My decision to go to the alps this year was fairly last minute and with plans already in place to spend most of the summer abroad I was originally a bit reluctant to go, however it seemed like too good a trip to pass up so before I knew it I was rushing out of uni the week before term actually finished and was on the road.

We originally intended to head to Austria, but it soon became apparent that this would mean a very wet week with less than ideal water levels for kayaking so by the time we got off the train in France we’d redirected the satnav for Italy and after god knows how many hours of Team America and Candy Crush Saga we arrived to sunny skies and perfect water levels in Valsesia, Italy.

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It was also the night of the Valsesia river festival but I cant remember that so all I have to say would be if anyone ever suggests that you buy a bottle of grappa that you politely decline.

Anyway despite the horrendous hangover the next day we dragged ourselves out of bed eager to make the most of what Valsesia had to offer. There were 4 of us in total Bill Anderson, Simon Jackson, Gareth Sollars and Myself all in one car meaning we didn’t have a shuttle but we decided that we would either find some friendly kayakers or locals to hitch a ride with or just walk the shuttles throughout the trip.

The 1st river we got to was the Mastallone. On arriving at the put in we met a cool bunch of Italian kayakers, the Sarca Marines Team who we soon got talking to and hooked up with to run the river. Gareth “Strong in Head” Sollars made a great impression on our new Italian friends with a spot of cheeky playboating whilst the rest of us had a good start to the trip with some good and not so good lines.

We finished the day with a 25ft (probably) park and huck waterfall, Landwasser. Lapped that a few times, took some pretend swimming pictures just to get the juices flowing back home and then headed back to the campsite for some authentic Italian pizza and definitely less alcohol than the previous night…

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Day 2 and unlike most kayaking trips I have been on we had a fairly relaxed start to the day beginning with coffee for our fellow teacher Simon and croissants at the local bar/coffee shop. We eventually got on the water for about 12. We were on the Egua which is probably the classic Italian river in the area. Water levels were on the low side although good and the sun was out. We made the most of this spending a good 45 minutes lapping the top drop taking photos and trying to film from various different places. None of us had paddled the rest of this river before though and so progress was slow for the rest of the day with almost every drop requiring inspection. This took so long that the sun got bored and decided to go elsewhere meaning we also got cold. Although not as cold as the guy who optimistically got on wearing nothing but a BA.

Bill decided to get pinned twice in the space of about 2 meters and had to be rescued both times whilst the rest of us laughed in the face of danger and breezed down the remainder of the river including the horrible looking Cylinder drop. There were definitely no swims there….sorry Phil Higgins.

Day 3 – After what was obviously going to become a regular morning coffee stop we got on the Semenza, high off of caffeine but hungry because the all the locals had beaten us to the croissants. We shared the shuttle with some friendly English paddlers and proceeded to get on the river.

In our most efficient paddling so far we sped down the river overtaking a few other groups impressing them all with our “sick lines” and an excessive amount of gopros and were off the river in 35 minutes.

We had done it, we were finally off the water before 12 and after a classic lunch of bread, cheese and overpriced Parma ham we were ready to get on another river. It even started raining which was good because it meant the rivers would be topped back up to ideal water levels.

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However….Not wanting to be bad people and leave our fellow paddlers who we had shared a shuttle with we waited 2 hours before finally finding them beside the river bruised and defeated. They kindly offered to do our shuttle for the Sesia gorge and so we proceeded to get on that.

We got back to the campsite, more pizza was eaten, beer was poured by the litre and we plotted how we might further feed the hunger for carnage that was inevitably building in everybody back home.

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Day 4 and I even tried an espresso. It was a horrible experience but we did beat those pesky Italians to the croissants which sort of made up for it. We also got on the Gronda which is a really good river. It was steep, technical and fairly scary in places but we all got to the bottom feeling stoked to have done it not to mention our swim record was still clean.

The Gronda runs into the Sorba and so we paddled on and had a look at the Sorba Slides. They looked sweet so we ran these, getting to the bottom filled with adrenaline. Despite this Bill and Si were still defeated by the walk back up the hill and opted to collect the car and drive it down instead….pussys.

We met another group of friendly English kayakers whilst we were getting changed and agreed to meet them at the Semanzena.

After waiting for an hour at the put on for the Semenzena our newfound friends had not turned up and so with our tails between our legs we left and headed for the Egua, which me and Gareth did not run because we were still so upset from being stood up, I think I even saw Gareth cry at one point.

Bill and Si got down it a lot quicker this time and did not swim, especially not on cylinder drop….sorry Phil Higgins.

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Day 5 was our last day in Valsesia before we headed to Switzerland and so after Si had got his daily fix of caffeine we went for one last run down the Semenza. I wont bore you with the details. It was lots of fun, we all styled it and nobody swam.

Our last experience of Valsesia involved being shouted at for driving onto the campsite in order to pack the car, something which is apparently frowned upon over there. Sorry Italian campsite guy.

The drive to Switzerland was made better with some ice cream and we also visited the Dam from Goldeneye that evening. Its very big. Si even offered to do the bungee jump conveniently on the condition that we payed the 200 euros.

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Day 6 was our last full day of paddling and we had made special plans to spend it on the Vazesca, although with the amount of food and other supplies we brought from the supermarket that morning you’d would be forgiven for thinking we might have been doing a multi-day expedition on the Stikine.

We were all super keen to paddle this river and it did not disappoint, the water levels were really good and the sun was out for the whole day. Si was on form and impressed with good lines on everything while the rest of us were maybe a little less up to the challenge than we thought after a tiring week.

That night we had a BBQ and campfire up in the valley and made sure we got a good nights sleep ready for the final and possibly scariest stop in our trip before we left for home.

The Ribo – We had been wanting to do this all week, we probably spoke about it every night and now it was finally time to do it. The Ribo is a fairly simple waterfall its even on an angle so there isn’t much that can go wrong apart from maybe a broken paddle. The only catch is it’s big and scary. I cant say for sure but everyone I have asked says it’s about 60ft, and it certainly looks that big.

We had a quick look at it to check water levels and then got kitted up and before anyone even had a chance to back out we were walking our boats back down to the fall. We set up the camera for some photos and checked we had a few GoPros to capture the action on video.

Si got the first run down doing it well, then Bill except he somehow managed an impressive back loop at the bottom. I was next up and so trying not to think about what I was about to do I got in my boat and launched in. Its definitely the highest fall I have done before but it was over before I knew it. Gareth went last, again getting a good line.

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The drive home was spent going through the masses of video that we collected and also playing more Candy Crush, we also listened to Gareth’s new Italian compilation CD, which was worse than a Lady Gaga album.

All in all it was an amazing trip and a massive thanks to Bill, Si and Gareth.

Next Up Norway!

Martyn Butler