Check out our latest pics from SuperDink and South Silver in California – this is a lot of Granite!!

You can check out the full trip report and all of the photos at www.RiverGypsies.com.

Leland on SuperDink.

Andria runs Skyscraper on South Silver.

With plenty of sunshine – quite untypical for Lofer – and a nice water level, the second Extreme Race in Lofer, Austria took part last weekend. Spontaneously I decided to go there and was quite surprised, when I realized that I was the only girl competing. There was a single race for qualification first, followed by the boatercross. As I was faster than some of the boys, I competed in the boatercross. I must admit it is a little bit strange to compete against men, but still lots of fun.

Anna in the Teufelsschlucht – Picture: Timo Köster

We recently got to do most of the North Fork of the American River here in California – Including the legendary Generation and Giant Gap sections and some excellent river play in our Recoils on the Chamberlain Falls Section.

Here are a couple of teaser photos of the play – you can read a full report on all of the sections – including the new freestyle trick I invented – at RiverGypsies.com.

Have fun out there!

The Warriors and friends recently hit one of our favourite local runs the Branseth Elva. We took the opportunity to test our Ammos on the slides and technical drops, and they ripped.

Super manoeverable, easy to boof and catch the smallest eddies, which was handy at the crux of the s-bend.

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Its that time of year again! Spring has sprung, rains have swollen the rivers and there is time off work to go check out new runs. The other day we headed over to Eksingedale to try to run a river we rarely see with water. Eksingedale is an amazing valley, starting with a well know ‘Lake to Lake’ drop the river then flows over 5 ridiculously large waterfalls before flowing to what we hoped would be a runnable section! Little did we know….

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Leland and I have headed to Northern California to research more rivers for our new guidebook, The River Gypsies’ Guide to North America. The North Yuba drainage turned out to be a class III/IV paddling destination dream!

Check out our full update at RiverGypsies.com

Recoiling the big one on the Goodyear’s Bar play run.

My brother and I enjoyed an awesome paddling weekend in Lofer/Austria. Thanks to the rainfall the week before, we were able to run the gorge several times in our Ammos and had heaps of fun. Perfect water level, perfect weather, perfect weekend!

Today I went to paddle a really nice river in the Pyrenes, the upper Esera, that flows from the highest mountain in the Pyrenes, the Aneto. It was cloudy but there was a pretty good waterlevel.

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After years of the Peak UK Challenge series Pete Astles has decided to take a break. Step up Jim from Alpkit and a slightly changed format and you get the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series. Round 1 was at the River Washburn in the UK and with a Boater X, Alpjam, Freestyle and a Pyranha Speeder Race, you were guaranteed a great event!!

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Parties, power-drives and pioneering. Making the most of our time on the road and glad to be sitting still for a little while.

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Three days of competition not just in kayak, but as well in other sports like mountain running, downhill biking and bouldering and a big party made this years TEVA Extreme Mountain Games to a really entertaining event. Friday morning it started out with a team race on the Egua followed by an individual downriver race. Due to the low water levels the slalom, downriver race and the kayak cross on Saturday and Sunday all took place on the Sorba. Apart from the team race I competed in all other races an took 3rd in the overall score. For a more detailed description see http://playak.com/article.php?sid=1265.

Anna on the Sorba – Picture: Timo Köster

Two weeks ago I went to Slovenia in order to teach people to become a VDKS (Association of German canoe schooling) kayak instructor. As the timetable for this type of course is usually quite full, Marcus, Lothar and I decided to do a good morning run on the big gorge of the Soca, getting up at five and being back to camp for breakfast at eight. Seeing the big smiles in our faces the participants got quite jealous, so we promised them to run the third canyon of the upper Soca with them the next morning.

Marcus, Grit and Anna in the thrid canyon of the Soca (Slovenia)

We’ve hit California to see what all we can get in this record low snowpack year – and the answer is you can still get a lot of paddling in out here!

You can view our full update at www.RiverGypsies.com.

Here are some teaser photos for you:

Andria Recoiling on the Kaweah.

Leland running Zero to Sixty, Hospital Rock section of the Middle Kaweah.

More to come soon!

The crowds from Worlds are gone, the summer crowdes are here yet, and the Ottawa is at a great level

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Dubbed “Pandoras” box in the guide book because of its secrecy, known as “Bakers Box” to locals. Bakers/Pandoras Box is one of the most beautiful places to kayak in Colorado.

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Couple of days ago I went to Cauterets, a great valley in the French Pyrenes.The waterlevel wasn’t so high, but enough to run everything and a couple of portages. The Cauterets river is one of the classics in the Pyrenes, with a really cool slide, lots of sections with nice rapids, a good drop… There’s a little of everything, and the landscape is amazing.

Running the typical slide in Pont d’Espagne.

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This drop is the first on Canyon Creek in the Oregon Cup. I took 4th in the Extreme Race. Josh Bectel took Second in Extreme and 1st in the boatercross to give him the overall win. I had to miss out on the boatercross so I had no overall ranking. Fun event hopefully more people will come out next year.

A landslide has drastically changed the waterfall known as Money Drop. The drop is on Rock Creek in Stevenson WA, it was first run by Trip Jennings and LJ Groth. The landslide is nearly taking houses off of the cliff but the new Mini Money Drop looked to perfect to let go unrun. A few rocks were falling off of the cliff while we were there. After running the drop I quickly got out of the canyon to to avoid any more potential landslide action.

On another note check out this video with some AMMO Action.

clearing the card.
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After months of waiting I finally got a chance to race the Speeder.  The event was the second annual Schroon River Scramble.  It’s a small local event that is held in Warrensburg, NY.  The course is a 3/4 mile sprint through some really fun class III.  In 2006 I got second place. 

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