While Norway still lays in winter land, we left to Corsica seeking for warmth and water. Our norwegian-canadian-italian group of 7 paddlers met on the Island for an epic 12 days of creeking. 10 rivers: but easily 50 rapids and 30 boofs a day! Corsica is having one of the best years for water this season, with record snow pack from the last 30 years. Kayak Session invited all paddlers for a gathering in the central part of the Vecchio vallee; great initiative to gather european creeking enthusiasts and at the same time make the locals realise how freakin’ lucky they are to have such awesome rivers!

The Burn was incredibly well represented there: in fact the majority of all creek boats were Pyranhas On thursday, the creek race took place on the Branseth river: short section of drops and slides in an easy access cristal clear water canyon. Team Pyranha had 4 boys in the finals: Allan Ellard -6th, Lars-Georg Paulsen -7th, Per Christian Pedersen -8th, Andy Philips -10th. In the ladies final, I took the 2nd place behind Mariann Saether. Follow this link to last year’s video to get an idea: http://www.ekstremsportveko.com/?page=3&show=62&filmdir=70

On Friday was the Team Race down the Upper-Lower Branseth. Team Pyranha boys Allan Ellard, Andy Philips and Mike Abbott won the honors, a respectable 21 sec in front of the second team!! Boys, you rock!! Finally but not the least, on Saturday was the Head to Head competition down the Strandelve. Again, Team Pyranha killing it, ladies side this time: Liz Bell took the 3rd and I came in 1st The rest of the week went to finding new stupid things to try… For ex: Pierre, UK paddler and a good friend, tried a flair down Money drop…

Now off to Canada to freestyle…

Mariann Saether, Tyler Curtis and myself were holding a freestyle camp for kids under 18 this weekend. Grettefoss near Kongsberg in Norway was a perfect place to hold such an event. A fantastic time for us, roasting in the warm sunshine (unsual at this latitude!!!) and tones of improvement from the young crowd; this is a good start for the tallented paddlers. Check out: www.youngboaters.com

A lot of good boaters showed up, both men and women, and despite from the relax ambiance, the competition was fierce on the water. More and more slalom paddlers from all over Europe are starting to compete in Extreme kayaking as well: time for the athletes to push the limits further. The competition was divided in 3 days and 4 disciplines: Extreme descent, slalom, sprint and boatercross. 2 creeks were used for those races, with roads following the water: perfect for the locals to cheers us up!!!

I arrived late myself and didn’t get to see the stretch too much before the start. But I felt strong and dam happy to be out and play. With a bronze in each discipline, the smile easely followed me to Austria… here in the boatercross final…

Austria was hosting the European Championships in Rafting in Wildalpen this year. With over 20 women teams and 36 men teams, this was officially the biggest international competition of the kind. Well organised, good food and wicked bands at night: the event was a must! It was also incredible to see that the sport keeps on growing that much. Most of the teams who showed up were professional teams that have trained together for a while. Surprinsingly, our young Norwegian team actually did very well for the little time we had trained: bronze in Sprint, 5th in Slalom and 7th in Downriver…

They say that Norway is the land of contrast. Fair enough. After a wiked winter kiting, it is now starting to smell spring again!! As we still got tones of snow up high in the mountains, Oslo and Telemark area are opening quickly. Awesome to get the show back on the road for a new season

…after demonstrating great skills at the Freestyle World Championship in Canada where Ben White (UK) and Valerie Bertrand (Canada) took the gold in squirt and Jeremy Lauks (USA) took the bronze in OC1, our team was hitting the road hoping to showcase our plastic boat just as well… off to Colorado.  Paddling Life Pro-InvitationalThe Pro-Invitational has become an annual challenge where the best paddlers from each boat company are invited to defeat each other in creeking and freestyle. Steamboat Colorado has the area to make it happen; with Paddling Life as organiser (amongst other sponsors) and a wicked crew of local paddlers whiling to share their time. The day started with a downriver race on the Fish creek: a little stretch of small technical rapids, from a clean 8 foot boof to a lower head dam about 1km downstream. After a quick lunch, all paddlers were brought to the town wave for a good old style freestyle competition based on variety and style on scales of 1 to 10… Our team had 4 members at the event: Valerie took a respectful overall 4 ^th position as our guys Jared, Jeremy and Connor were holding on quite well with the top 15 men. (www.pladdlinglife.com )

Teva Mountain Games

The 6^th annual event in Vail Colorado was again a huge success, with many hundred international athletes competing in various disciplines such as biking, running, climbing (…) and of course paddling. The 5 day paddling competition included 2 boatercross races, a steep creek race and a rodeo. Again, Team Pyranha did a wicked job keeping up with many well known international paddlers. After high placings in the men steep creek race, our boys Jared, Dave and Jeremy put on an impressive show for the crowd in town and making the 4-20 look like a sky high looping machine! Josh Bechtel also did a wicked job on both boatercross races; with a no fear look on his face and strong pace through the courses. On the women sides, Shannon Carrol also took the podium in a boatercross race and finished high in the steep creek race. Valerie kept up really good until a misfortunate crash in finals on the steep creek made her bump into a none of the less 5 ^th place, allowing team paddler Katie Hilleke to take place on the podium. Katie, who’s recent battle against cancer brought her out on tour this summer and already she is doing incredibly well; your strength is a huge motivation for the team. Go girl J !!  www.tevamountaingames.com 

    Josh and Dave, Shannon

Val

Even better, I was out this past Saturday on the lake in Geilo: the sun had been warming up enough that I could break off the ice with my kayak and create a 500m long channel to paddle on. On one side, a fan club of cross country skiers probably wondering what the hell and on the other side, an slalom (alpine skiing) competition happening; load music comming from the speakers; lovely scene to watch from the water!!!

Suggestions for a warmer paddling destination this winter?? Hit me with it…

…2 days after, the snow started to fall and left a good 15cm on the ground, probably here to stay…