Dave, Dave, Yatesy and I have just got back from 5 days of fun and faff
paddling the rivers of the Austria around Landeck with Andy Turton (http://www.andyturton.com). None of us had paddled in Alps before but were keen to give it a go, so off we went.
Got to basin - Faffed
Got to Airport 3 hours early, sat in the bar for too
long and had to rush through to gate 1 million and 52 to get to the Ryanair
outpost at Stansted.
Landed in Salzburg, made sure hire car company couldn't
see us strapping a handi-rack and 2 boats to the roof of their brand new Audi
A3.
Arrived in Prutz at 2am where Andy had kindly pitched
his spare tent for us.
Paddling Day 1
Blimey Austrian rivers flow fast. Apparently the main
river, the River Inn, was low - only 120 cumecs but it seemed bloody high to us
compared to the weekend before at the Tryweryn (9 cumecs)!
The first river we paddled was a nice introduction to
Alpine paddling on the Inn from Switzerland back into Austria. getting us used
to the speed of the water, practising breaking in and out of eddies, ferry
gliding and trying with all our might to lean downstream. Andy helped us all by
screaming "SPEED = STABILITY" at every opportunity! We had to be really on our
toes, as by the time you see an eddy you are normally way to far downstream to
even bother trying to get into it, but we eventually got the hang of it, and in
the afternoon progressed onto the classic "Tosens" section of the Inn.
Tosens is basically a series of massive wave trains to
blast through whooping and shouting with delight at every opportunity. A couple
of rolls, but no swims later we all made it safely back to the get out at the
campsite in time for a bit of a de-brief in the bar, before mixing with the locals and talking to a crazy Austrian
who used to live in Ilford. When asked what he did in Ilford his reply was " I
learnt English and did a little bit of f*cuking...!"
Paddling Day 2
On the morning of day two we paddled another classic-
The Imst Gorge. This was similar to Tosens on day one, in that it had massive
wave trains, with several unpleasant places to avoid. One of the main rapids
was called "rollercoaster" - several approaches to getting down this were taken
- some "chose" to swim down it, some chased boats down it, and others sneaked
down the side and missed it all together! All lines were good fun though and no
harm was done.
The second river on Day 2 was the Sanna - slightly less
volume than the Inn, but equally as challenging with eddies that we really
didn't want to miss, and some pourovers we really did! We had the perfect
opportunity to find out how not to do it when a group of 4 paddlers came down.
As they disappeared round the corner of the Pians rapid, only one paddler was still in
their boat, and she was upside down. In comparison, we all cut fine shapes more
or less staying on the right line.
Paddling Day 3
The plan was to make day 3 the hardest day on the
water. A full day trip was planned paddling the Giarzon Gorge in Switzerland.
Up until lunchtime it was fast lower volume water where it was all to easy to trip over a rock. We proved
that pushing off the bottom instead of rolling does not always work. After
lunch in the sun, on a sandy beach, we came to the first Grd 4 rapid of the day.
A rapid where the whole river piles into a rock before going down a shoot on
river left. Andy demo'ed it and obviously made it look easy, so it was time to
get my deck on, try and ignore the fact that my heart was racing and my mouth
was dry and hope for the best. A couple of 'Neil-esque' high braces later and I
made it to the bottom, and had the perfect view of everyone else styling it. The afternoon continued with a couple more rapids that involved
inspecting and setting up safety, interspersed with some continuous big bouncy
hole avoiding fun.
That evening we relaxed thinking that the hardest
rivers were behind us so treated ourselves to a drive to Italy for some
authentic pizza and pasta.
Paddling Day 4
Andy said we were paddling the Lower Oetz, and said we
shouldn't under any circumstances read the guidebook... On the way to Spar for
our daily breakfast of meat and bread it was decided that just reading the first
paragraph of the description wouldn't do any harm.... "The put in for the lower
Oetz has been the site of several fatalities, and from here you get a good
impression of what is to come. If you don't like the look of the river at this
point bear in mind it only gets worse from here down..." After all
simultaneously shouting at Dave to shut up, we ate the rest of the bread and
meat in silence...
The river turned out in my opinion (I suspect not a unanimous but I'll leave someone else to tell that story) to be the best river
of the trip. It was the biggest water that any of us had ever paddled. It was
big, continuous and in parts terrifying! After passing the skull and cross
bones signs 600m away from a definite portage I started wondering how far 600 m
was... Andy as ever had everything under control and gave the following advise - "If you swim here, just
ditch your boat and paddle and swim like mad to the bank". Bearing that in mind
we all made it safely to river right and portaged the weir and carried on through the second
half of the Imst Gorge to the get out.
The final run of the trip was another blast down the
Imst gorge that we did on day 2. When we had done it the first time, some
interesting choices had been made down the Rollercoaster. This time however, we
all opted to stay in our boats and blasted through some big waves and splashed
and laughed our way to the get out.
That was it - then end of the trip. We had an amazing
time, paddling in 30 degree sunshine, surrounded by stunning Austrian
mountains. Guided by Andy and his trusty sidekick Rob we all learnt loads, are
much better paddlers than we were 5 days ago and most importantly because of them, all came back safe
and well.
If anyone wants to do something similar let me know or
simply get in touch with Andy who makes the whole process of "messing about in boats" a lot of faff free fun.
Cheers
Carter
PS - Sightseeing Info - "When Castle Tours Go
Bad..."
The castle in Prutz is open on Wednesday mornings, not
1am on Monday nights.
It is not possible to climb the walls of Prutz
castle
Piles of logs outside Prutz castle stop you having to
lie on the wet grass to sleep.
Dog kennels are warmer places to sleep that piles of
logs.
Four 6'2"+ men do not sleep well in a dog
kennel.
Always make the effort to get back to the tent when
castle tours go bad.