Patagonia Without Dams

Here are some of the best pictures from my trip and also a movie I made.

I´ll keep kayaking, going more to south of Chile, crossing by Argentina.

Almost all the rivers I paddle are in dam projects, so this is the reason for the name of my movie.

In Pucon the flow of the rivers are going down, so I´m now on my way to Futaleufu and Baker.

That means more to the south in Patagonia, with the great car of Jean, Netta, some chiliens and some Germans.

Enjoy the movie and the pictures. More is coming soon.

Without Dams In Patagonia from Gael Caride on Vimeo.

Me in Rio Puesco

Me in Rio Trancura 

Me jumping the Salto Alerces Rio Manso

Me in Ducky slide in Manso

Thomas in Rio Fuy

Jean in Salto Alerces, Rio Manso

Me in Rio Fuy

Francois in Rio Fuy

The French Team

The great place to camp.With 10000000 of flies.

Thanks to Matias Della Rosa and his family for give us the best asado and a big welcome.

The photographers of the pictures are: Myself, Netta Hånsnar, Andraz Krpic and Tomas Binimelis. 

Last Christmas... Doubs Trip 2010

Just before Christmas the river levels arround Besancon got high. We packed our car and headed west. Two amazing paddle days followed. That's what we call Christmas gift! Enjoy watching this not so serious clip from last years Christmas we found on our harddisc. We hope you get a bit into Christmas mood ;-).

Merry Christmas to you!

French team creeking in Chile

 

Video edit: François Hemidy

 Thomas Sicre, François Hemidy and me, began our trip in Chile at the beginning of november.

After searching a car one week in Santiago, we finaly arrived to Pucon. The time to paddle arrived!!

We ran awesome creeks with internationals crews!

We have paddled around Pucon, then in the north for the Rio Claro, Rio Laja, and Rio Ñuble, and then we came back around Pucon. We plan now to go in the direction of the south: between here and Puerto Montt, a lot of rivers are waiting for us.

We'll be around the end of December at Futaleufeu, and then more in the south...

Here are some pictures!

Rio Llancahue:

François Hemidy in the first 6 meters drop

Thomas Sicre, in a continuous rapid, pictures by myself

Rio Claro, section "los entresaltos, garganta del Diablo":

 

Thomas running a nice autoboof, picture by Andraz Krpic

 

Gael Caride Alvarez boof, picture by myself

 

Nice old school grab, by françois. Picture by Andraz Pric

François in the magic Salto Caracol, picture by Netta Hansnar

Rio Nevado
 

Me on the famous Demshitz Drop

 Thomas in the first slide of the upper section, pictures by Netta Hansnar

Rio Palguin

Nice Line of Gaël in the "Portage", picture by myself

My boof in the "Boof to swim"

 François in the Middle Palguin

 Me, Boofing the middle palguin

Thomas throwing his paddle in the Middle Palguin, pictures by Netta Hansnar

The Flesk Race

T-wave rodeo was a great success and spurred Colin Wong to organise the next event down in county kerry on his local run the flesk.

Kerry has some amazing rivers and the flesk is one of the best Ireland has to offer. The race took place on the middle Flesk, from the gates to the eddy above pollgorm bridge. This is 2km of class 4-5 whitewater and was most definitely going to be a challenge.

(first gorge)

December 3nd came and the levels were right making the race a good to go. Toby Orky and I loaded up the van and headed south. We arrived at the flesk a little bit late but still got to fit in a practice run. This was well

needed, to brush up on the memory of all the lines as it had been quite some time since I was on this river.

(myself on triple step)

There was a great turn out at the race with over 30 paddlers on the water and over 14 competitors of Ireland's top paddlers. With all the safety set up the first heat got under way, paddlers who weren't in the first heat had to do safety. This gave me a chance to get in a second run.

I was the 3rd up in the second heat and Colin was the last to race. My run went pretty well with only one small cock up. It was the first time running this river solo which was a bit intimidating but all the main rapids had safety so there was nothing to worry about. I made it down to the end and across the line.

(Colin )

There was very little between the times but at the end of the day Neil Slevin was crowned king of the Flesk with an impressive 12minutes and 7 seconds, closely followed by Colin Wong, only a second off the pace. full results are below.

1st - Neil Slevin 12.07

2nd - Colin Wong 12.08

3rd - Toby Fischer 12.15

4th - Paddy Mc Govern 12.16

5th - Barry Loughnane 12.25

6th - Eoin keyes 12.30

7th - David O Sullivan 12.32

8th - Sean Mc Ternan 13.04

9th - (John) Orky O'Rourke 13.10

10th - Andrew Regan 13.29

11th - Dave David Glasswell 13.35

12th - Andre Brodkorb 14.26

13th - Colm Johnson 16.29

14th - Brian Cahill n/a

The race (and after party) was a great success and hopefully will inspire more events like this around the country.

Thanks again to Colin Wong and Snax for organising this event and hopefully we will see this happen again next year.

T-wave Rodeo

Over the past few weeks Ireland's water levels have been pretty high but this was the perfect opportunity to hit the road and travel up the country to one of Ireland best waves in Roscommen called T-wave. A couple of friends had organised a fun rodeo when they heard the levels were up, a great way to kick start the winter sessions. It was a long drive up and one of the coldest mornings I've seen this year.

We arrived at the car park to find a fantastic turn out for such small notice with over 30 competitors. The wave wasn't at a particularly ideal level but it didn't really matter as it was my first time back in a boat in over a month and first time back at T-wave in over two years so it was a great way to get a break from the books.

The wave forms just at the bottom of a 13gate weir on the Shannon river. It can vary fro

m a nice bounce wave to a large trashy hole, on the day of the rodeo it was a mixture of three holy waves. The best thing about this feature is its large eddy that acts as a huge conveyor belt that will take from falling off the wave right back up to the start.

With a quick briefing and a few practice runs the competition got off to a start with the juniors.

It was a Jam format, 15 minutes, 6 paddlers per heat, top moves counted and a final in each class

I was in the second heat with Colin Wong, It got off to a good start with a helix and a few blunts but wasted a good bit of time trying to catch the wave on the far bank. Colin also started off well laying down some blunts and back blunts putting him in and 4 others into the finals.

The final saw a range of hole and wave moves been thrown down from phonixs to donkey flips but at the end of the day Tom Dumphy took first place with some impressive pistol flips. full results are below

Senior Mens prelims Expert: Tom Dunphy 2. Barry Loughnane 3. Ronnie Brennan 4. Colin Wong 5. Andrew Regan 6. Eoin Keyes 7. Concy Bredin 8. Dave 9. Adrian Durrant 10 Orky 11. Eoin Farrell 12. Bosco 13.Snax 14.Mark Carrol 15. Kevin Niland 16. Colm Healy

It was a Great day - fair play to Barry and Andrew for putting on a good show and Adrian Durrant for judging! hopefully it will come back again next year, and it was a great way to spark off talk of other shotgun events that will be taking place around the country. Next up the flesk race.

some of the photos of the comp here

Chile a dream coming true

2 monts in Chile now and I still see amazing places.

Some places look like it´s made by a kayaker.

More and more people is coming to paddle now.

Slovenian ,French, Italian, Peruvian, Quebec and Germans.

That is the international team we make for paddling and "asados", barbecue.

We been a little in the north of Pucon, for the Ñuble Fest.

A festival against the dam project in this place.

In this area is the famous rio Claro. The more impressive place I´ve been paddling.

The pictures speak by them selfs.

Picture by Andraz Krpic in the crazy Caracol "snail"

                                                                   

First "boof" of François  Hemidy in 22 Tacas.

Our friend Julio from Peru broke is paddle in this drop.

François borrowed him his paddle and continued all the section with a broken paddle.

Better than one breakdown is to have François in the your team.

Nice style of Jean  Le Tulzo 

Jean in The garganta del diablo "devils throat"

Fotos by myself

Caracol and the scary Garganta del diablo by Netta Hånsnar

Palguin

One of the 1000 boofs

Last stroke before flying 22 m in middle Palguin

Fotos Netta Hånsnar.

Lower Palguin Foto By Momo Castillo 

Nevado

Demshitz fall. Not easy to be in the good line and

so easy to hurt your self. I dont know how many meters but high enough to have a drink 

to celebrate after running the fall.

Foto: Netta Hånsnar

Foto:Netta Hånsnar 

Jancague

Awesome little river 

 Thomas Sicre in the first drop 

 Jean in the main rapid in the middle section.

Fotos by myself

Foto:Josh Oberleas 

Foto:Josh Oberleas 

That´s it, we keep kayaking, I let you know.

2011 War ein super Jahr für mich! Ich hab viel erlebt, konnte viel trainieren und habe viele neue Leute kennen gelernt! Deshalb gibts jetzt hier nochmal einige meiner schönsten Momente im Video-Format;)(Was natürlich nicht heißen soll, dass ich nicht auch im Winter jede Woche im Boot sitze:)) Viel Spaß

Ein Tag am Laussafall

Ein Tag am Laussafall,



Die Wasserstände sind durch die Minusgrade im ganzen Land im Keller. Da wir aber trotzdem Bootfahren gehen wollten und wenn möglich einige Höhenmeter, entschlossen wir uns zum Laussafall zu fahren. Robert, Luki und ich trafen uns zwölf beim Einstieg als wir schon ein bar Befahrungen hatten kamen noch Matti und Peter aus Wien dazu. Einen schönen Tag stand nichts mehr im Wege. Hier ein bar Bilder des Tages.

Bilder von Daniel Egger und Robert Machacek