Northern Sweden 2005

From ICCC

Thu 16th - Thu 23rd Jun

Trip Report

Thursday 16/06/2005

Driving and stop by pile of ducklings.

Friday 17/06/2005

Stop to let drivers sleep.
Through Umeå and heading inland
Stop at Stornorrfors.
Discovered dubvious access…. Onorous warning signs found below Sweden’s largest Hydro Electic power station with 75m high floodgates only 100-200m away. It would run fine but we decided to eat lunch and drive on to Umealvens’ main tributary instead.

Vindelälven is the southernmost of the big unregulated rivers and was due to reach it's peak level today.
Tired drivers by now.
In the town of Vindeln we stopped at a school to hear the mighty roar of the rapids below both from the left and right.
Access is best made from Vasteromån, the other side of the rapids. We quickly realized these ain't your average grade IVs. Renforsen is about 500m long with stopper everywhere, waves that you have to look up at when walking the bank and everything is fast as hell. We concluded Renforsen was a little bit too hard for us and looked at Degerforsen immediately below. This looked just as mean as Renforsen but was considerably shorter. In the end though we decided to run the last 150 meters of Renforsen. This we found to be a difficult ferryglide to avoid a big stopper and a suprisingely steep wave that claimed a few rolls. By now nobody felt lucky enough to try Degerforsen. It was decided to try find easier, trip-paddling river with less volume.

So far we had done just 2 runs each lasting 10 seconds.

Saturday 18/06/2005

Woke up found no food. Packed up then car wouldn’t start. The footbridges around Renforsen where shut as the water lapped over them. Finally hotwired it and arrived at Mardseleforsen in the late afternoon. Guidebook said two channels with “rock hard” paddling in both. Bridges has been erected across the river and we succeded in walking across both main channels but not all the way to the other side.

As we where getting changed, somebody there had rung the local paddler and put us in contact with him. He told us that to go under the bridge was one thing but the next rapid had "stoppers bigger then houses" and he wouldn't like to see what they look like in flood condition.

The second channel was very messy at our level (that is on the river right). Certainly the holes where big enough The one on river left was a trifle easier as it had a grade IV line down the diagonal.

First up where Patrick and Tim. <upper section> They hit the bridge at bang on the right spot, Patrick styled down the diagonal past all the stopers. Tim went for the left line and this also worked well.

Theo and Glyn next. The upper section proved harder then it looked and Theo just scraped the side of a big hole. Presumably this got Glyn and in the subsequent C2C roll he dislocated his shoulder breifly. Luckely he managed to get into safety before the gnarl. Meanwhile Theo hadn't looked back once and was hucking the gnarl, by fearlessly plowing into an enourmous stopper. He claims to have been unintendowed but to onlookers he just dissapeared.

Glyn was kind enough to drive the shuttle down for us.

Sunday 19/06/2005

Trollforsarnarna

• On drive we found a petrol station in Mala (thank god) after spending a rather long time figuring out how to use the pay per card features with no help from Patrick I may add we proceded to what www.forsguiden.com regards as "the best rapids in the Country" on the Piete river. The put-in is found near power cables
• creekingdelta has many hard mid-volume runs.
• Some we did run others only Tim ran.
• At the end of the creeking section was a giant slide
• Tim & Patrick looked. Gutsy mid river line "don't capsize"
• Steeper left line with distict drops.
• Patrick decided against
• Tim too.
• We put on below and ran a stopper under the bridge
• Theo skirted around
• Patrick ferry glide and skirt around, nice
• Tim "went for it"
• Nice beating and swim

Camping involved giant fire.
Early night.

Monday 20/06/2005

Paddle down to railway then roadbridge Pretty easy Glyn took a bit of a detour on shuttle resulting in skidmarks everywhere!

Now we decided to drive to Jokkmokk,
Patrick's ambition is to reach Jokkmokk
Enter arctic circle
Stopped at arctic circle +-2 km
Car decided that he's gone far enough
Reached Jokkmokk had lunch
Drove on to Kiruna (finally got mobile reception again)
Took road to lulea
Took small road towards Pajala
Drove over a "reasonably promising river"
30 km too long a paddle
drove over second little ditch
went on map less wild goose chase down forestry lane maze to find a takeout
suddenly crossed the put-in.
Turned around to the ultimate destination
decided we really needed some maps
Resume on original course to "the middle of lappland"
Pahakirukkio or in short Paha is a canyon on the Kalix
Arrived at 9pm decided to cook dinner
Got on the water coming on to 11pm
Forgot all about rapids 1-4
Rapid 5: hidden behind island
Got out to inspect
Huge hole on r left
Looked suprisingly ok on right
Runs just fine and takeout found
Under these water conditions I certainly think this was the most memorable run.

Tuesday 21/06/2005

Stockforseälven and camping at storforsen

Wednesday 22/06/2005

Drove back inland to Laisälven. A major tributary to Vindelälven. It had 6-7 nice rapids. Tim ran all of them, though the third one didn't go to plan. He was soposed to hit the channel somewhere in the middle while Theo and Patrick watched from the left bank. Suddenly at the horizon line somewhere he headed way right. Theo and Patrick watch in amazement, "He must have spotted something we didn't." Hitting the bottom stopper we could see blue plastic flying. ****, Theo runs for the boat and Patrick may as well take photos as no throwline is ever going to reach. Tim's ordeal lasts until Theo is well and truly on the water, which is just as well as that leaves enough time for Theo to rescue paddles and the boat near a little semi submerged islandlet. It turns out Tim hadn't memorized his line well enough and lost his bearings near the rapid entrance.

That evening we had enough Trangia food and decided to try our luck the Sorsele, where we found a "Civilized burger king" with nice pizzas. More ice creams where consumed

That night we did a rather long drive south, too long, in-fact as very little map reading had taken place we missed our turning by about 100 km.

Midnight came.

Thursday 23/06/2005

On the way back north Tim, Glyn and Patrick got rather excited about the scenic sun set/rise or a 'sun dip' and spent some considerable time practicing their photography.

We arrived at our campsite so late that Patrick and Theo decided not to erect their tent and sleep in a nice looking log shelter. Theo decided to sleep in the inner tent while Patrick borrowed Tim's mosquito hat. The next morning Patrick's face looked like the elephant mans. We conclude that an inner tent is considerably more mozzyproof then a mosquito hat.

We woke up next to the river Ammer (not to be confused with the Bavarian river) It was pleasantly low and we where looking forward to some trip paddling. This we didn't find here. We encounterd 2 reasonable but easy rapids including the one we camped next to. But alas we had driven too far and reached the bridge (at the takeout) in no time. Some good sport was made from the suspension arches on this bridge. The guidebook screwed up, did section with 2 grade 5's….. turns out to be one mother of a lake. A really long a narrow one. After about 10 km we saw Glyn driving down the road besides us and managed to stop him.
We had driven miles south by now so drove back to see Theo's mum.

Trip Statistics

• Beers consumed in arctic environment: 0 pints
• Milage: 2-3 Mm (mega meters)
• Time on the water: 10 hours
• Time in the car: 100 hours
• Numer of Raindeers seen: 100
• Number of raindeers on the main roads: 100
• Northernmost point
• Temperature: 20 degrees
• Average
• Number of swims: 2
• Number of swims by Tim: 2
• Number of portages: Lots

Media

Sweden Trip Report by Patrick Clissold

Trip Report June 05

We left arrived at Stockholm Vasteras from Luton later in the evening to b greeted by Theo and the rent-a-wreck car, that wasn’t that bad. We then headed off for the first stop which was the Renforsen on the Vindelalven. On arrival we realized what Swedish whitewater was all about. This was full on big volume stuff and the timing of our trip meant that we had hit them in peak flow. The section we were looking for was about 1km long however after seeing the river in flood we only ran the last 200m section a few times. We camped by the river which may not have been a good idea as all you could hear all night was the roar of the river which made for pleasant dreams.

We woke up with the idea of finding something a little less horrendous. However our plans were soon foiled by the fact that the key in the rent-a-wreck car would not turn. This is quite a problem when your in a small town in northern Sweden. How long does it take a mechanical engineer, an electronic engineer, a civil engineer and a bio-chemical engineer to hotwire a car? About four hours. However with that behind us we carried on up river to the Mårdseleforsen. This was an awesome rapid with lots of channels in-between islands. We decided on our route and then began the hour long pondering on ‘what would happen to you if you went into that hole?’ Camera’s were set up and Me and Tim went to do it first while Theo and Glyn filmed. I remember not paying much attention to this little entry rapid on the walk up, however when I got to it on the river I realized how big the waves were and wondered how big the main rapid would look from boat level! Both went smoothly, as I looked behind me I saw Tim was ok too and we both broke out to relieve the others of camera duty. Theo’s and Glyn’s run did not go so smoothly. Glyn rolled in the entry rapid and managed to break out before the main event. He pulled his shoulder and could not move his whole arm. Theo made the main rapid however a rather suspect line took him into the middle of a rather large hole. He rolled up looking rather confused and broke out. After consulting Glyn who was in no state to paddle we headed on down the next rapid which was not so intense thankfully.

The next day we headed to the Piteälven which is a rather fantastic river as it is a creeking delta. A large volume river split into so many steep channels. This made the volume a little more manageable. Some nice rapids and drops ended in a giant slide that after a long think was decided not worth it and we got in below with only an easily skirtable stopper to negotiate. Not so for Tim who ended swimming out of the afore mentioned hole. We camped on the river bank just down stream.

The next day we got back on for an easier run for a few km. We then headed north towards Jokkmokk which is just north of the arctic circle. We crossed the arctic circle and had to stop to send some postcards. We then headed to the river Kalix. This was a long drive and we got there about 8pm. We had dinner then decided at 10pm to get on the river, hey it’s the arctic it doesn’t get dark in the summer! This river was supposed to be 7 distinct rapids however I remember 2. The last of which is one the best I have ever paddled, consisting of some very large holes and waves but somehow all went well. We got off the river at about 1am.

The next day we didn’t paddle instead we went to visit Europe’s largest rapid, Storforsen. Literally translated as big rapid. This was one the most breath taking things I have ever seen. I cant imagine anybody ever paddling it. We spent a long time just in awe of the shear size of it. We ate dinner on the banks of it then camped.

The next day we drove to the Laisälven which is a tributary of the Vindelalven. This was again some very large volume rapids most of which went with not much problems. However one rapid was inspected and Tim insisted that there was a green tongue in the middle of this large stopper just out of sight. Myself nor Theo thought that there would be one however gave Tim and chance to prove his theory. He paddled over the lip the drop to find no tongue and a very large hole a minute or two of trashing followed with him eventually swimming out and managing to get out with all his kit on a very small island in the middle of the river.

The next day we drove south again. And after a long drive we camped next to the river Ammer which we intended to paddle the next day. Myself and Theo decided not to erect a tent and sleep in this wooden shelter we found. However the next morning I awoke to find myself looking like the elephant man after being the meal of several thousand mosquitoes. Theo has slept in the inner of the tent which protected him. We got on the river and expected a reasonably hard run to finish off the trip. After a few fairly easy rapids we were greeted by a lake. The guide book had screwed up and we ended up paddling 5 km of flat water and were eventually rescued by spotting Glyn drive past.

We drove back to Theo’s mum’s house and enjoyed some excellent food and drink. The next day me and Tim headed for the airport for our next trip in the French alps. An enjoyable holiday with far too much driving, far too many mosquitoes and far too much water. An adventure all round.

From www.kayakproject.co.uk