Sweden 2002

From ICCC

People

• Ruth "EXtreeeeem Mummy" Loeffler
• Theo "Oops I did it again" Petre-fied
• Rob "(My new boat) can't take the heat" Tuley
• Tim "Quaker Camp" Burne
  
  
• Also we can't forget:
  Bo "selecta" Sundberg - Theo's grandfather, and suitably EXtreme Chauffeur.

Trip Report

Around Easter time, maybe before, maybe after, Theo had a mini brain wave. He decided it had been a long time since he had dislocated his shoulder, and the seemingly tame rivers of north Wales no longer proved as much of a challenge as they once did. Convincing an elite selection canoe club members took no time at all, and within a matter of seconds Team Muppet was formed.

Tuesday - 21st May 2002

Ruth Rob and Theo met for the pool session as usual on Tuesday night, whilst Tim was out getting heinously drunk celebrating the end of exams earlier that day. Rob was well aware that this was his last opportunity to show off his nice shiny new boat before it was suitably annihilated on the rivers (and roads) of Sweden, so spent the pool session flatwheeling away, before retiring to the union bar until closing. A prompt getaway was made by 11.15pm and by a stroke of luck Tim was discovered drunkenly wandering down Oxford Street.

A fairly uneventful trip to Stansted was interrupted briefly by a stop for a late night kebab, and also by the police who pointed out that stealth driving is no way to go about London at 1 o'clock on a Tuesday night.

The rest of the journey was spent spilling aforementioned kebabs all over the (borrowed) car, and mercilessly taking the mick out of those foolish travellers who pack their bags, leaving their "important documents" out so they wouldn't forget them. Only to later discover they have everything but their important documents with them at the airport. Theo however seemed oblivious to this, until we arrived at Stansted and the dawning realisation set in that the flight tickets and all his carefully researched river information had been left back in the stores.

Wednesday - 22nd May 2002

We finally got to sleep at about 3.30am, and an hour later we were wide awake ready to check in. Fortunately, blagging paid off and we were let onto the flight without the tickets. Phew!

A classic piece Swedish transportation (a Volvo) was waiting for us in Stockholm, along with our personal chauffeur, Bo, Theo's grandfather. Going by the lack of written river information, Theo did a good job in directing us to our first river of the trip, which happened to be on the way to the place we were staying. The Vdsterdaldven (ie. west- valley-river!) had a nice 1/2km rapid of big volume grade 3 water. After a bit of playing, Ruth decided that she'd check whether swimming Swedish rivers was the same as Welsh rivers... Apparantly it was, so disappointedly she got out and took photos for the rest of the session. We ran the section three times with varying degrees of success. Notably, Rob recieved a sound, helmet removing beating in a large (but rather shallow) hole, much to the amusement of those in the eddy!

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We arrived at Theo's luxury 5* log cabin (complete with sauna), at about 9pm, and enjoyed a couple more hours of daylight before crashing out for the night.

Thursday - 23rd May 2002

Got up around 8am the next day and the boys walked down to a fall on the local river (the Dysen) that Theo remembered seeing once when he was younger. Fortunately, the 8m he remembered it as was correct, but it wasn't vertical (big sighs of relief all round), so we decided that later in the holiday we would return and claim what we think would be the first descent!

After a quick breakfast we all piled into the car with Bo and he drove us over the border into Norway. We planned to run the Drevja, which Theo seemed to remember being a Class 4 run. Despite our inspections of the take out and put in revealing nothing more than shallow grade 1 and 2 rapids, we put in anyway as a quick contour line count of the map we had, indicated it should get steeper around the middle section.

Our new contour grading system proved successful and some nice shelf like drops began to emerge. A number of inspections were made and everyone ran everything without any difficulties. About two-thirds of the way into the descent, Tim pulled into an eddy just above a horizon line and began signalling for everyone to find an eddy pronto. Ruth misinterpreted these signals to mean "everyone out of their boats now", promptly capsized and smashed the glass. A stylish self rescue was performed, the boat also being saved, but the paddles plummeted 18 feet over the fall to their watery grave. We inspected the drop, and after our palpitations had subsided Rob led on down. Ruth was reunited with her boat at the bottom of the fall and Tim lent her his blades, leaving him to hand paddle the rest of the section. Fortunately there were no more big drops and before long we saw Bo standing on the bridge at the takeout.

We took a quick spin up the road to scout the Bergea, and added that one to our "to-do" list. On the drive back home Robs shiny new boat belatedly did what he'd been trying to make it do all day, and cartwheeled off the roof of the car, smashing the rear windscreen, and finally coming to a halt after being dragged along the road for about 50m.

Friday - 24th May 2002

Up bright and early, and set back off to the Vdsterdaldven, not a popular choice, but the only option as that was the location of the nearest kayak shop to buy a new set of blades for Ruth. Stopped off at Mora after =hr to report the loss of Ruths blades to the police, and make a stop at the local Inter Sport on the off-chance they had some paddles in. Amazingly they did, and we came away with a big-ass pair of brass shafted touring blades that were blatantly designed only for use by gorillas. Nice.

With no need to return to the Vdsterdaldven, a rapid direction change was made and we were on the road up to Norway once more with the intention of running the classic section of the Triselva. Lack of information lead to difficulty finding the put-in and take-out, but we eventually completed a 3km section of river between two lakes which was big, wide bouncy grade 2/3 water. It later turned out that this was completely the wrong section of river, but what the hell. We had fun! Back over the border into Sweden and we stopped off at a local supermarket. Ruth and Theo took the honours of looking daft as they sped about buying supplies whilst still in paddling kit.

Meanwhile Rob and Tim got chatting to a local paddler about the next river we planned to run, the Storen. He recommended putting in below a large drop (4+/5) and paddling down to a local playhole. His directions to the put-in proved useful, and in no time we were inspecting the drop he said to put in below. Theo ran the very top section and Rob and Tim the middle. Then, after a drawn out inspection and much Kodak induced courage, Tim managed a successful solo run of the bottom fall.

Lack of time (and the fact that Theo didn't want to walk a 6km shuttle) meant we whacked the boats on the roof and drove down to the local playspot. This consisted of a rather large rockslide into a ma- hu-seeeve hole, followed by a small but exceedingly rocky drop, the playhole being at the end of the rapid. Rob went first and took the chicken shoot (cunning plan). Tim was next, chose the mean centre line, went momentarily airborne in the hole, but managed to control it and got to the eddy. Theo followed but wasn't quite so lucky. A spectacular backloop out of the main hole saw him being battered upside-down over the next drop. A brief battle was fought with the riverbed which Theo spectacularly lost as Mr Arm became detached from Mr Body... Ouch... Fortunately it went back in by itself, but Theo sensibly decided to call it a day and not go anywhere near the playhole. Despite the whole scenario Ruth bravely still wanted to run the rapid and followed Robs more sensible line with style.

Rob and Tim stayed at the playhole for another 45 minutes pulling endless cartwheels, splitwheels and tricky-woo's (cough-bolloks-cough) until they finally decided to call it a day at 9.30pm and get off the water.

Saturday - 25th May 2002

A return to Norway was planned for today. On the way we stopped off at a supermarket to buy a few supplies including a hyowge sausage that Theo planned to turn into Stroganoff that evening. In true Muppet style we argued extensively about which sausage to get, bought everything else, then proceeded to leave the shop sans sausage. D'OH.

Upon arrival at the Storflena, lack of guidebook once again led to dubiousness as to whether this was the right river, but our contour grading system showed a consistent 8 in 2 (contours per square). Rob and Tim got on, leaving Ruth and Theo to steam up the car windows at the take-out.

More water would have made this river a fantastic run as it was just a little too rocky. Rob, for some reason, had decided to borrow everyone else's kit. At the take-out he pointed out a small hole that had appeared in Theo's new cag-deck as he had been using it. He vehemently denied causing it (which no-one believed) but poetic justice was done when he realised that his once flat planing hull on his shiny new boat was now only just a planing hull... maybe...

(Secret Captains Log, from Rob: actually down the river, Tim (rock monkey goat blower extrodinaire) found a .22 rifle and tried to shoot me, resulting only in a small hole in Theo's cag-deck. Drowned him and found the ugliest stupidest river beaver I could find and its done such a good job of imitation Tim that neither Ruth or Theo have noticed anything yet...)

N.B. (added whilst driving through forest of fir trees): I think Tim would like to be an angel - i.e. have a large spiky Xmas tree stuck up his arse once a year...

An early return was made to the cabin (purchasing a sausage along the way), where sausage connoisseur Theo masterfully prepared a beast of a stroganoff. The sauna was then fired up, and tested to the max by all but pussy-boy-Rob who couldn't take the heat and insisted on going for a cold shower every 30 seconds.

The remainder of the evening was spent drinking quality Swedish beer (or pear cider for the girls - Tim) and as soon as Bo left the room the conversation went from bad (religion/was Jesus a good paddler) to worse (technicalities of felching, what actually were mars-bar parties and sibling eating).

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Sunday - 26th May 2002

Back to Norway once more, and a crazy plan to paddle the river we scouted on Thursday, the Bergea. (Rated at 9 in 3 overall, or 3 in = at its steepest).

The local village were out in force in their local costume and we were very impressed by their hospitable reception until we realized they had dressed up for a wedding/carnival type thing and not just our arrival. Undeterred we continued up the river and found a suitable put in. From what Theo remembered from the guidebook, this put in was "a closely guarded secret"... Damn useful guidebook!

As a barefooted Theo walked the shuttle like a true Ghandi, the remaining three of us partook in some spraydeck love-games... Unsurprisingly an invention of Robs!

The first 2 km of the river were quick flowing grade 2 / 3 water before a few interesting ledges were thrown into the equation to spice things up. Ruth insisted on extensively practising her self-rescue- from-a-pin-situation technique. So much so that she decided she was too hot after all that work, so went for a quick swim. Her next swim was quite excusable and can be blamed on the fact she is female. Upon being told to "take the far left line" she went far right and took a beating but self-rescued herself with style.

This brought us to the highlight of the trip, the much respected and feared 3 in = section of river. It consisted of three 8-10 foot falls, all looking runnable, but potentially risking the odd broken ankle.

The first fall was about 8m wide with many rocks at the bottom, apart from a 1 foot wide window, that one had to boof into given that the plunge pool on either side was no more than 2 feet deep. After much deliberation Rob was sent down first, the boof was a little dubious, but his new boats rocker came into its own and he resurfaced quickly. Tim's line was perfect and the crowds (in his head) roared in appreciation as he eddied out at the bottom.

Theo volunteered to pioneer the route down the second fall and took it nicely, which is more than can be said for Tim. Distracted by the naked river sirens conjured up by the locals, they lured him to the right bank and he ran the fall a full 1.5m off line, landing sideways and upside down in the stopper. Luckily the peak on his helmet dragged him out of the hole and flipped him upright, to jeers and catcalls from those on the bank. In contrast Rob (claimed his line was) perfect, as was ruths, who, despite her earlier Sunday swims had suddenly become disturbingly eXtreeeeeeme (in a hicksey stylee) and wanted to show the boys how it was done.

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The third drop was straightforward and Rob and Tim went for some stereo bow grabs for the camera. Ruth and Theo styled their lines. In a bizarre celebration of her successful waterfall descent Ruth (complete with car-keys in an open pocket) decided to stick two fingers up to the river gods and jump in from the bank for a swim. Amazingly when she emerged, the keys were still there so we all went back to the car and set off to the next river.

We never really got that far though. A bulldozer randomly found by the roadside distracted our attention, and the next half hour was spent constructing an elaborate comedy photo shoot.

After this we decided that we had actually had as much paddling fun as we could have in one day, a cheeky suggestion from Tim though meant we remained in paddling kit. Halfway home in a town called Salen was a bridge he had spied that was just begging to be jumped off. Just to be on the safe-side (so no-one important got injured) we let Rob jump first... from the top rail! He came up with a big smile on his face so we all threw ourselves in a lemming-like fashion from the bridge, successfully succeeding in startling the passing motorists!

A return to the 5* Cabin was made listening to inspiring chooonz on Swedish radio. These included the well known classic "The wheels on the bus go round and round" and also the less well known but equally as entertaining; "Lovin' in a bucket seat with the gear shift" - or some-such other random title.

Monday - 27th May 2002

Our last day, so we took a well deserved lie-in and a relaxed brekkie before hopping in the car to drive almost three sides of a triangle (about 30km) to the fall (about 2km away) on the local river, that we scouted earlier in the week.

As we thought it doubtful anyone had paddled this river (the Dysen) before, we decided to claim it as a first descent. Theo (as it was his river) was the first up for the main fall, but made the rest of us wait an agonisingly large amount of time (being bitten to death by killer mosquitoes) as he needlessly tried to find a line down the 2m wide channel. All descents went without problem, apart from rob removing another large chunk of plastic from his now not so new looking boat.

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Ruth and Tim, being hardcore, decided to paddle the rest of the river down to the village. Rob and Theo decided they had had too much for one day, and opted for the marathon drive back. Ruth clocked up an impressive "technical swim" by dropping her paddles, popping her deck mid-flow and wading back upstream to retrieve them.

The cabin was rapidly tidied and after a bit of tadpole abuse we were all in the car with Bo (selecta) at the drivers seat for a six hour sprint to the airport. Before this journey, we all considered paddling to be exciting. Bo however, re-defined the meaning of eXtreeeeme with some fantastically timed overtaking of large lorries on blind bends.

Luckily we managed to get to the airport on time and alive. Tim failed miserably at chatting up a very foxy Swedish baggage handler, then was stopped by security at customs as they believed he was going to try and take over the flight with a measly corkscrew he had stashed in his hand-luggage.

An unplanned tour of london by night (St Pauls, Millennium Wheel, Waterloo Bridge etc etc) was made to round off the trip, before finishing where it all started. The Union.

This trip report was braught to you by plop in a bag.