Cannobino Experience

                                                                           

On My Trip in Italy we were able to paddle a river called the Cannobino or appropriately renamed the "Cannobeater" as there was alot of beatings on this river, The reason we did this is because we were heading over to Switzerland but got told about this river close to the border so we decided to have a look at it. After arriving to the get on with the only information we got told was "Its a Fairly committing gorge but not to hard"

We decided to get on and paddle down, As we entered the gorge it became clear it was defiantly going to be committing as it was in a 400ft deep gorge with no way out except down river. However it did not seem to difficult sort of felt abit like Spean gorge at the start but then gradually getting steeper.

Within the first 10 minutes Russel decided to get pinned. Wasn't a major pin as he just pulled his deck and stood on the shallow river bed, but it was hard to get his boat out. Me and Dave tried pulling it out with just a throw bag on it but this wasn't enough so we had to set up a pulley system (First time I needed to do this for real).

When we recovered Russel's boat we carried on going down, the river got much worse from here, Siphons everywhere, Difficult to scout drops. However so far all the rapids seemed good to go but with potential to go wrong so we were out at ever rapid taking our time on this as we wanted to avoid any more incidents.

As we got about halfway down we approached a rapid which turned a sharp 90 degree corner just after it. Mark got out to scout it but there was no way you could see round the corner or no way in stopping after this rapid. As it was in a 400ft gorge the only thing we could do is to run it, Dave went first and did the rapid fine, Then Me. I did it fine however as soon as i could see round the corner i could see Dave getting recirculated in the eddy to the left.

I paddled hard at it, missed the line and went don't the center of the slot paddled hard and got out of it.
Russel was coming next, Dave got out ok. I paddled over to the side ready to jump out in case Russel got stuck. I see him come round the corner and gets his line on the drop, As he came of it he got back looped in the hole... I will let you see what happens next on the video he made here;

We were hoping this river was going to end soon as we were not sure how much longer it would take to get down, further down there became a section which was to narrow to actually paddle down. This was going to be one of the most difficult portages i had to do, carrying our boats over huge boulders and across a rock face. Eventually we got all the boats across and could see the end of the gorge in the distance.

We paddled the last small 5ft ledge drop and then there was the end of the gorge, just cleared out and we were all glad to be out of this safe. This was an amazing river but was scary without anyone who had done it before or no information. I would like to do this river again sometime as I will know what to expect.

Italy Teaser

Its nearly Here, The Full video of our trip to Italy.. Just some last moment editing and it will be up.

Thanks to Russel for doing the edit!

And many Thanks to;

Dragorossi UK

Fire It Up

Immersion Research EU

Border Kayaks

View The Teaser Here

Italy Trip Log

Mark has made a Trip log of Italy so we could see how much we spend, what on and what we could of done to make it cheaper/easier. This is very helpful for anyone wanting to go on a trip to Alps, and not just Italy.

To see this click on the link bellow.

http://bit.ly/16QaN2r

2 Weeks in Italy - First week

Not to sure how I actually ended up going on this trip, I think it was that I just asked Mark if he knew anyone going to Italy as I would like to go this year and he happened to be going so it went from there really...

Having knew Mark and Dave for a year I had only actually paddled with them a few times and never paddled with Russell and only met him a few week before our trip. I could tell this was going to be a good trip.

 Photo By Dave Martin

After being in a car for over 25hours and Dave driving continuously and one small nights sleep we decided it would be a good idea to warm up on the Egua only with minimum thermals as it was warm and sunny, Little did we know that the weather forecast in Italy was anything but reliable. shortly after getting on it turned cold and raining so we decided to miss the last 3 drops for another day.

Photo By Rachel Dance

After this we went back to the campsite for more rest and to make friends, We managed to meet up with Tom Rainey and James Smith who kindly gave us a shuttle for the Mastallone the next day. Also met Tom Parker from Tom Parker Coaching if you didn't know already...Who we paddled with for our first week and showed us all the good runs. Thank you so much Tom.

Mastallone, Second day and I already had a swim. This was a stupid swim as I managed the harder at the end of the river however within about 10 metres down stream there was a small dog leg style rapid where I got pined for a small amount of time and just pulled my deck and took a swim in some nice flat water just after it.

Day 5 of paddling, Egua. Well today was the day we decided to go back to the Egua to complete the river, having met up with two friends the night before they came along but unfortunately due to injury Rachel could not paddle. Mike joined us... for a while, until he injured his shoulder near the start as he was doing it in a Dagger GT. Shortly after this Dave had his first swim since about 10 years! luckily i was on hand to pull him out of the river. Apart from these two incidents we all had really good lines on the drops and were pleased with ourselves.

I will write up part 2 of our Journey in the Italian alps soon, Were we venture over to Switzerland for a very short period of time.

Photo By Rachel Dance

 Photo By Rachel Dance

 Photo By Rachel Dance

 Photo By Rachel Dance

 Photo By Dave Martin

 Photo By Dave Martin