Day 11 - Wednesday - Leira and Upper Sjoa

"A" group - Conor, Matt, Gwen, Lisa F, and Baldrick, decided to go and paddle an easy river.

We found the Leira in a gorgeous valley. We looked at the Bovre on the was past - it looked very high. We decided to do an 'easy' section of the Leira in an upper valley. Beautiful glacier melt.

 The guide book says grade 2-3. The get-on is flat and fast, but the next bit looks a bit steep. There is a lovely glacier feeding in from river left, so we decide that we will walk up to it once we have done our paddle.

It says easy grade 3, so Conor leads. Lumpy. Very lumpy. Extremely lumpy, fast, and powerful.

 Think that I don't want to be upside down here! Grey water from the glacier melt. I am now upside down. Urgent roll, while being bashed by the rocks. Urgent aiming for a break-out. Paddle next 50 yards backwards trying to find an eddy. Eventually stop, and run up the bank signalling 'stop'. Luckily, the others hadn't yet started.

This was 200 yards of continuous grade 4. Matt decides to paddle, and only just improves on my line. Definitely get the rest to portage. Nasty portage over the side-stream from the glacier. Matt then paddles the rest of this section, and rolls in the bottom stopper. Took a while to come up, went down through a couple of stoppers before coming upright. Oops.

A quick discussion ensued. It was now 4pm-ish. We wanted to walk the glacier. The rest of the river was fast grade 3 with no eddies. Decision made. We decided to have a walk.

The glacier took around 1 hour to walk up. 10 minutes at the glacier - togged up correctly in sandals and shorts. Managed to get back down just before it rained.

Lisa G: At the start an English girl came to chat to us, because 'she liked the van'. Where was Baldrick - he missed his chance! Also, we saw a Norwegian kayaker who had been on the same Level 3 training course with me last year. The English girl said that the river looked a bit hairy, but there was time to think between hazards.

The first mile or so was continuous bouncy 3, enjoyable, but not too taxing. I was relaxing when Tony pointed out the hard bit ahead. A few large stoppers and big rocks to miss. One stopper tried to grab my back deck. Then John said that the next section could 'work you'!

I get down fine, missing some large stoppers. Dom also down fine.

Good run, some scary bits. Then finished with some enjoyable play waves.

We went back for lunch. Then the others all went to sleep. They were all too tired to do the play run.

An interesting evening was had at the rafting place. Combination of Norwegian folk songs, heavy metal, and beer. We all got very drunk and did some strange dancing...

---

Day 12 - Thursday - travel to Voss.

Next -> Day 13 - Raundelsaelva