Every Wednesday evening during June and July, Gene17 will run a run of drop in clinics with White Water Safety and Rescue plus Rolling clinics in the pool at SND’s base, the Liquid Holiday Shop at St Clement sur Durance in the Southern French Alps.
Gene17’s Deb Pinniger will be on hand to lead the various clinics throughout the Summer, plus is a font of local knowledge in the French Alps. If you wish to have your rolling looked at, simply drop by SND before hand to book a clinic, for Wednesday evenings. During the Palm Safety Initiative, we will review gear, throwing techniques, simple rescues and will give everyone a run through our throw bag assault course.
Now for you campers out there, if its raining, we’re have the latest DVDs on the big screen or a photo presentation from Deb Pinniger.
Lastly its every Wednesday nights and its free, yes free for all to drop, hit a clinic, view the shop’s wears or watch the lastest action from around the world.
See you there at the new meeting
Regards
Simon
As the alpine Spring moves into Summer, melt water run off bring high water conditions to the Alps. For those paddling in June and July across the Alps, this year will bring great days on the water. By the end of the Summer, the high flows have abated and the Soča is the place to be, with prefect boulder garden rapids and cool temperatures in the shade and on the river.
This August, Gene17 hosts its annual late Summer trips to Slovenia, with Deb Pinniger and Simon Westgarth. This highly popular destination is prefect of paddlers looking for technical clinics and wider tactical comprehension for river running. Gene17’s new instructional DVD, Genotype 2, was filmed on the Soča, the river is the prefect class room to learn the fundamental core skills of white water kayaking.
See Soča Fundamental for trip details, and explore our image galleries at: Soča Paddling Images
If you have any questions, please get back to myself at any time
PS, if you are in French Alps this Summer, why not book Deb Pinniger for the day, a little coaching brush up, or a days guiding, or even a trip to the famed Verdon Canyon, see French Alps Guiding for details
Best Regards
Simon Westgarth
Its been quite the season to date, with huge snow falls over last Winter, and epic ski days, its no wonder that this year’s Granite season in Piemonte is one of the best in recent times. In early May, Team Dansk join Gene17 and our MD’s wife for some fun in the hills. Check out the glory and the fun, in the shots below.
With such a strong past Winter, Spring in Valsesia, has taken a while to fire up, with snow still at the put in for numerous runs. This lone tree on the ridge has just come into leaf, its a wonderful time of light green shades.
Check out the range of shots from this year’s Early May Steep Creeking
We were three Danish paddlers wanting to open up the playground of Italian creeks, and so went there for a week in early may with Matt Tidy as our guide.
We all met up at the camp site in Campertogno, situated just next to the Sesia River, which served as our base almost throughout the week.
Besides the white water, the lush greenery of the area was very impressive and made me think of spring in places like India and Nepal. Not to mention the high quality of the food, which was both easily available and affordable.
The Sesia River served as a good warm up and had quite a lot of distance to be covered, descending down through an open forested valley with few constrictions and drops along the way.
From here on things immediately got steeper. Starting out with the Gronda and Sorba which got us in tune wich the precise and technical manoeuvring of Alpine creeking , and also served at beating or two at the same occasion.
Next was the Egua which was a real treat, and without a doubt some of the best white water I’ve been exposed to.
From there we went for a park n’ huck at the San Giovanni, followed by a visit at the Ribo waterfall which we decided to save for next year.
All in all it was an amazing week of paddling. Thanks Matt and Gene17…
Nilas
Team was: Matt Tidy, Morten Engsted, Mads Udsen and Nilas Brinck
It was another week in paradise, as Tim Trew from Palm HQ and lot Gene17 new boy Nick Horwood and Matt Tiday headed to the hills for a mission or two, check out Palm Blog for details
Finally after 4 years in the making, Simon Westgarth can happily say its time for a beer. Earlier Today, the retail DVD, Genotype 2 the Fundamental Core, an Instructional DVD was delivered, and is now ready for shipping.
This production has focuses on the very best of cutting edge technique from the modern dynamic style of white water kayaking. All the very best in coaching from Gene17 has been placed in this DVD, with the content covering all the core elements of modern paddling. The conceptualisation of fundamental themes and ideas to bring cutting paddling to all kayakers. There is no need to wait years for the trickle down of ideas from a far or from the front line of the sport, in Genotype 2, Gene17 brings all the cutting edge core skills to the fore in one whole hour of learning.
To preview, check out
Genotype 2, the Fundamental Core - Bracing & Balance and Genotype 2, the Fundamental Core - Intro.
See Genotype 2 for details and ordering.
More info to come
Gene17 is to offer drop in Coaching and Guiding to all Europe’s White Water Paddling hot spots. Starting this Spring in Italy, and in the Summer in the French Alps and Sjoa in Norway, Gene17 along side its acclaimed Teaching Trips and Paddling Adventures plans to run drop in clinics for be spoke coaching and river guiding. These paddling destinations are well established venues for Gene17, where their highly experienced staff have had years of paddling season after season on Europe’s finest runs.
This year’s staff line up includes some of the leading coaching and river guides out there, the likes of Deb Pinniger will run Verdon Tours, Simon Westgarth in the deep canyon of the Ticino and Matt Tidy on the Granite runs of Norway. In addition new staff will be learning the ropes Gene17 style, with Nick Horwood, Will King, Sean Rider and Lowri Davies, coming on board. Its an exciting line up with some of Europe’s top new talent and core boaters. So if you wish to get up to speed with a days coaching, or have waited years to run a famed river or simply wish to have someone else guide you on a challenging run, check out, G17K Guiding for details.
Best Regards
Simon Westgarth
Staff Training
Theme’s included safe group leadership strategies, identification of coaching needs, and using the environment to get the most out of your paddlers during the coaching practice. Building lateral momentum when entering eddies, and moving over areas of conflicting flow quickly by maintaining forward momentum were also main areas of focus. The course was an excellent opportunity to paddle some great water. During staff training I was also training with Deb P who is looking to enter the world of slalom. Therefore running the forest trails that surround Trenovo became a frequent evening activity as well as the phrase, “double the run, double the fun” which basically meant that we were on for another evening sprint down the classic section. Finishing the day in Bar Baraka is obviously a local tradition that it would have been silly for me to refuse. Cheers to the instructional team and all the lads from down south for a cool week!
Alpine River Leader Training, Early April on the Soča
I thoroughly enjoyed the company of all the paddlers during this week. I would just like to thank everyone for their efforts while on the water, there were some exceptional performances! There was an exceptional international feel to the team with client coming from a large range of countries which made dinnertime conversation very interesting.
Having been to the Soča valley for the past three years in a row it was a pleasure to be back again and I certainly intend to make this a yearly pilgrimage. For the team it was an excellent opportunity to brush up on skills before the start of the boating season in more central Europe, skills were honed on big volume Grade 3/4 boulder garden style rapids which is perfectly suited terrain to improve boat control as there are countless water features to focus on. I’ll never forget looking at the snow packed peaks and then back down at the rich blue of the Soča river, the location is truly breathtaking and I look forward already to next years trip.
Cheers
Gezza
