Our 2010 Spring & Summer Steep Creekin Trips in Italy & Norway are now ALMOST FULL

For this year the passion for action and adventure is no less dampen by mainstream news reports of austerity. Paddlers are clearly looking for fun, and the steeper the better, as Gene17’s Steep Creekin Trips and Adventures are as popular as ever.

Piemonte in Spring
In Italy this year, we’ll have both Matt Tidy and Simon Westgarth leading trips in early May, with last year’s new Boy Nick Horwood from the UK, and this year’s new Boy Jakub Šedivý from the Czech Republic also on board. Its a blend of the our top experienced team, with today’s hot shots. Presently the snow pack conditions in Valsesia, look excellent, not as much as last year’s bumper ski season brought, but another good runoff is in the bank for us to enjoy later on this Spring.

Currently we have 2 places left on this 9th to 16th May trip to Italy, see Piemonte for details.

Sjoa in Summer
The Summer season in Norway, also looks like another perfect line up, with numerous G17 regular paddler’s signing up to our new 2 week Norway Road Trip. We’ll start in Sjoa, and head an a circuit route to Voss and back, taking in prime locations like Sogndal, Valldøla and Lærdal, with again Nick Horwood and Jakub Šedivý taking turns accompanying Simon Westgarth. Its a great new adventure, we’ll follow the water, and enjoy the very best of what Norway has to offer.

Currently on the August Norway Road Trip we have 3 Places, and for the early July Sjoa Steeper Creeker Teaching Trips we have 6 places available.

Of course we have a host of other trips and adventures in Slovenia and Norway, plus guiding in the French Alps in June and be spoke/custom coaching and guiding options throughout Europe and beyond. Simply get in contact:

Best Regards

Simon@Gene17

February 13th-14th 2010 – White Water Safety And Rescue Course

I arrived for 9.00am at the River Dart Country Park, where I met my clients a group of enthusiastic students from Plymouth University. Amongst the crowd there were some familiar looking faces.

We kicked off with a rather cold and windy theory session in the grounds of the park, where we went through equipment, what works what doesn’t work and everything else in between. Some throw bag theory with plenty of practice, followed by a couple of laps of the famous Anaka Rice throw bag assault course.
Everybody enjoyed a very welcomed hot soup for lunch, before we headed back outside to go over a number of the practical elements of the course. Live bait, rescuing swimmers, and offensive and defensive swimming.

Sunday morning arrived and I was really concerned about the state of the water, the river was at the lowest level I had seen it all winter. There really was no flow in it, anywhere, so I made the decision to head to the Exe and use Forepines weir as our training site. The Exe hold its water for a lot longer than the Dart and I had been there quite a bit over December, doing some endurance training for slalom, so I knew that it should work, even at this desperately low level.

So off to the exe we went and who was in town Mr Alex Nicks, fresh back from New Zealand, fuelled with new adventures and stories of the West Coast paddling mission he’s just had, whilst the rest of us had been enduring (the big freeze) in the UK.

Using Forepines as a site for the course worked out quite well, we covered the rest of the course elements. I then set up a number of scenarios where the group would use their newly acquired skills and put them to test in a semi realistic scenario. All in all a good course, a shame about the low water, but we definitely did the best we could do, given the circumstances.

Deb@Gene17

Although I started paddling nearly 20 years ago, I’ve never really been one for pursuing paddling qualifications. Apart from safety courses, I am more of a ‘learn from friends; let the river/ocean teach you lessons’ kinda girl. So when I bumped into Simon one evening at River Dart Country Park (RDCP) and he asked me if I wanted to do 5 * training with Gene17, I thought about it really hard. Would it be worth the investment? The overriding answer was a resounding yes.

I had two main issues that really needed to be addressed and the 5*T proved to be the perfect forum for ironing out those concerns. Firstly, I have been finding myself up front, leading peers down class IV rapids, rather than being a passenger. I had no idea how to judge whether I was doing a good job of leading or not. Secondly I’d reached a plateau in teaching myself key strokes and was stuck with a sketchy boof.

The first day saw myself and two fellow 5*trainees with Dennis on the Upper Dart at a friendly level (lapping the slab). The morning was dedicated to covering advanced key strokes, including efficient eddy turns, boofs, attainment and cross grain moves. We also covered secondary strokes such as the stern squeeze (I never even knew this stroke existed; now I’m in love with it). We learned concepts for reading rivers, such as setting markers on the river and visualizing how to get to them; awareness of our immediate environment while looking ahead and planning for the next rapid or eddy.

During the afternoon we spent time talking about and practicing group management, group safety, spotting lines, presenting lines to a group of mixed ability and general “soft skills”. This gave me direction on how to successfully lead on harder water whilst being sensitive to each individuals needs within the group. We also covered techniques to keep the group moving quickly, safely and effectively downriver. Then it was off back to RDCP for some soup and debrief; closely followed by beer (3 pints of).

Sunday was dedicated to personal development and core skills with Simon; and what better place to practice those skills than on the East Lyn? We started with the good ol’ boof. Simon filmed and offered advice as we ran a little ledge over and over. With the instant video analysis combined with Simons critical eye and explanations, our boofs improved infinitely after just 4 re-runs of the rapid. A new concept for me was learning that key strokes should just be an extension of a regular paddling stroke; not forced.

We encompassed more river reading and boofing clinics all the way down the gorge and we put into practice line of sight and river/ bank communication skills. Simon’s teaching style included demonstrations, instant video analysis and succinct, yet effectual advice. Simon took each of our river running issues and fixed one thing at a time until it all just flowed. A great day of learning and personal skill development was followed by a lengthy debrief in the pub. During the1 to1 feedback we were given clear goals and targets to reach before going for assessment.

The 5 *T with Gene17 taught me in 1 weekend what I’ve tried to teach myself in 2 years. I finally know what is expected of me leading class IV rivers and I finally have a boof that works. Yay! That’s a pretty good return on the investment, I’d say.

Kate

I was feeling quite anxious as i waited to meet the assessor for my 4 Star at the River Dart Country Park. Two other guys made themselves known to me, and we all expressed our apprehension as to what the day would bring. Matt introduced himself to us all, and told us that today was to be the test of leadership skills. He would not interupt our leading each other unless there was a real threat to anyones’ safety. He also said that pretty much the final criterion that he would use to assess our leadership award would be, “am i happy to let this guy lead a member of my family down a grade 2/3 river?”. 

Well we got to the River Walkham and each of us did our turn at leading. Matt left us to it, only interrupting to ask the odd question or change the leader. I felt quite at ease and had already decided that I should look at the assessment as part of my paddling education, pass or fail. A swimmer from another club enabled two of us to show our alertness and get the guy out of the water. There was one point when Matt nearly intervened when a mistake was made, but his skill at quietly getting where the possible danger was enabled him to allow the situation to progress in a controlled manner, whilst he was able to best observe and evaluate the occurrence. I was given a discreet signal by him not to proceed as one of the others had done. This struck me as very professional, as the transgressor seemed oblivious to his error, as I percieved it.
 
The three of us shuttled back laughing and joking, but not talking of how we thought we had done. Matt was in his own vehicle. At RDCP we all had some very nice soup with fresh bread. Just the thing after a day on the river, even though I am not much of a soup man. The venue at RDCP is excellent too. An easy going atmosphere, couple of beers, meeting other paddlers, bigging up our stories as we do.

Sunday morning Sean made himself known to us, and said today was really supposed to be a test of our personal ability and rescue skills, however, a little more leadership was also on the agenda. We were to do the Loop, but also the last three drops on the Upper Dart. Sean said he wanted to see us play as much as possible and should anyone need rescueing we should snap up any opportunity to prove our worth.

Personally I felt I started well. Not as well as one of the other guys, but good for me. Sean gently teased us and laughed with us if it went pear shaped. A capsised swimmer allowed two of us to show off our rescue skills just above the Webburn confluence. Again there was no intervention regarding leading, but at “Washing machine” rapid we were asked to perform particular paddling techniques. Lunch at “Lovers leap” and a bit of pin theory as we digested. I learnt a bit here and decided to buy Franco Ferrero’s “White water safety and rescue” as soon as I could.

We were having fun catching eddies and surfing this and that, when Sean asked me to lead at “Triple”. The plan was apparently good but Sean wanted to test some personal skills at “Triple one”. Another rescue developed amongst us, with boat and paddler on opposite banks. The swimmer had recently hurt his arm and was consequently unable to roll. I, being the leader, asked the guy if he was well enough to give throwline cover at “Triple three”,should we need it, to which he agreed. I didn’t think we needed it, but we were now all involved. I told Sean the plan was for the last two of us was to enjoy the rapid and catch as many eddies as we could. I was confident in my colleages ability, as he had already boat chased all through the drops.

At Holne Bridge saw us do our swimming and bag practice and we enjoyed the last part of the paddle out to RDCP. Again we had some excellent soup at 4pm, but had to wait a while for the individual debrief, as there were quite a few things going on. I was called to an interview with both Matt and Sean for the debrief. Matt beamed at me, congratulated me and said he was happy for me to take any member of his family out on a 2/3 river. That felt good. Two years of hard work and I had my 4 Star. But best of all, Sean said my personal paddling skills were better than they were looking for, for the grade! They must have caught me on a really good day. There were some things to consider, I was advised on better pieces of kit and given some action plans for the future.
 
For my part, I felt I was with a very professional team, who liked what they did and tried to be as fair as they could, allowing us to show them we merited the award, whilst still having fun.

Thanks “Gene17″.
 
Mark Hardingham     (Hardy)