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28th and 297h of February 2004. Meleopotamos & Kamneitikos trip

Weather forecast for the last weekend of the month, was promising sunshine and fair temperature at the east, with Pindos range keeping the stormy weather at the west. With snow melting on the mountains, rivers in good flow, it seemed ideal to try one of our goals, suspended due to polar cold, two months ago. Meleopotamos river.

To back up this 3 star river, we thought to go on another rarely paddled run, Kamneitikos. A powerful tributary joining Acheloos river, 10km before Mesohora dam.
Our full paddling weekend project, didn't find any overwhelming support from the team's recreational members, with the usual excuses (social obligations, kids, work, etc, etc).
So, TEAMadara had split forces and Vagelistra Team - a new sub team, founded by Spyros Ziakas, supported by Mary and Alfredos - headed to the familiar waters of Mornos.

P.S. Rumors, say that the name of the team, "Vagelistra mou", meaning something like "sweet Mary mother of Christ", have been inspired by one of Spyros favourite verbals, in the face of some major rapid, mouth wide open - eye balls pulled out in despair, seconds after missing the last possible eddy.

Leaving Team Vagelistra to their prayers, on Friday evening, we headed towards Grevena. We camped at Venetikos-Aliakmonas confluence, where we had a Rendez-vous with Dave, a British paddler visiting Greece, a friend of the Team - victim of our site's guestbook trap!
We shared a few of the paddler to paddler classic carnage stories and some tasty chicken in Takis tavern at Grevena and set another paddling RV to the rivers south.

Dave, realising that we were far too crazy to be trusted, keep pushing our paddling hours to the daylight limit, kindly refused our invitation to join us at Meleopotamos tommorow. And why shouldn't he? Read more

9th of February 2004. Arahthos

I could not imagine the impact that our Team's skiing trip, would have to certain "other" Team members, that stayed back!
Revenge - Konidis style - came in two parts:

Firstly by secretely forming an alliance, with one of our annual skiing trip steady members, promising him a TEAMadara membership! His reward: A personnal alpin bazaar, where he bought first class technical ski clothing for...almost no money!

Secondly by going skiing in the middle of the week, with perfect conditions, when we were all working hard (to buy our equipment legaly). Along with him were mr. Kourlas, lately known as "the boat keeper"(why??) and mr. Georgopoulos, the Team member who will most certainly set this season's paddling record!

Well, my friend you need to realise, that no alliances or equipment will save you...from the avalance I will set above you, next time you 'll try to go off-piste with the real skiers of TEAMadara!

I just had to set things right with the help of Mr. Inflatable and our technical advisor, to get you grounded this weekend, while I was escorting Haris, to his Metavasi school of experts trip to Arahthos.

Sorry guys, you lost some serious paddling. Perfect flow, sunny weather, Holevas classic highlights and some serious souvlaki with greek paddling legends on the way back!
Dora took some great photos of Markos and Kayaker in Harokopi rapid. You may cry now!

1st of February 2004. Team goes to Mornos

The weather finally got better, a temperature rising from minus 14 to minus 4 degrees Celsius, so... time to hit the water!

Last minute cancellations from a few still cold... paddlers, could not discourage us from going to river Mornos this Sunday morning. Our first goal, upper Mornos, was running in medium to high flow, perfect paddling conditions for this 6km steep, class IV ride. Unfortunately the snowcovered banks of this tight and shadowed gorge, were not tempting at all, so our team of usual players, Konidis, Pavlos and Nikos, headed south, to the sunny side of lower Mornos. Plan B was to run the 12kms of the class III to IV lower section. Read more in our trip report

27 of January 2004. Skiing in Parnassos

Freezing cold out there. They said something about a meteoroligal bomb that must have exploded over Greece, or how else can we explain the -17.5 Celsium that our car's thermometer showed in Parnassos ski resort parking area!

Ooops! Well, now I said it. Yes, I admit it, we are still skiing while we should be paddling, but we tried our best to hit the river this weekend.
What can I say, it seems everybody had been taking the chilling forecast for granted and chose skiing instead of kayaking.

Anyway, after a few telephone calls late Friday night, most of the team members headed for mountain Parnassos, a 2.5 hours drive from Athenes, where we were awarded with perfect snow conditions and almost empty pistes.

Of course we dont worry about any side effects, as Mr.Ziakas, finally delivered the data for our First Aid kit article, that's posted today, together with more medical links.

22 of January 2004. River maps

Our project to enhance our river trip reports, with the addition of good, mountaineering maps, comes to a realisation point.
Anavasi publications, has authorised the use of its maps, the best maps for outdoor use, available in Greece.
Using these maps as a background, we will add river information, like access points, shuttle roads, river features, dams, etc. so that our visitors, along with the river description, the river data and the photo galleries, have a full picture of the river he is interested to run.

We started by posting the river map of Upper Lousios and Inahos with many more to follow

12 of January 2004. Skiing in Zermatt

Holidays are over and...weeee aaaare baaaack!!!
For a few days, greek rivers enjoyed their privacy, rescue teams and fellow paddlers had nothing to worry about in the middle of the night, and the remaining members of our TEAM stayed home driving around despert, with their new boats on the racks, while six of us were skiing in the swiss alps and having weissbeers under the Matterhorn!
(Spyros, Mary, Nikos, Neni, Harris and Chris posing with Matterhorn in the background)

As most of the Team members are also ski maniacs, six of us were paticipated in the annual ski trip to the Alps. With more people each year, the greek team that invaded Zermatt, reached the number of 20.
Chris, driving once again to the Alpes, with his Land Rover Discovery, carrying eight sets of skis and boots, arrived in time and with no trouble at all, prooving the Discovery's taste for international highways and winning all the bets against him.

Papperla club was once again our after ski base, with lots of beers and dancing surprises!!!

Being the first to get to know these surprises, while others were just out ... shopping, turned me into a target. Noone could stand that I only had the pleasure of a free personal !!show!! on my table, those few minutes they had ALL left me alone in the bar. Sorry guys, that's life!

Of course, jealousy for my luck but even more for my brand new skiing equipment, that would easily eliminate any challenger, soon brought curses and voodoo retaliation, that brought me down sick, loosing most of the after ski parties.

• For Archive News part1: June-Sept 03 go here
• For Archive News part2: Nov-Dec 03 go there
• For Archive News part4: March-April 04 go there
• For Archive News part5: May 04 go there
• For Fresher News go there

For Global paddling news, go here