections. We started the first day with a section on the alsesseca: The roadside. As it name says this sections has an roadaccess which makes this section to the perfect start of the trip. The drop and pool caracter is really famous for mexiko.

-Peter shots up,pic: Adrian Mattern-

-Yannick in the S-turn,pic:Paul Mehlan-

-me doing a boof on roadside,pic: Adrian Mattern-

-me in the S-turn of roadside,pic: Paul Mehlan-

After our warm-up run on the roadside, the boys where fired up for some double B(Big-Banana) laps. Big Banana is the most popular section in the hole veracruz or maybe also in the hole mexican area. First you have to walk half an hour through the jungle until you end up below the massive 42m waterfall, where rafa ortiz and aniol serasolses did the first descent a few years ago.

-Putin BB,pic:me-

-Putin,pic:me-

-Matt is showing his incredible muscels,pic:me-

After the putin there are waiting some nice bouldergarden-rapids. When you are fast it takes you round about 20 minutes to the first nice waterfall. It´s a 6-8 m clean drop into a awesome canyon. After this rapid it just keeps o going and going. I can remember my first time in there back in 2010, it felt like a skatepark for kayakers, endless amazing whiwater.

-deep canyon after the first waterfall, pic:me-

Pretty much in the middle is my favourite waterfall in mexico, the silencio. The silencio is a massiv, big but nice waterfall. It has an really consequential entrance above and falls afterwards 14m down into a deep gorge.

-my sweet love the silencio,pic:Helga Lehner-

After the Silencio, continous whitewater is laying ahead. Every rapid is unique for his own. If you are fast it takes about 20 minutes down to the take out.

-me in Meatlocker,pic:Helga Lehner-

-Helga in the meatlocker,pic:me-

When you reach the take-out on the tomata bridge you can decide, either you continoue down tomata waterfalls or taking out at the bridge. One day Matt, Me and Sven Lämmler decided to continoue down the big tomata falls. The first of tomata falls is a 23m completey vertical waterfall. The timing on this rapid is pretty difficult, because the lip has allmost 90 degrees, so you have to have a lot of feeling in case you don´t wanna land flat or oververtical. At this day everybody of us had nice lines.

-Svennyboy on tomata 1,pic:Lena Grüb-

-me on tomata1,pic:Lena Grüb-

-Matt on t1,pic:Lena Grüb-

Right below Tomata 1 there is the monster also called Tomata2. T2 is combining everything which makes a rapid to a hard challenge. There are two smaller drops ricght before the main part of T2 which are really boily and pushy. you want to do both of them hard right, especially the second drop is really essentially if you fuck up or not. When you passed the second drop it leads into a slide combined with a huge boiler on the right. There you lean completely into that boiler, so it doesn´t flip you over. The boiler pushes you onto a 10m slide which leads into ca. 15 m freefall. All in all a very hard rapid. So before we ran, we decided whats the best soloution about the line. 10min after Sven sat in his boat and ran te shit. He had a really nice line, followed by Matt who unfortuanetly missed the line and got flipped by the boiler. Last but not least was my turn. Two years before I had the same line like Matt this year, so I wanted revenge with this rapid. I was really lucky that I could manage a nice line trough the entrance and also trough the hole rapid. We very really stoked to end up the year with such a nice run. There was still one section waiting for us on that day. The seven sisters. We went trough that 7 waterfalls in 10 min. Afterwards we were happy and stoked about such a great day. Complete Big Banana, Tomata 1 and 2 and 7 Sisters.

-Me on Tomata2, pic:Peter Hohenwarter-

-Matt with the right ankle but upsidedown,pic:Peter Hohenwarter-

After this two massive rapids we were really stoked and fired up for the next upcoming section. The Seven Sisters. The seven sisters are seven waterfalls. Each of those are wolrdclass whitewater. Probably the fitfh one is the scariest one. It is a 5meter drop which is more or less like the championskiller on the Ötz but with lot more consequences if you fuck the line up. Right in front of the drop there is a huge undercut where a lot of good kayakers swam in there. Anyway, Matt, Sven and me were lucky and didn´t swim in there. Every waterfall on this day was just perfect. At the take-out we felt like champions. Not many people have done this sections in one day plus both Tomata falls.

-Matt on the fith sister,pic:me-

-The normal put-in of seven sisters the other day,pic:me-

-Helga on the fifth sister,pic:me-

-Matt on number six of the sisters,pic:me-

All in all my year 2014 was incredible. I could travel to many differemt countries and could paddle a lot duing my studies. Defenetely my Highlights have been chile, mexico and norway. Three different paddle-destinations. Each of those are incredible on his own. I would like to thank all my friends who made all the trips real and unforgettable for me. Tomorrow I will leave to Sri-Lanka to do some surfing on the ocean.
Big thanks also to my sponsors: Kokatat Watersports, Marmot, EXO, Tywarp.
See you out there.