Athens olympics are here!
The greatest sport event is happening here and now in Athens.
Our city welcomed the world champions and the many friends of the games, with a spectacular but still coltural show in the opening ceremony. The games have begun and so have the canoe kayaking races in the olympic course at Helliniko.
Visit our every day updated olympic page and the olympic news for the latest paddling news.
Blue caves
I 'm sure you were all wondering why you dont see Pavlos in the last trips photos. No it's not just because he has no boat - after lending his M3 to me for a test drive - it's because he was out to Ionion sea, exploring the blue caves of Zakynthos island in his sea kayak. I 'm sure this trip will soon become a must!
You may see many more pictures in Monte Nero Activities site.
I believe it's time for you Pavlos to return favours for that free winter storage of your sea kayak fleet in my garage (and your river kayak's into Konidis garage too!) We will be glad to accept your invitation to join your next trip as your special guests. Don't worry! We will not bother your clients, we will just take the two person kayak and make eskimo roll and evacuation technique demonstration! We promise , we wont try anything extreme like this
June 12th. Upper Lousios
As the water slowly drops, even in the larger of our rivers, Lousios river, in Peloponessos, will still be flowing with its fountain origined crystal waters, hopefully all summer long.
Upper Lousios, a more demanding 4km, class III (IV)whitewater ride, is our favourite course, whenever a single day trip is all we can afford. And since it is a familiar ride, we allow ourselves the luxury of a guest paddler. Who made the mistake to volunteer this time? Dimitris Thomopoulos, a pioneer of the greek rivers and member of the river's first greek descent (loooong time ago), thought he could get away with it one more time. After our last time together in Inachos, when we were encouraging him to take the lead, approaching the dam that had just builded there, today he cautiously stayed in safe distance.
Dimitris Kourlas on the other hand, another one of our long-abscent team members, after his recent participation in other extreme sports, like an enduro motorcycle world cup race, or a holly purposed trek in Kaliakouda mountain range, he came back strong after months, to practice his new boat in Upper Lousios!
Konidis and myself, were just happy to photograph our friends, clean-running those sporty rapids. Here are some of the day's highlights:
Top: D. Kourlas and N. Mavris in the first rapids before the main drop.
Below: D. Konstantinidis in the main drop and D. Thomopoulos in the rapid after the infamous Zerberos rapid.
Scouting Milaonas
On the next day, we decided to fulfill our promise and come back to Kernitsis gorge. Remember?
Even if there was no water any more, we managed to scout what it could be a beautiful but very demanding tight gorge run, for a selected group of kayakers.
Here are a few photos of this river trek at Milaonas tributary of river Ladon. Sorry to Nikos Beis for going to its neighbourhood river whithout him. It's a promise for the next time Niko.
June 5th: Kallaritikos.
Misled by all weather forecasts, predicting storms at the west, Konidis, Bourlekas and myself, headed east, chasing a chance to find Mourgani in a good level. But sunshine and dry conditions pushed us to cross the mountains to the west, where we thought we could get away from the storm approaching us and paddle Kallaritikos. No luck as the perfect storm caught us just before the canyon entrance and we chose to abort.
Next morning, our wisdom and respect for mother nature, were awarded with sunshine and great water levels for this 19km run of Kallaritikos and Arachthos.
Read more soon in our Kallaritikos trip report. For now, here are a few photos of the river:
- for Archive News 1 - June-October 2003 go here
- for Archive news 2 - November-December 2003 go there
- for Archive news 3 - January February 2004 go there
- for Archive news 4 - March-April 2004 go there
- for Archive news 5 - May 2004 go there
- for Fresh News go there
- for Global news, go there
- From time to time, while surfing the www river, we find a page, an article or a photo that we believe you'd enjoy.
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Archive News 6 (June-Sep 2004)
