Continue reading »]]> After three month of kayaking in Chile I am finally back home. I am glad I made it back before the earthquake and feel really sorry for all the aggrieved people.

I must admit three month of paddling was exactly what I needed, day after day with nothing else to do apart from kayaking. Isn’t that great?!

During my first month some german friends and I ran the rivers from Santiago down to Pucon. One big highlight was for sure the Rio Claro, we jumped down the ventidos saltos about 5 times – the last run took us only 19 minutes from the putin to the final drop – germans like the autobahn.

Not as lucky was I after my run down the caracol in the Entre Saltos section, I landed flat and ended up with a broken paddle, a broken nose and two blue eyes … at least I kept my smile.

Entre Saltos Section Rio Claro

After my german friends left, I met two kiwis, we rented a nice camioneta and were ready for new adventures. This time to Argentinia and South Chile. One of my favorite runs was the Los Alerces Section on the Rio Manso, but at the same time it was a bit scary as we were just the two of us, had a lot of water and not much information about the river. So we ended up being in a canyon infront of a rapid which looked pretty big, but was impossible to scout and to portage. That was an explosion of emotions after we two made it through the big hole at the bottom. 

It was a really rainy season in Chile, so we encountered high waterlevels on the Futa and further down south. One thing remains obvious, it was for sure not my last time on this incredible beautiful rivers of Patagonia.

What a wonderful playwave …… unfortunately it is situated just infront of the Petrohue waterfall

Gymnastics on the Rio Palguin

Pancakes for breakfast

Park Nacional Rio Laja

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Here are some impressions of my time in Chile. Up to know I travelled from Santiago down to Pucon, and had an awesome time on the chilean  rivers with  friends out of Germany. It was also a great pleasure to meet and join Adria, Leland and Jeff on the Rio Claro. We did a lot of hike in runs, so I was glad to use pyranhas portaging system, but even more glad to hire horses .

Continue reading »]]> After a year full of books, writing, working and finally finishing my diploma in psychology, I jumped back into the real kayaking world. I know what I missed so much . I work now as a freelancer, and most of this working time is outside in the boat or in the mountains. Just two weeks ago we trained kayakers to become kayakinstructors, and see for yourself what else you can do with your boat a

part from sitting in it.

Continue reading »]]> After a playboating session in the washing mashine (Augsburg) friday night, Birgit and I drove into the alps in order to run the Lech Gorge. I was quite exited, as it was my first time trying out the Ammo S and then two girls alone on difficult whitewater is always something special for me. We had a great time on the water and a perfect weekend.

In the beginning I was a little bit skeptical, what I should think of the Ammo, but after a few rapids I was faszinated. I have never paddeled a boat before, which is so easy to boof. The boat is light and easy to manoever. For sure it is short, but it doesn´t feel slow at all. This seems to be the right creekboat for girls. And still it is fun to play in it.

Continue reading »]]> 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

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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

Continue reading »]]> 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)

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What can you do, if you had to write your thesis, but really wanted to go out and paddle?! Just do both! After spending hours in the copyshop, I went to France, visited my twin sister, studied during the day and went playboating on Hawai sur Rhone in the evening. What a faszinating wave!

After two weeks friends of mine came and we spent the following time kayaking in the Jura and Pyrenees. We weren`t lucky with the waterlevels, but fortunately we had our climbing gear with us. So we mixed low water runs with days of climbing and ended up having a really good time.