The Alps
and Graubunden region!
How often
are we forgetting about what it is behind our backyards and looking for more
and better rivers and adventures over the seas. In truth it isn’t so bad as Slovenian,
French, Italian, Austrian, Swiss and German Alps offers some of the best paddling
experiences in the world.
Ever since
I have started exploring rivers I have been doing trips in the Alps. At that
time it felt just like a rush, trying to paddle as much rivers as possible in a
short vacation time and to have a good training for the adventures overseas. With
time I realised that the Alps are far more than that and I probably developed a
sort of an addiction as the Alps became my great home playground! The cultural
and paddling experiences here are diverse and almost impossible to match anywhere
else in the world. Rivers are of a diversity of stiles, a mix of combinations,
relatively short and logistically simple but very intense and beautiful.
Over
the years of road tripping over the Alps it became a life style and a true
passion as there is always a new valley or river to discover. This year we
packet our paddling gear and went towards Graubunden region. Our goal was the
Vortherrhine valley and the local creeks.
We drove from
Slovenia over Italy to Sudtirol up to Reschen pass and straight to Engadin
region. On the first day we did two laps on the Finstermintz section on Inn,
which was really relaxing after a long drive. The following day we teamed up on
Albula river whit a local expert Thomas Rogenmoser (Toro). He lead us over the
upper and beautiful lower section of the river. Lower Albula is a gorge run with
a few nice rapids and an amazing landscape. After the run he invited us to
sleep over in his place at the train station in Versam . We woke up to a
beautiful sunny morning in an amazing Versam landscape, stoked to be there and
impatient to go on the water. It is good to have a local kayaker on the lead,
Toro checked the water levels and gave it a go for Valserrhine in the morning
and Glener in the evening. Valserrhine is a perfect class five warm up river,
short and sweet, completely carved in granite, perfect for the morning glory.
Sun was at its peak when we were doing the shuttle for Glenner and preparing
our gear for the descent. Glenner is
another local pearl in the region; this is a longer but very grateful run. It
was a pleasure to paddle on such a good rivers!
After another
night at Toro`s place we headed against Medelserrhine (Medelsbach) for a quick
spectacular morning run in a typical Swiss backdoor landscape. To make a day
even more perfect we drove over Oberalp pass to Reuss for a section on the
lower part of the mighty “Schollenen Schlucht”.I`m not sure what it was, the
good company, the sun, perfect water or just the combination of all but we were
totally fired up and ready for another run from dam to dam on Reuss. It
supposed to be a relaxing stretch but it turned out that the water was high and
pushy, anyway I totally loved it! Later in the evening Toro went home with a
big thanks from all the crew! We decided to stay over the night close to Reuss
and try the “Schollenen Schlucht” section in the morning. The following morning
we had divided opinions about the run and made two groups. Me Andraz Krpic and
Rok Sribar decided to rappel to the start of the upper Reuss, while the rest
headed down to the lower section. Upper section maybe doesn’t offer the most
continuous class five but for me it is for shure the most scenic run in the
Alps!
We ended our trip in big stile and I was happy to paddle some new rivers
in the Alps after a while! Big thanks to Toro and the rest of the crew (Rok
Sribar, Matej Grm, Jernej Mlekuz, Luka Stricelj, Andraz Krpic) for the
memorable times on the water and out of it.
Andrej
Bijuklic
