Building a kayak trip brings hundreds of ideas and possibilities, one thing for sure, it keeps building ‘the list’ even longer. Weirdly, Oli Cooper and I had planned different trips this year, but fate brought us back together for one more summer road trip. It had been seven years since my last send tour of Norway, so it was time to head back to the Mecca of European white water. Joining our tour of Norway were David Sodomka and Adrian Mattern, along with a whole heap of friends along the way.
The plan was formed after a phone call from David where he told me about some first descent missions he’d found in Northern Norway and Sweden. The plan was set, a couple of weeks hitting the classics in the south and then follow spring to the north on the hunt for adventure.
It was just a few days into our trip, during a snowstorm, that all the online river gauges were showing as low or empty which got me thinking of some of the possibilities for paddling despite this. I had visited this set of waterfalls last year whist in the area, knowing the river Sjoa needs to be as low as possible to make the sequence achievable it got us motivated to go and check out ‘Egglesfossen’ a two-stage waterfall sequence with a heinous exit slot and syphon-filled rapid below, above the Ridderspranget section of the Sjoa. After detailed scouting, safety and puzzle work, Oli took off, getting great lines on the first two waterfalls and somehow managed to land in the small eddy above the third part, the slot. He decided to climb out from there instead of getting a surefire beating in the slot below, wise boy! Yann and I followed, deciding to only run the top drop as the stopper at the top of the second drop looked incredibly powerful and I understand that I’m not as strong as Oli to make it through it and I don’t need to have my lack of power proved to me by the river.
We managed to paddle an impressive amount of different rivers with challenging weather and water levels in Dagali, Voss, Sjoa, Oppdal and Rauma. Numedalslagen, Teigdalselvi, Myrkdalselvi, Raundalselvi, Hommedal, Strandelvi, Jordalselvi, Songdalslva, Finna, Sjoa, Driva, Ulvaa, Grovu, Forra. After an all time three weeks hitting up those Norwegian classic rivers, it was time to journey north.
Our time in the north started with a bang, high water all around and the weather had started to warm up, starting with the Store Elva and then we headed to tick off all the classic runs around the Trofos area. This was epic to be paddling new rivers every day with great friends and water levels, however, Norway will always remind you the river is always the boss. Complacent moments were turned into humbling reminders of this and plenty of swims followed. We can always learn from these moments, fortunately, we took the time to reflect on what this means for the group and individuals.
After some stout times the road trip carried on north, having David caravan ‘Goldie’ as part of the team was a dream, not just when the weather was cold, but also for the notorious mosquitos of the north. From Trofos we headed further north, once again paddling new rivers until we hit the slight issues of ‘too much’ water in a lot of the rivers. As it turned out, although coming up to the end of June, the snowmelt had only just begun and spring had only just sprung. We were too early, the rivers were at the peak of the snowmelt period, whist for some rivers that is amazing, for many this means the dangers are blown out of proportion and make them not possible without serious risk.
David had tempted us this far North with the word of adventure, there was plenty of stoke and excitement of what we could get up to. At this point we are in the final days of June, inside the Polar Circle, latitudinal 67° north. Each morning and evening we would chat about options and issues, one big issue we found out was how frozen the area would be, if there would be enough water in the river and if we can even reach some of the places we want to get to. It was Adrian’s smart idea to dive into the Instagram location searching, he stumbled on a contact for a helicopter pilot in the area that had posted photos of the area we wanted to explore the year before. After a few messages to the pilots friends who had been flying in the area recently it was clear that it was still winter and the area was impossible to navigate with thick snow, ice sheets and frozen lakes.
Alas, as time passed we were slowly realising our schedules wouldn’t allow us to wait for summer to melt enough ice and we have to park the big plans for another time. We did however still catch some amazing moments, Junkerdalselva laps, lesser paddled waterfalls and even a rarely explored multi-day in Sweden.
It’s a bold claim to say ‘first’ descent of a river in Norway and Sweden, plenty of adventures have been and it’s where the sport was pioneered, including Brits Lee Royle and Rory Woods huge 2014 tour aptly named “Padjelanta project” where it seemed they were on a mission to do as many multi-day missions as possible in Norway and Sweden. The Seldutjåhkå, however wasn’t on their map, or any map related to kayaking at all. We were onto something new thanks to David’s research on Google Maps.
The mission was set, around 7-8 km hike in from the main road on an established hiking trail, we would then have 200 m of altitude drop over the 10-15 km with around 15 km of flat water to reach the car at the bottom. This has to go down in history as one of the shortest shuttles to do in the world just 30 minutes for a multi-day?
After a successful pain free hike, it was straight to the rapids, giving us pool drop slides and rapids for the first 2 km, all good to go, quality white water. After plenty of fun and an hour or two of beautiful flat water we reached the first of two canyons (from what we could tell on Google Maps) upon a quick drone fly down the canyon it seemed that the first canyon was good to go, but the second canyon was a sure fire portage. We decided to call it a day as we’d spotted a good camp spot above the canyon near the river, although the sun never stopped beating down on the tent all night we decided to enjoy our time in the beautiful landscape instead of rushing back to normality, and for what?
After a questionable night’s sleep from the searing sunshine or Oli’s hundreds of mosquito bites, we were ready to hit the river again. The Palm Helios top is so good, but while it protected us from the sun’s rays, we found out the hard way that it wasn’t mosquito-proof as we initially thought. Oli had been hanging out all evening in his top (see photo above), thinking he was safe from bites, he was actually a very tasty snack. Once on the water, we found quality kayaking, an easy portage around the second canyon and another day of sunshine. The pool drop bedrock rapids proved to all go, and we enjoyed the long meandering paddle out back to the car.
We later found out later this river has been paddled back in the 90’s or early 2000’s, but that doesn’t matter to me, we had a great a great adventure, figuring out logistics and showing ourselves down the river and having a great time doing so.
After we wrapped up this brilliant two days on the water we had one last ditch scout for a mission nearby, after more drone scouting, we found gold, but the stouts were far too high. We drove south shortly after, we were left disappointed with so many potential expeditions shut down because of things outside our control. But we left with plenty more on our ‘list’, ready to come back in the future for more adventures. I’m thankful to everybody I got to hang out with over the two-month adventuring, from a speed lap to an expedition, to helping me with a Sudoku. Massive thanks to David for amazing company, finding so many adventures and incredible love for photography.
For those looking to explore Norway the whitewater.guide app is a great place to start looking for paddling, Facebook groups such as Sjoa River People and Norwegian Kayaks For Sale are both highly active and great ways to find people to paddle with and buy/ sell gear.
Norway can be great any time of the warmer months, you can follow the water north (like we did) all the way through to September as you wish. And don’t be put off by all the hard white water, there’s just as much grade 2/3 white water for everyone to get their teeth into.
