Stories

After a long and hard semester in University, where I have had to actually show up for classes in between travelling and training, I finally pulled off top grades in my last two exams. My reward: A one-week vacation in Iceland, one of my favorite countries… 

Iceland is barren and remote, yet bubbling, steaming, boiling, spouting, flowing, burning and slowly ice-gliding.. It is such an intense place, it is hard not to get entirely intriguied by its very existence. Add the amount of whitewater that is falling over drops, rushing through canyons or gushing up into the air in the form of geysirs, it is always hard to leave.

 

I have wanted to check out the interior for years, meaning that we had to hire a 4×4 to get us across the rivers and safely along the dirtroads. My friend Ove, who is really a skiier, was a part of the team, and volunteered for doing safety and running the camera on the drops I ran. We explored a lot, and there is a lot to come back to next year with a bigger crew and a bit more water. I paddled park-n-hucks for safetyreasons, and got to drop waterfalls up to 12 meters high. Only the safe ones of course… 🙂

We also took the time to simply be tourists this time, and I got to see so much that I have missed out on earlier, always being a part of kayaking trips. We were in awe by so much of the scenery, the colours, the huge waterfalls like Dettifoss and Gullfoss, the gyesirs and not at least the most beautiful hot spring I have ever seen.. Crystal clear blue water, deep in a crack hidden for tourists, it was simply one of the most magical places I have ever seen.

 

I might even take a time-out in Iceland next year for a few months. It is not such a bad place to base out of I reckon.. The world is my playground, and it is just how I want it..

 

Mariann

Last weekend I spent in Bourg St Maurice, running gates with international paddlers. It was the second competition in the Alps cup, slalom, and the second World Ranking race for slalom as well. This is actually where I first tried a slalomboat, one year ago, when I went to France and joined the La Plagne club, training with Nouria Newman. The lower course is really fun, but challenging, and in the pre-lims I could not get one of the gates. My second attempt I actually had a good plan b, but abondoned it on the starting line due to pure over-confidence: “No, I CAN make that gate forwards, I do not want to spin on the eddy-line like a beginner to catch it….” Oops… Ok, time to admit that yes, I am still a beginner in slalom.. That day left me sitting in last position, but since we all moved into the semis the next day I didnt really stress it. For me, that was a training day. The semis and finals were held on the upper section, which is quite funny. I had been doing laps there earlier, and as warm up for my race on saturday, without realizing that it was actually the section set for finals. And even funnier did I find it that some of the girls had never ever paddled down it before, due to them being intimidated by the whitewater.. It is fairly steep, especially for a slalom course, but again only around the class 3-4 mark, with no nasty holes, just waves, curlers and some pushiness. I made a gameplan with french/irish Ciaran Mcardle-Heartau, which worked great. The masterplan: Take my time down the course, but catch all the gates. So I did. In the end I got fifth in the semis, and fift in the finals, and improved my time by 13 seconds from semis to finals. I was stoked, though of course I realize it was more my whitewaterskills, not my slalomskills that earned me that spot. Nevertheless, it just proves again that being able to switch in between disciplines is not a bad thing at all.

 

Next on the agenda was the freestyle World Cup in Plattling, bue due to heavy rain, Germany flooded and the event got cancelled. So I am back in Norway for a few days, studying for my last two exams on tuesday, then off to the mighty island of Iceland for a well-earned vacation. Lavafields, geysirs, 4×4 (oh god, how will I survive the backcountry I have no idea..), hot-springs, volcano eruption, and yeah, some waterfalling. Sweeeeeeet…

 

See u guys on the water!

 

Mariann

Last week I got to run two of the classics south of Turin (Torino) in th Italian alps: Germanasca and the Anagronda. 

The latter had a sweet FFD on it, and I was stoked to get to the bottom. I went over the handlebars on the bottom drop, but notthing to drastic. The Germanasca was an amazing class four as well, pushy but fun pushy, with nice lines on it.. Italian style!

Last weekend I competed in the slalomrace for World ranking in Bourg St. Maurice, France, and I was stoked to get a 5th in the finals. The course was pushy, so it was more about the whitewater skils than slalomskills at that point. Good for me!

 

Now it is time for playboating in Plattling, the World Cup is on for this weekend. !

 

 

The last two weeks have been busy like never before… 2.5 weeks ago I went on a scouting mission to Northern Norway, combined with buying a property 12 kms north of the arctic circle.. what a misson! 2500 kms driven in one weekend, with my das as company and private driver… We (!) found some amazing whitewater, and wit the thumbs up from my dad to buy the property I can now pride myself with owning a piece of land where I can watch the midnight sun never leave the sky….

I headed out for my first slalomcompetition of the season, held in L´Argentiere in France, last weekend. After a rather shaky first day on the course, I managed to pull of a 12th on the sunday in the world cup ranking series. Puh! The more I sit in my slalomboat, the more I realize I need to do it more.. but goals are there to be achieved, so it is all good…

After a hectic weekend I went with Arnd Schaeftlein to Italy, and visited Francesco Salvati. With Raphael Thiebeaut we got on the Germanasca and Francescos local creek just behind his house. This has a great slide/waterfall on it, and I was all stoked until I landed in the pool at the bottom, pitoning a rock underwater. Ouch! No wonder the rest of the boys went for the big boof instead of the melt-down… And it was a female First descent, according to Francesco, so I guess I put another one on the list. Great! The Germanasca was a beautiful, fun class four river, with enough action to keep us all entertained, both paddlers and photographer.

It is now time to head back to the slalom scene in Bourg St-Maurice, then off to the World Cup in Freestyle, followed by a week in Iceland, then onwards to two Worldcups in Slalom, Extremesportweek in Voss, then First descent missons/multidaymissons in northern-Norway… and then, I might sneak in a week of totally relaxation at my parents farm in the Sjoa.. puh!

 

Hope to see you on the water!

 

Mariann