The run was great. The first half hour was mentally tough for me:
- do I still have the skills after the winter?
- busted my pinky last year, won’t regain full mobility
- had two bad nights in a row

But the sun was shining, and the water was friendly (if cold). After a bit of hesitation, I was dialed in, hitting all the turns and eddies.

It helps that this river is fully inside my comfort zone. Nothing bad happens here.

#whitewater #kayaking

This river is also SO PRETTY! We’re in the middle of the mountains, spring is jut beginning to spring. You can still sense the harsh winter cold.

But all the trees have green shoots. The first flowers are in bloom. Even on the vertical walls of the gorges, there’s SO MUCH LIFE!

#whitewater #kayaking

@slothrop
I have just arrived home (to the UK) after spending a week whitewater kayaking in north west Greece, with a bunch of my paddling chums.

It has been absolutely fabulous. The mountains are magnificent, snow on the tops. The sun was out, for most of the week. The rivers are hard enough to be interesting but not stupidly terrifying. Apparently grade 2, and 3/3+, though I would myself grade parts of them as 4-.

The logistics of getting around the area are difficult, so we used a guiding company, who were fantastic and I would happily recommend them to anybody else.

Love It Live It. Based in Krakow, but run trips all over the world.
https://loveitliveit.co.uk/whitewater-kayaking-holidays-trips/greece-kayaking-and-ancient-culture/#1537093100915-1

#whitewater #kayaking #Greece

@slothrop
It's not the bridge at Plaka. It's the next one upstream (Politsa bridge, I think?), at the end of the Milky Way section of the Arachthos river. We had actually just finished the Kalaritikos which finishes by flowing into the Arachthos.

The section of the Arachthos between that bridge and Plaka is currently closed to kayaking or rafting, due to major rebuilding work on the road high above the river. It seems that it will be closed for three years! 😟

We also paddled a couple of other sections of the Arachthos, plus the Acheloos (twice), and the Venetikos.

I had only paddled a couple of UK rivers over our winter, so this was quite an intense week of paddling! My whitewater skills are definitely on their downward slope, given that I have been paddling for well over 30 years, so the grade 3+ stuff was plenty difficult enough for me.

These rivers in Greece are beautiful, and after a rainy first couple of days, the sun was out, and the water beautifully blue. 😀

@tpuddle That sounds spectacular! Glad you had such a great time. I really want to go back there at some point.

My header pic is actually me coming out of the Milky Way 😁😅

@slothrop
Wow. The water level in your header photo looks much higher than when we were there last week. We probably had around 25 cms running through there.
I never actually did the Milky Way section myself; the group did it twice, but each time I was having a much needed rest day.
I did the Kalaritikos gorge twice, though, which does join near the bottom of the Milky Way section.

We had 9 paddling days; I paddled on 7 of them, and I did 11 river sections. There were ten of us in our group (including my wife, who's a better paddler than me), plus Adam, our guide from Love It Live It.

We stayed at the Teloneio hotel, by the new bridge in Plaka. I would also highly recommend them. 👍

@tpuddle oh wow, 11 runs in net 7 days is quite a lot of padding! Good thing you took a couple of breaks in between.

When we were in Greece, a storm had just passed through the area. Water levels were so high that we had to shift our designated “break” day to day 1 of the course.

We went rafting. Which was wonderful, but it also meant that we spent a full week on the water, with no break 🫣