Introduction
In July 2003, 12 of us went to Norway to paddle. We paddled some fantastic rivers. We had a few epics, but no major injuries. We had a fantastic time.
The motley crew consisted of: Tony Barrass, Conor O’Neill, Lisa Gunton, John Leopold, Richard Gunton, Baldrick, Dominic Morgan, Lisa Fitzsimons, Steve Ramsden, Alamo Spaargaren, Matt Frost, and Gwen Hinde. We had a selection of 17(?) boats, ranging from the minute play-boats to the mighty ‘Phats’.
Our sources of information were a copy of the very old Elvepaddling guidebook, plus various miscellaneous write-ups from the web. Mostly unreliable…
We took various turns at writing up each day’s activities; so you can try to guess the author of each of these day’s write-ups…
Day -1 – Friday.
Travel to Newcastle and ferry. Rough crossing, expensive bar, appalling music. Steve wobbles to bed late.
Day 0 – Saturday.
Ferry. More ferry. Tony got seasick, and fed the fish. More ferry. Bored. Arrive in Bergen 5pm ish. Drive to Heidal (near the Sjoa). Long drive, long tunnels. Arrive 11pm ish, to see Tony, Rich, and Dom emerge from the sauna. What a wonderful sight! Knackered. Still daylight.
Day 1 – Sunday – Sjoa play run.
Warm up on the Sjoa. Stopped at the kayak shop and spoke to Annette. She said it was a medium level, and dropping. Decided to run the play section of the Sjoa from Harlaug to Kleivi, through the Faukstad play-wave which is below the middle bridge just behind the shop. We had a look at this first – need to keep left around the ‘big ass hole’ just above it!
The sun is coming out. We all get on – fast and furious, but (hopefully) not too big! Off we go in convoy – 10 people (everyone except Lisa F and Alamo, who are arriving later that evening by plane / train). Big and bouncy. No problems until sharp right-hand bend. Gwen rolls. Steve swims. Now named ‘Steve’s bend’. Big play wave just around the corner – good for the big boats (Tony and John in their Phats).
We see the bridge near the play wave. Baldrick and Gwen are chanting ‘keep left’. All successful. The play wave looks big. John has a go and discovers that it plays with him – perhaps five rolls in succession. Eventually it let him out. Rich ventured into the wave in his Ego – much better behaved.
Down to the get-out. No further incident.
Six-thirty – picked up Lisa F and Alamo from the train station. The evening was spent, funnily enough, eating and drinking.
Day 2 – Monday – Sjoa (upper and play-run).
Early birds Tony, John, Rich, and Matt get up to paddle the upper canyon. Baldrick, Alamo and Dom go to watch. Dom manage to witness a rare roll from Tony from his vantage point on the high riverbank, even though none of the fellow paddlers saw him.
Technical info:
Ned Trasafoss -> Bjolstadmo bridge. 175 on gauge at kayak shop. 7km, 2 hours. Very fast big volume 3-4+. Everything readable from the water with lots of BIG pour-overs and stoppers to avoid.
Afternoon on the play run again to warm up the latecomers. Still fast and furious. More playing. No-one in their big boats today. John says he was ‘ripping it up large’. Even Conor jumped into the main play wave, and managed some fancy moves – all entirely uncontrolled
Day 3 – Tuesday – Lora
After an eternity of driving, we arrived at a rather dry river, hence we put in lower than planned, which only left a few km for the people who planned to take out before the river got harder.
The river started with a band with a 3m drop into an undercut. Everybody paddled; Gwen capsized and rolled up under the undercut with a rather nasty boat pinning incident in the undercut. Luckily the boat washed out after a short while.
Carried on, on a very dry river, to the first take-out. Everyone decided to carry on and do the lower section. Carried on through a rather nice gorge, with lots of nice undercuts. Eventually arrived at the take-out just above the un-runnable Lora falls.
Carnage for the day was Baldrick and Gwen, 2 swims each.
Richard then went on to play on the Skjak play-wave. Met Simon Westgarth as he got on. Played for a while – good wave – big!
Steve announced that he was retiring from paddling for the rest of the holiday.
Day 4 – Frya – Wednesday
Lisa F:
Popped in to see the local friendly paddling guide in the kayak shop, who assured us that the Frya was a lovely river, ‘good to go’ in the current conditions. Top section continuous Grade 3 with perhaps a couple of Grade 4 Drops. Quote: Bottom section, continuous Grade 4 with a couple of Grade 5 drops (last one blind – run it hard left) – inescapable gorge. ‘If you’ve got any Grade 3 paddlers with you, you don’t wanna go there. As long as you make the middle get-out, you’ll be fine.’ It was the very last time we took advice from her!
Even before we got on the river, things had started to go wrong. The ‘must make’ middle get-out proved to be elusive, and after much hunting and driving up and down lanes we still couldn’t find it. We made a tactical decision to let Steve (the non-paddling contingent) find it, and stand by the river so that we would know where to get off. However disaster struck on the shuttle when Steve managed to ground his car and rip a hole in the sump. Dom decided not to paddle, and to stay back and help Steve sort out the car, and the rest of us got on the river, safe in the knowledge that we had not one, but two people to find and mark the get-out for us. What could go wrong? Famous last words ………………….
We put-on about 1.25pm and paddled in 2 groups. I was in the first group with Tony, Gwen, Matt, and Lisa G. The river wasn’t too difficult at first but it was fairly continuous Grade 3 with lots of rocks to avoid, so it felt like we were continually working and it was a bit of a hard slog. After a while things started to improve and the rapids became more fun. So much fun in fact, that it gradually became evident that what we were paddling couldn’t really be described as grade 3-4, and we may have actually passed the get-out and were now committed to a wetter version of hell. Having already had a couple of silly swims at this point (1 undercut, 1 case of trapped paddles), it wasn’t a thought I relished.
We got out to inspect a nasty undercut double drop that looked really meaty with the other group (John, Conor, Rich, Baldrick, Alamo)- a few people ran it, the rest of us seal-launched into a rather boily eddy to run the second half of the drop. Surprisingly all survived this unscathed, although shortly after this I had a tactical swim in an eddy after getting pinned on a rock, just inside the eddy line – it was either that or roll up backwards in the flow above a drop which I couldn’t see, so I elected to let the river troll win that battle. After that it was just drop after drop after drop interrupted only by continuous grade 4 rapids. A particularly notable one was a 10ft right angled vertical drop – notable because Conor decided to roll right at the top of it……. and again at the bottom of it! This would have been fine if Gwen hadn’t been closely following Conor’s line (as instructed). A lot of back paddling ensued as Gwen thought she was about to land on Conor’s head as he rolled up, with the result that she went over the drop with no forward speed. Needless to say she capsized, resulting in a swim – probably because she was still cursing at Conor as she went under and took in a lot of water! I also had a little chat with the fishes at this point, but unfortunately I can’t blame Conor. Trolls again.
By now it was obvious to all that we had missed the middle get-out, if it ever existed! (Special word of thanks here to Sjoa Kayak shop guide – she well and truly sandbagged us!). So there was nothing else for it, but to get on with it. Thankfully by this point, I had got the whole swimming thing out of my system – which is just as well really, because I’ve never paddled a more continuous stretch of river in my life. Baldrick wasn’t quite so lucky however, and spent quite a bit of time stuck on a rock in the middle of the flow on a particularly big rapid, among other notable swims. Suffice to say a lot of us were on a steep learning curve, Baldrick’s was vertical! After this, the two groups split again and we headed off first. By now we were all knackered and didn’t know how far we still had to go, so the pace was pretty fast – all we new for sure was that before we got there, we would have to face a blind Grade 5. Tony developed a technique of completely sandbagging us, assuring us that every horizon line was the last drop, and building us up for the ‘big one’. ‘Remember, hard left’. Off course, every time we got to the bottom of the drop having had to go right when we’d been preparing for that ‘hard left’, we realised that it wasn’t the ‘big one’, and what was to come could only be worse! For me this whole section was a bit of a blur and I became a bit blasé about some of the drops we were doing – things I wouldn’t even consider running in the UK, I was happily bobbing over – but by that point I probably would have paddled the Ula Falls if they stood between me and the end of the gorge! The blind 5 when it came was a bit of an anticlimax, although according to Tony spectating from the bottom I gave him some cause for concern with a nifty upside down move in an undercut at the bottom. I however was none the wiser and surfaced without incident, and with a big grin on my face. It was a fantastic sight to see the gorge opening out after this last drop, but it was even better a mile on to see Steve huddled on the side of the river bank waiting for us! It was 8pm when we got off.
After much excited talk and exchanging stories of personal epics, we learned that Steve and Dom hadn’t been able find the middle get out to mark for us despite plenty of bushwhacking, so they had adopted a plan which involved Steve camping out at the bottom of the river, and Dom continually driving like a lunatic up and down the road, in case anyone had decided to walk out. They had set themselves a cut-off point of 8pm, by which time if we hadn’t appeared they were going to call the police. Just as well we showed up when we did! By now however, we were getting quite concerned that the other group hadn’t appeared yet, so we left Lisa G and Tony by the river armed with a mobile phone, and Dom continued patrolling the road. Eventually John, Alamo and Rich appeared at 9.30pm, with news that Conor and Baldrick had climbed (or rather fought their way) out of the Gorge. The group had spent a lot of time, inspecting, portaging some of the bigger drops and fishing on the last section of the river before deciding that a walk-out was the best option. Dom was dispatched to pick up Conor and Baldrick who had made it to the road on the other side of the Gorge, and it was 10.00pm before they arrived back in a rather dishevelled state. After a one hour shuttle to pick up the van (during which the rest of us had a late lunch!), half an hour to load the boats and an hours drive back to base, we arrived at the cabin at 1 am having made the best possible use of the long Norwegian daylight hours. By the time we hit the beers the drops had got bigger, the rapids meatier, and us braver!
Question:
- So what have we learned from that experience?
Answers:
- It’s amazing what you can achieve on a bowl of Weetabix and dose of adrenaline
- BCC paddlers should know by now that it never goes according to plan – pack food just in case.
- Never ever trust Norwegian paddlers again.
- Trust Tony, only when all other options fail.
- It is useful to locate the get-out BEFORE getting on
- In a weird kind of way (now that we are safe, and death isn’t an imminent prospect) we actually kind of enjoyed it.
Fish food Tally
- Lisa F 4
- Gwen 1 (but we gave Conor points for it)
- Baldrick we stopped counting at 8
Unnecessary Portages
- John 1
- Alamo 1
- Rich 1
- Conor 1
Necessary Portages
- Baldrick 2
- Conor 1 (I object to that! – Ed)
Steve’s version of the same day:
- Steve: Do you do hire cars?
- Thom (enormous Norwegian RAC man): We don’t do hire cars.
- Steve: Where is the nearest hire car.
- Thom: Lillehammer.
- Steve: Do you have a courtesy car?
- Thom: ? ……… ? …….. What is a courtesy car?
- Steve: A car you give to me while mine is fixed.
- Thom: Oh, a hire car. No.
Day 5 – Thursday – Sjoa play run
We declared this an official rest day.
Tony, John, and Baldrick headed back to the Frya. Tony and John had a trek from hell while they walked down into the gorge. They then paddled the two remaining boats down to the exit, with Tony taking photos of the last drop.
Dom, Rich, and Alamo decided to run the play section again. The play wave under the Heidal bridge was fun. Rich says ‘excellent play waves’, ‘they ripped it up’. The play wave below the bridge at Faukstad had almost disappeared, but there was a new one above the bridge instead.
Day 6 – Friday – Ula and Otta
Ula falls 1, 2, and 3.
Tony: It was a relatively low level. On arrival it soon became clear that these drops are a lot higher and closer together than any of the photos indicated. Consequently only three hardcore boaters had the cahoonas to give it a go! (Tony, Rich, and John).
I was first off the sick top drop with a clean line. Still on a high, I ran the second and third. Fantastic. ‘Better than sex’ in John’s words, but he might be doing it wrong. No rolls for me but the others struggled a bit – great day.
First drop: 7m (23 feet). Second drop: 4m (13 feet). Third drop: 9m (30 feet).
John: This is why I came to Norway! Four large waterfalls in a row, the fourth being un-paddleable. Inspection was helped by watching a group of Irish pro boaters run the falls. They were scared. Unfortunately, our turn came next.
Tony went first, and styled it pretty well. Rich went next, and narrowly avoided going over the second fall backwards and upside down. This helped my confidence no end! Any way, my turn came too quickly. First two falls went pretty sweet; the third I surfaced under the undercut and had to wait to be washed out before rolling up above the lip of the 50 foot un-paddleable fourth fall. I hit the eddy and was out of my boat pretty quick!
The mighty few decided that they’d done their days work, and decided against the easier trip in the afternoon. Unfortunately, Baldrick’s van almost did the same – the oil filler cap had dropped off somewhere.
After a leisurely lunch we launched onto the Otta just below a hydro dam and waterfall at Eidefoss. Lots of water – very impressive (perhaps 75 cumecs?). Grade I-III bimble. Reminded me of a flat(ish) section of the Inn in Austria.
Below the halfway bridge is a big grade IV. Most of the water goes down a tongue on river left with stoppers and large waves. We chickened the first half, then paddled into the flow. Gwen and Lisa F both rolled. Baldrick paddled some of it backwards but upright.
Day 7 – Saturday – Jori
Excellent run. Continuous grade 3/4 all the way. Top fun. My (Alamo’s) last river here, so I shall leave on a high.
Previous night on the sauce as Alamo goes home tomorrow. Rich says ‘I haven’t been scared yet’.
Lisa G: Having done this river 7 years ago, I remember that it was a good paddle even though it had taken us 8 hours.
The woman in the shop said that the Jori’s first rapid starts with a bang. My stomach was in my mouth as we set off across the lake at the get-on. First rapid just grade 3/4 fairly long, loads of manoeuvring around rocks. This carries on for about ¾ way down – good technical paddling. Great.
Group A – Lisa F, Lisa G, Alamo, Rich, and Tony. We paddle our way down reading the river as we go. I cannot remember any of the rapids from the previous trip. About ¾ of the way down a side stream entering from the left; it doubles the flow. Lisa F swims. We lay chase to the boat, but Lisa walks out. We carry on, find the boat, and place it on the side of the river. We carry on down the river, more continuous. Scary, sick paddle, but excellent as well.
Last stopper under the bridge, Tony side-surfs but I punch through. We wait for group B with video camera, and they perform spectacularly. John back-loops his Phat. Matt does a ‘tricky-woo’ (but not on purpose!). Dom rolls in the eddy.
Excellent paddle. We did have to collect two boats from the rivers edge; Gwen had a nasty swim in the second group quite near to the end, and had loads of scratches and bruises to show for it.
Day 8 – Sunday – Ula slides, Sjoa play run
Lovely hot day. Drove up to the best get-in in the world! A small stream builds and builds until 10 foot drops become run-of-the-mill. Then you get to the slides! We ran the first horrible slotted drop blind – no poncing about.
The slides are grade 4, but don’t try them without a boat as the 15 foot vertical drop at the end might not be good. The shallow water and speed gained during the 80 metres or so make this an un-missable experience that any committed ‘creeker’ (Harvey!) would love.
A good line on the last drop is essential to avoid a trip to the chiropractor – then only 5 or 6 3-metre drops to go and its all over!
Awesome…
That afternoon, on the Sjoa play run, we strutted our stuff.
Day 9 – Monday – Upper Driva
Two hour drive, get in in a lovely scenic valley. Beautiful pool-drop river, short grade III+ rapids. Low level – only 1 on the gauge.
Deep blue water in a deep blue gorge. The major hazards weren’t very difficult at this level – just an occasional swimmer!
We had split up into two groups, but all met up at the last major fall, a photogenic drop. I can see that it would be quite nasty at higher levels.
Lots of photos. Lots of sun. We even managed to find the get out (after worrying that we’d passed it).
We stopped for a late lunch at a swimming lake in Oppdal, but discovered that nearly everyone there was under 10 years old!
One the way home, we passed two girls hitchhiking. It turns out that John in the van wouldn’t let Baldrick pick them up because he would get left in the back. Dom nearly drove into them. Conor wasn’t allowed to pick them up because Lisa was in the car…
Day 10 – Tuesday – Tundra
Four hardy souls decided to try and tame the mighty Tundra (the guide lists this as continuous 4+). The egress seemed good in the guide: “you will instantly know the take-out when you see it, as the river ploughs into a six-foot wide gap in the cliffs and disappears underground”.
In hindsight, the level seemed unusually high at the get-in. This was soon confirmed by the first grade 5 drop which looked truly evil (and was portaged). Not an easy portage either, pulling four boats across a side-stream on ropes. We put back in after a river-wide stopper and set off into a high volume heavy grade 4 with plenty to think about. We stopped again at a particularly steep section for Rich to inspect – ‘it goes, but it’s the hardest section we’ve done yet’! He was right. From here on it got very hard and continuous, running long sections blind because no eddies were available. We managed to catch our breaths a few times and were on adrenaline highs. The pace did not relent, with boats being battered even on the good lines. Matt had a pin and three rolls, and Rich also got pinned, but not the place to be swimming.
We finally reached the end, and the consensus was a good 5. The epic was not over yet, with 300 metres to drag the boats up a fly infested gorge – not pretty – we all emerged 10 years older – we’d just lived them.
This was what Norway is all about.
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.
“B” group – Dom, Rich, Tony, John & Lisa G. – Upper Sjoa.
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
Day 13 – Friday – Raundelsaelva
We decided to do the section of the Raundelsaelva from Skiple to Urdland.
It started out as the ideal mixed-ability river trip. Something for everyone. Grade 3 to 4. Turned out to be 3 to 4 rolls for Baldrick, grade 3 to 4 swims for Lisa F, and 3 to 4 sections of grade 5 for the few left on the river. Don’t ask Lisa G and Gwen about portages! Nice thing was, no-one was hurt, the road wasn’t too far away to escape to (apparently on some of the portages).
There is an access point by a church for a lower grade paddle before you reach the grade 5 fall. (Ed – actually that only gives you about half a mile’s trip). At the fall, Richard G broke his paddles and had to swim. At the time it was marked by a naked man; he might not be there next time. (Ed – something’s getting a bit surreal here).
The main features start with a Kiwi raft guide sandbagging like he was born to it. The first rapid is actually a grade 4 chute and stopper – this was done with incidents, all on video.
There’s a chicken run on the next rapid with 3 stoppers, or 1 stopper on the main run. (?) The rest is grade 4 or 5 features, with easy bits between them. Some of the biggest stoppers I’ve seen, and a stonking chute: 100m long, 30 cumecs, 2m wide, 2 full-width stoppers. Clean your pants then what a rush – biggest, fastest, hardest water we’ve done. Dunno what happens if it goes wrong though.
The section ended at a 6m fall. The ‘sick’ line was far right, to miss the stopper, to far right is the kiwi line. Rich broke his paddle on this and had a ‘sweet’ rescue by Tony.
It was a fantastic river – maybe not for all. After 2 weeks paddling in Norway we were stoked, so we played on the lake by the hut, and hung our kit out to dry.
Day 14 – Saturday – Headed home
Lazy day in Bergen, onto the Ferry, and the wonderful prospect of the fantastic ‘pop group’ again…
Summary
Swimmer scores
Note that this score is intended to be completely subjective, and anyone who complains that it isn’t fair will get extra points added!
Roll – 1 point; ‘unnecessary’ portage – 2 points; swim – 3 points.
The Multiplier is the number of foreign trips you have attended, including this one.
| Pos | Name | Raw Points | Multiplier | Total Points |
| 1 | Gwen | 28 | 3 | 84 |
| 2 | Lisa F | 41 | 2 | 82 |
| 3 | Matt | 11 | 7 | 77 |
| 4 | John | 10 | 7 | 70 |
| 5 | Conor | 7 | 8 | 56 |
| 6 | Baldrick | 50 | 1 | 50 |
| 7 | Steve | 15 | 3 | 45 |
| 8 | Richard | 11 | 4 | 44 |
| 9 | Alamo | 11 | 3 | 33 |
| 10 | Tony | 3 | 9 | 27 |
| 11 | Dom | 8 | 3 | 24 |
| 12 | Lisa G | 2 | 9 | 18 |
Some quotes from the whole trip:
- Someone discusses lazily: “I don’t know what we’re going to do this winter – North Wales perhaps, the Conwy? Gamlan? etc.?”
Until someone else points out: “You haven’t finished here yet mate…” - “It’s a bit like being on a scary roller-coaster, but you have to sort it out for yourself”.
- Rich: “I’m not scared until I think I’m going to die”
- “If you follow my line you will be fine; if you don’t, you won’t.”
Matt trying to suggest that she can walk if she wants to – although I think the message was lost in translation between Matt’s world and the rest of the world.
(Day 13 on the Raundelsaelva.)
Summary of loss and damage
- 1 Vauxhall sump
- 1 Perception Method Air (two splits)
- 1 Peugeot 306 exhaust system.
- 1 Mercedes van oil cap.
- 1 Pyranha end bung, along with throwline, water bottle and flask lid (the rest of the Thermos was recovered!).
- 2 legs (owned by Gwen; previously in good condition).
- 2 plastic chairs (don’t let John sit down).
- 1 paddling career (Steve claimed he was retiring).
- 2 bashed shoulders (Conor & Rich)
- 1 Perception Phat – Tony was damaging borrowed goods.
- 1 Sauna – until Tony’s electrical wizardry fixed it again (twice).
- Various paddles (Dom), neck-seal (Matt), spray-deck (Conor), dry-cag (Baldrick), helmet (Baldrick).
- 1 ankle – along with Lisa F’s mountaineering career.
- 4 pairs of legs eaten by flies on the Tundra.