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| The beautiful village of Fondo, Piemonte, Italy pic.:Jürgen Maier |
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Emme, Daniel, Thomas, Reiner, Jürgen, Kevin, Harald, Hannah & Moritz,
Sebastian, Yoshi, David, Diane |
After our Trip to California last year the idea came up, that Diane Gaydos and Daniel Brasuell, who gave us a warm welcome in their home, would join us for some kayaking in the Italian and Swiss alps this year. And, since the snowpack in California reached historic lows this year they really came over.
They were joined by David Maurier, Lara Farrell, Yoshihiro Takahashi, Kevin Smith and Emme King. Together with Lorenz Holzer, Jürgen Maier, Lukas Seitner, Harald Glanz and myself and occasionally joining German friends Jonas Grünewald, Sebastian Betz, Thomas Dimke and Klaus Krupka, so we built up to a really huge group.
We started our trip off in the beautiful valley of the Sesia river where we ran the Lower Sermenza, the Egua, Gronda/Sorba and Sesia.
So first up was the Egua River, you might call it a skatepark for kayaking...
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| Luki on the first Falls pic.: Jürgen Maier |
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Lukas, Reiner & Daniel Brasuell on the same drop pics.: Jürgen Maier
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| Sweet Boof, pic.: Jürgen Maier |
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| Harald before and after the Bridge, pics.: Jürgen Maier & Yoshi Takahashi |
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| Reiner & Harald just before the takeout pics.: Yoshi Takahashi & Jürgen Maier |
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| Lorenz Holzer, Reiner and Jürgen taking on the last drop of the Egua pics.: Jürgen Maier, Lukas Seitner |
After the Egua we stopped for a quick run on Gronda, which was very low, and had some fun running the "triple combo" on the Sorba.
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| Reiner, Lorenz and Harald enjoy low water creeking on Gronda pic.: Jürgen Maier |
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| Having fun on the triple Combo on the Sorba pics.: Jürgen Maier |
Our next stop was the area around Ivrea. This Mountains Feature some of the best whitewater south of the alps. Rivers like the Chiusella, Soana, Stura di Ala and Ayasse are as good as it gets. Unfortunatly the weather wasn`t so good so we didn`t take as many pictures.
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Lukas Seitner and Lorenz on the last boof on the Chiusella pic.: Jürgen Maier
(there is a really nice section after that drop if the water is high) |
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| Lorenz and Reiner enjoy the bouldergardens of the Soana pic.: Harald Glanz |
The Ayasse was too high for the classic sections too, so Lorenz and Reiner decided to run a short strech above Pontboset that Harald and Reiner ran a few years back. Turned out that this little stretch was really pushy too, sometimes guessing on waterlevels can be scetchy ;) So we ran some stuff at the start and had to portage some of the middle section and all bigger features...
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| Lorenz and Reiner on the last section of the upper Ayasse pic.: Jürgen Maier |
After this first few days we decided to change our base to Ticino and spend some time in beautiful southern Switzerland where rivers are green and everything is expensive as hell ;).
As always a big THANK YOU to: Liquidlogic Kayaks, Alpin Action - Trnovo/Slovenia, Hf Safety, Franz Puckl - Kanuschule Kitzalp
