Wednesday, June 27, 2007

troublemakers

welcome back blog fans to another installment from the wonderful, wild happenings of your favorite scandinavian adventurers. we are back in voss. for the the extreme sports week: ekstremsportveko.
we made such a such a splash last time we were in town. we even made the evening news. to view that news clip click here the video plug at this site seems to be allergic to macs; so make friends again with someone you know with a pc.
amos and i were able to weasel out of work for the week by promising to represent jolster rafting in the raft race on friday, but our real reason for coming back to voss is, of course, the "hoo-ha" as robin betz would say.

amos eyeing the scando shu-shu:

photo by mw

rolling into town, our first stop was to the voss rafting center to touch base with the homeboys and collect beta for the week. the boys are super busy with rafting work here as a result of the great influx of people into voss for the festival, but mikey had some good news for me, "eden is in town. i'll give you his number." that is good news. all you dedicated and long term blog fans will remember eden and his buddy jono from adventures on the west coast of new zealand
i can't even tell you how nice it is when you are a long way from home on a serious kayaking mission to run into a homeboy you last saw on a successful kayaking mission a long way from home. after some hugs, handshakes, and catching up we were off in search of trouble.
first stop: a relatively chill day on the upper myrkdalselva.
here's jono. a little over-exposed dropping in on one of the first rapids:

photo by mw

amos in the meat at another drop on the upper myrk:

photo by mw

the upper myrkdalselva comes in when the lower section is too high, relatively early in the melting season. a good run. a nice warm-up for this crew. we were late in the afternoon getting to this one, but there were only two major obstacles. and we problem solved our way down, getting to the take-out with smiles all around.

next up: the jordalselva. a great run north of town.
here's amos again, lining it up near the top of the jordalselva:

photo by mw

amos watching his buddy rolf from the american northwest, same:

photo by mw
amos and rolf paddled together in the pacific northwest and british columbia last fall and were hoping to meet up after discovering they were both going to be in norway at the same time. unfortunately, amos spaced on bringing rolf's number along. but as it turned out, rolf was cruising around with jono and eden.

eden has been loving his norwegian paddling trip so far. he quit his job as a geologist in new zealand to come to norway in search of adventure and hopefully some employment soon as well. he has been borrowing that full-face helmet, because he left his behind "with this girl in switzerland".
eden, unemployed:

photo by mw

eden, neck deep. kayaking plenty, working none:

photo by mw

and now to the highlight of the jordalselva, a big one:
amos, in his words "getting dirt nasty"

photo by mw

the author, searching:

photo by amos shuman

the author, at the bottom, announcing the beginning of a hiatus from kayaking:

photo by amos shuman

stay tuned for stories to come of some very special visitors...
same blog time, same blog channel.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

action and satisfaction

i made a promise to myself and thus to all you blog fans: that the next post from norway was going to be whitewater focused. come hell or high water. and lucky for all of us, amos and i escaped in our newly acquired automobile to find just that on the other side of the fjord.
at the end of a busy weekend, amos and i called for all pending trips through the week to be cancelled so that we could get away on a kayaking mission.
on the way, we found that norway is beautiful all over and not just in our home valley:

photo by mw

and the locals are super friendly:

photo by amos shuman
norway has all sorts of legends and fairy-tales about magical and mysterious people of the woods. i was lucky enough to meet one.

on to what we are really here for: some whitewater kayaking.
amos and i made our way to the other side of song og fjord to the town of voss where i have some buddies and where we knew there would be some "shu-shu". norway has a great snow pack this year and warm temperatures have brought the rivers up to full: bank to bank, top to bottom. after hooking up with all the right folks we made our way up to the upper parts of the drainages and found some 'steep creeking'. and the southeastern boys felt right at home.

the author staying faithful but still getting some...

photo by benji hjort

amos at the same drop.

photo by benji hjort
then the exit:

photo by benji hjort

this river is called the urlandselvi, a tributary of the raundaselva. we enjoyed the steep drops and manky boulder sections of this run before lunch and then sampled some norwegian big water afterwards.
i took along a video camera to document our paddling ventures for the homeboys at
Lunch Video Magazine; so i turned to a paralafamilia photo correspondent: benjamin hjort.

photo by mw
so many thanks go to ben for the beautiful action shots from our day. be sure to check ben out at Hjort Media.

back to the action:
one of the greatest aspects of kayaking is the bonds you create with your homeboys and the respect that grows in you for their talents, athleticism, and uniqueness on the river. amos is a very visually distinct paddler. i love watching him paddle and style his way through rapids, narrow hands and all. just check out that grace:

photo by benji hjort

the author's style: up close and personal

photo by benji hjort

our first real steep day in norway and there were some gems on the urlandselvi. the author again with amos looking on:

photo by benji hjort

amos at the same drop from another angle:

photo by benji hjort

after a nice big day in a borrowed boat, there are always some repairs to be made. here's amos at work; don't get distracted with that heat gun in your hand, buddy.

photo by mw

well, blog fans, that's all there is for now. many happy thoughts and well wishes from here to wherever y'all are out there.