jeg snakke litt norske

hello everyone. welcome back.
things have been moving along swimmingly here in norway. some cooler weather and typical norwegian rain have moved in recently, adding a fresh dusting a snow among the higher elevations.

photo by mw

we've been cruising around with the usual crew: amos and i with the barefoot gypsies eden and jono. we'd all like to congratulate jono for finding a job. he'll be working offshore doing seismic measurements or some such. sounds like a big boy's job; so we're all real proud of him. in the meantime, we all enjoyed some of the usual adventures.

photo by eden sinclair


photo by eden sinclair

this time to the north and the hornidal river. here's the crew, all smiles as usual at the put-in. eden, amos, and jono (l to r):

photo by mw

some pretty nice ones on this run. here's amos resurfacing at one of the main attractions:

photo by mw

amos going far left at this gross one:

photo by mw

eden found an exciting route back into the river after that particular portage:

photo by mw

amos, same:

photo by mw

we found a real big one on the hornidal, a big ugly one. in amos' words, "death on a stick". here are amos and eden looking into the maw:

photo by mw

one of the uniquely delicious aspects of kayaking in norway are wild blueberries. seems as if every time we are out of our boats on the side of the river, there they are ripe for the picking.
amos and jono, snacking:

photo by mw

eden, same:

photo by mw

energized and back on the river for some more action; amos is in his element:

photo by mw

jono, same:

photo by mw

eden, a kiwi native to the west coast of the south island, in his element among some steep walls on the hornidalselva:

photo by mw

i recently raided eden sinclair's camera; so many thanks go to him for the following moments of excitement. eden carries around a small, waterproof digital point-and-shoot, and he has made good use of it.
the author on the lower myrkdalselva on the second step of the triple combo:

photo by eden sinclair

the author, again on the lower section of the myrkdalselva, lovin' it:

photo by eden sinclair

the crew down at the bottom, bathing in a mix of rain and waterfall mist. it's great for the skin as well as the spirit:

photo by eden sinclair

that's all for now. all the best to you blog fans.
mefford.

photo by eden sinclair

more adventures in the land of brown cheese

thanks again for tuning in to another exciting episode, featuring all the usual antics. unbelievably, the summer has already progressed into the month of august. the temperatures have been warm and if you are not scared of the rain, it's a wonderful country for playing outside. with only five days away from rafting work in the month of july, recent days of playing have been very welcome.
amos, ronny, and i have been running the day to day operations at jolster rafting, and during a tripless day the first week of august we headed one river drainage east to find the storelva. the storelva river, born from many branches of the jolstadalbreen glacier and the stardalen river, drops from one lake to another forming a section of rapids called the breim.

ronny putting in at the upper lake of the breim

photo by mw

kayakers rely on "beta", a boating term roughly synonymous with information, as a first step towards tackling a section of river. imagine a section steep river as a labyrinth, and just as in a maze, kayakers solve their way down a river, putting together a puzzle of geologic proportion. beta gives you an extra leg up in completing the labyrinth, coming in many forms and many places and often as oral tradition, passed from one ear to another easily becoming hearsay and rumor. primary source material, real ground level information, the good stuff 'locals beta', is always of highly sought after and increasingly important given the river's difficulty.
ronny has a guide book to norwegian whitewater runs and using this source and some vague local hearsay, we guesstimated that the volume of the storelva was somewhat elevated during our late afternoon arrival to the top lake, the 'get-in'.
river volumes, cubic measurements, take in account the flow of the river by incorporating a factor of time. as an american, i measure rivers in cubic feet per second, cfs; here, as well as everywhere else in the world where the metric system prevails, river volumes come in cubic meters per second, or 'cumecs'.
as you might imagine only a small amount of rise in the vertical level of a river translates into a great deal of extra water passing by every second.
"what the hell is a 'cumec'?" was the joke at the start of our day on the storelva as it has been on many occasions so far this summer, but soon the joke would be on us: amos swims at the first rapid, ronny soon follows and is forced to bail, hiking to the road with a rebroken boat.

amos, with the river's source in the back ground, amongst our scenic, "class IV epic" day on the storelva

photo by mw

just the next week, amos and i would find ourselves on the south side of the sogn og fjord again meeting up with eden and jono, fresh and ready to get in some more trouble under norwegian skies of clouds and rain.
adhering to a fatherly moto: "there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing" i found myself in familiar circumstances: with friends, among waterfalls.

photo by mw

the rain did prevent the camera from coming out to document our experiences as much as i would have liked, but i did manage to capture some images from the myrkdalselva.

jono, on sabbatical from a career as an electrical engineer, finding vision for the future among some white-out on the lower myrk...

photo by mw

amos at the same drop, the first below the put-in, excited for what's up next

photo by mw

eden and jono have earned a handle from me as "the barefoot gypsies" for being twenty-something retirees, cruising around in a foreign land half a world away from home almost entirely in their bare feet, and being the principle reason that new obscenities are continually being added to the vocabulary of our cellphone's predictive text.
they are looking for gainful employment in norway; jobs to have as long as it suits them or until it gets cold enough to necessitate socks and shoes.
here's jono surrounded by typical norwegian west coast scenery; pants, sunglasses, rain jacket, barefeet:

photo by mw

eden, currently retired from work as a geologist, finding answers to life's persistent questions on the lower myrkdalselva...

photo by mw

amos and jono, wingmen on another nice section of rapids

photo by mw

amos finishing the same:

photo by mw

jono, eden, and amos (l to r) along with the author following a long kayaking tradition of making oneself at home in riverside parkinglots:

laying gear out to dry and having lunch:

photos by mw


thanks again for staying up to date with the most recent happenings. keep it evil wherever you may happen to be. mefford.

photo by amos shuman

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.

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.