Simply Paddling

Simply paddling: Embrace the tranquility of the water and discover the joy of kayaking.

I’d heard levels in the alps were at a all time low, and the way people were talking you would think there wasn’t a drop to be found anywhere, So we set off for our 2 weeks in the Alps rather nervously, I was secretly saying to myself think logically there has to be some water in the rivers. We arrived in Landeck and went to look at the 1st river on the 1st evening, it was low, and left us feeling slightly despondent, we got up the next morning and decided to do a couple of warm up runs, and to our amazement were met with perfect water levels (we later found out the dam wasn’t releasing down the section we had looked at on the weekend) Ops!

What followed was several days of fantastic weather and fantastic boating with excellent water levels, we then headed up the river Inn to hit some of the gorges on the way up, those that stand out were the Finstermunzer - which was everything you would expect with a name like that, and the Garsiun which was perfect eddy hoping territory in beautiful sunshine. By then we were far into Switzerland. If you ever find your self in central Switzerland wondering what to do do, then a must is the Vorderhein, which has a train as the shuttle (which of course was running like clockwork, didn’t bat an eyelid at 3 creek boats getting on, then you get on the river into the most amazing gorge which is sometimes called the Grand Canyon of Switzerland and it wasn’t hard to see why, not hard core boating but simply beautiful in every way.

Then it was on to the Italian edge of Switzerland called Ticino, where the Verzasca can be found, I had heard a lot about the river and we spent a few days paddling and swimming on the clearest water where divers would go underneath you. The boating was incredible, lots of smooth granite boulders through which the river has carved itself. From there we headed to Italy for the last few days, where it started to rain and rain and rain the rivers were huge when we got there, not what we expected but we made the most of it perhaps only slightly different to the slidey slidey stuff that was expected (oh and we found the most amazing ice-cream shop).

Then after boating everyday for 2 weeks it was home time. until next time!