Next Generation Training

I first became inspired to enter the outdoor industry on a trip to Val Sesia with Gene17 when i was working for a bank, feeling pretty lost in life and confused by what my future held. An (almost certainly) off the cuff comment from one of our coaches at the time saw me on an intensive outdoor instructor training course less than a year later, and i haven't looked back since.

Each year Gene17 invite applications to come and join them on a week of intensive training aimed at those wishing to improve, or enter high end whitewater guiding and this year, Me, Bastien and Matt were all lucky enough to be offered a place, along with another six paddlers from the UK and Europe.

A super early start saw us boarding a flight to Amsterdam, a transfer to Venice, followed by a train to Cividale to meet Simon and gang to drive to the Soca in Slovenia.

The Soca offers almost year round world class whitewater of class II-IV (and some harder), with breathtaking scenery, delicious food and friendly people; it's a location i can't recommend enough.

World class coaching, complimented our world class classroom and Simon, Chris and Jakub certainly gave me a huge amount to think and work on. Throughout the week we covered subject areas such as personal paddling, coaching and leadership and safety and rescue, all aimed at guiding in the high end environment, as long with ome excellent extra curricular chat over beers in the evenings!

We managed to squeeze in a half day of skiing in what reminded me of Scotland! Soaking wet, poor visibilty, but huge laughs!

What made the week so special though was the other folk on the course. I can honestly say i'd be happy to paddle a big expedition with any of them any day, collectively some of the nicest and most fun people i have ever met!

The course has definitely re-ignited my drive for whitewater kayaking and i will be working in Nepal this Autumn for GRG, which i am incredibly psyched for!

On our return, we had a few hours to kill before our flight from Venice and so we spent it doing what tourists in Venice do, taking photos, wandering aimlessly and eating a lot of icecream washed down with a lot of coffee! An incredibly beautiful place and was the cherry on top of an already brilliant cake!

Feith Talagain

With the temperatures rising and rain falling in the mountains the rivers in the highlands have once again been at stonking levels. A day off in between running winter skills courses for various providers and work with West Highland College, coincided with a day where both Jonny Hawkins and Bastien DeMange were free. Our original plan was to try and get a run down the elusive spate run of the Ossian and Ghuilbinn, however time constraints meant we had to look for a potentially shorter run.

The Feith Talagain is a tributary that winds it's way out of the mountains  near Laggan to join the upper Spey at Garva bridge. This Spate run offers a truly adventurous feel, with a long hike in dragging boats for several kilometers into the hills to where a flattening in terrain marks the put in.

 Right from the word go we were met with technical, tight, typically Scottish whitewater kayaking, weaving in and out of boulders. 

Jonny on one of the earlier slides

As the river weaves it's way through the glen the gradient rapidly steepens up and with the increase in gradient comes an increase in difficulty of the rapids. Large slides and drops give excellent, difficult kayaking with many technical lines and linked drops to run. 

High river levels gave pushy whitewater, and we opted to scout and set up safety for almost every major rapid. The river flows through several steep gorges, and within them large falls and slides. The largest of which we opted to portage, due to both there being no clean line and the danger of trees that had fallen into the river. I later found an account of someone running this rapid in what sounds like similar levels only to be smashed on the river left wall, knocked unconscious and swimming the next rapid unconscious before being rescued by his friends. Definitely a good option to walk!

The fall in the background is actually about 6 meters

The highest fall of the river

Paddling new rivers is always a great experience and it was a pleasure to share the day with two good pals!