Noruega Nord photos

Hey,just a quick photostory from the trip North... enjoy :D

photos by Jakub Sedivy and Lucie Sediva

After the Veko, Rush was staying in my our house and after few days the rest of the group turned up consisting of Steve Fisher, his bro Dave and Ben Brown. After some regrouping, the boys left up north and I was busy catching up on sleep and working.

I was planning to go to Sjoa as my days off were coming up. Sometimes during the week I got a message from Rush to join them up north so I managed to repair Rosie Jr ( my small red Skoda Felicia), pick up my sister from the station, get some more days off and soon I was on the road again heading up far north. Stop over in Sjoa to say hi to friends, followed by full night of driving and by midday next day I was meeting up with the crew for heavy Redbull, rum and coke bender after which we all found out that the whole bunch of koffein drinks can spoil and shorten normal sleep to couple hours and looong time of watching the ceiling, trying to fall asleep. 

From morning it was on and we were off for some kayaking. We found pretty cool canyon close to the road with interesting lead in drop, waterfall, small gorge and fun boogie class 4 lead out. The run turns out to be super fun. Everything takes little longer because of the cameras and filming.

 The waterfall turns out to be trickier than anticipated.

I went second, my decision for the line was to use the autoboof but try not to land so flat. The lead in goes all good, but I eneded up[ little bit further left in the waterfall and I didn't land flat but fully corked. Landed almost on my head, but soft and unscattered. Roll and back on the game. 

Rush boofed and Ben took his time scouting from both shores and styled a sweet 45 degrees line.

 The run followed by sweet 6m drop and fun WW4 bogie water run out.

The rest of the week followed in similar pattern. There had been thoughts of an overnighter first D mission but we had to postpone it, because of rainy weather.

 Nevertheless we found sick slides , nice drops and many rivers to be paddled in lower flows. After almost 2 weeks I had to go back to work and the boys hiked to the first D. Overall there had been loads of scouting and driving around, but totally worth it. Northern Norway really delivers. The crust of the potential has been just scraped off and there is tons more to do. I am already looking forward for next summers mission North. So much to be done there...

More photos soon... stay tuned

Ekstremesportveko 2010

After two days spent in my car, I turned up to Voss, my summer location this year. Voss is sick, so many rivers to run on such a small area so there is always stuff to paddle, even after a full day of raft guiding. The summer almost never sets here, so it's not a problem to put in for the local runs around 9pm. I had been enjoying Myrdalselvi and Raundalselvi runs with the local crew and experiencing unusually warm Norwegian spring in Voss.

Voss is also hosting the annual Ekstremesportveko event, one of the biggest extrem sport festivals anywhere, attracting hundreds of athletes and thousands of fans and spectators. This is my favourite week in the year. The festival tent has always great atmosphere and is you can meet almost anyone from you friends all over the world. 

There are competitions and events held in BASE, Skydiving, Paragliding, Hanggliding, Multisport, Rafting, Big Air, Freeride, Kiting, MTB\ BMX, Climbing, Longboarding and also Kayaking. All the athletes and fans meet every evening the big festival tent to watch the today's video from the day's event, share stories and party big style indeed. 

This years Veko has been little different for me as I had also been working most of the week for Voss Rafting. This has turned the Ekstremeveko also in an endurance week, but I also managed to compete in few events. On Monday I entered the Hogri Ned multisport event. This race usually consist of skier, downhill biker and kayaker. This year, there has been not much snow in Voss, so the skiing part had to be abandoned and it looked like I will not have a team as my team buddies from last year could not turn up. One day before the event I got a call from John Indrebo, one of the local bikers and on Monday I was awaiting his arrival at the start. After slower hand over of the relay bib we became 3^rd overall. Cool, my first veko podium this year. 

The main kayaking event was held at the Mjolfjell race course. This had been a big chanche from the traditional Branseth course, which was out due to low water levels. 

Mjolfjell has been rising on the contrary so most of the competitors had been welcomed by a very sticky hole at the bottom of the section, which made almost one third of the field to drink a bootie beer by the end of the day. I had couple great training rides and felt pretty strong for the race. The first part felt very fast and on the track, but I got pushed behind the rock by the bottom hole and so lost any chances for the finals like many of the others who went through the “back door”. Anyway, it got all better for the team race as I teamed up with my ZET kayaks mates from Czech Viktor Legat and Jiri Kopecny and we managed to get second behind the Italian team.

 The rest of the Veko followed with amazing parties, great everyday events and loads of stories to be shared. Already looking for the next year. Thanks for the amazing competition photos by M. Kroupa 

Myrkdalselvi

Hey everyone. Few cool shots from one of my home runs this year. Voss creeking at it's best. Lowe Myrkdalsevi has become one of my favourite runs anywhere and it's only 30 mins from from my place. Packed with action and good whitewater. Yeehaaa. The pictures were shot last Saturday before the Veko. Good teaser for the action and great week, that is just about to start. We are pretty busy at work, but hope to get as much racing as possible. So far so goog. Stay tuned for more soooooon... (All photos by me, except of those of me, those are taken by andy Phillips).

Benjamin Hjort going for the boof

Andy Phillips- first drop

Benji- first drop

First slide of the triple combo- Benji

Mark Basso at the first slide

Benji- second slide of the triple

Mark at the third slide- just hold on and enjoy the ride, also good to go right at the bottom, hole is super sticky

Benji- second run double fun, 2nd slide

Third slide

From triple slide into a triple drop, Andy Phillips styling for the cameras.

Mark Basso at the so called Dirk Diggler slide

Andy Philips

This one is called Grandioso, one of my favourite drops anywhere

Me at the Grandioso, middle line

Boof it

This your ast take out drop. Sweet boof onto a slide with a big hole at the bottom and right hand turn at the lead out

Me at the last drop