Our trip report

20th of December 2003. Who's afraid of the cold and icy river days? I know a few Team members, that tried hard to find an excuse, to avoid paddling this weekend. One of them, in the end admitted that, beside his various social obligation, he was too cold to come. He thought that, being honest about it, we would show mercy, but no, not TeaMeXTReMe! We show no mercy, nor we forget and be discrete. No SPYRO ZIAKA!! We are ruthless! We break the ice on the river surface and we get in. You can stay home LOSER! This photo is however dedicated to you.

TEAMadara, travelled this cold Saturday to central Greece and the familiar grounds of Inahos river. Once again we left Athens early, with only 15min delay, and guess why? Correct! Pavlos and Konidis were late again! These guys, are endlessly creative, when it comes to find a good excuse, why they are late. To cover their total disability to load their boats and manage to get all their gear without having to turn back home, they invent senarios that would leave George Loukas speachless.

After the top excuse that Konidis had used at Mourgani - having been locked into the bathroom, removing the door using only a leatherman tool, to finaly escape through the caged window - this time, Pavlos made the excuse call. He was waiting outside Konidis house, who would not answer his phone, but he wanted to check our time of RV, before waking up the primadonna. In the meanwhile, the rest of us were loading boats into the cold winter night.

After more delays at the highway cafe, as the duet had also missed breakfast, we managed to reach the river area at 10.30. That would be a good time to put in, for normal paddlers. I can't recall if there is any such person in our team! We had to find a way to spend some more time before putting in, just to stick to our habit to enjoy another sunset in the river. What can I say, perhaps we are just too romantic!

I admit it, the idea to scout the upper Inahos was mine. And we started to do so. Pavlos's - no 4x4 - car, seemed to have no trouble spinning around the icy roads and the frozen fields, trying to follow my fearless Terios. We had scouted the first kms, when we stopped to ask information from a local shepperd, who wanted to sell us a lamb instead. We made some -over the map- conferance, to decide whether we would continue or not.

But we were not just the three of us today, we had a guest with us. Dimitris Thomopoulos, an oldy but not so goldie, a veteran kayaker, a kayaking and rafting instructor, a main dude in well known outdoor activities company - I wont say the name, as I might have problem with many of my sponsors - the man with the locker on the kayak tail, the man with no spray skirt and no shoes, etc etc etc.
This poor man, had heared a rumor about us, getting late all the time and spending a lot of money in headlamp batteries - such empty accusations from our ennemies!?

We agreed to put in around one o'clock, to have the sun behind us, as we all had forgotten our sunglasses. The river was bonny, we had to leave some green and orange flakes of plastic on the rocks below us - that was from Pavlos's and Konidis's still new boats colors. We entered the gorge in half an hour. The first classic rapid was a IV- except for Pavlos's M3, in which everything under IV, is the same and it's driven using the auto pilot!

After we spent as much time as we possibly could, photographing every drop at this rapid - taking poses too - we moved with the rest class III to III+ rapids.

Then we reached the classic playspot. A friendly pourover, suitable for vertical moves, even for bigger boats, as some old photographs of my yellow Kendo, high in the sky prove. Please dont ask me why I dont have any M3 or H3 photos in here...it takes more than a boat!

Suddenly we saw the dam in front of us. I was a little surprised as I didn't expected it would be so high up the river. I'm afraid that after that it wont be much of the gorge left, for us whitewater hunters. The works have almost finished, it should be operational in a couple of months. We portaged on the left slope, to put right back in after it. Be careful! The next 150m are in a 3m deap - 3m wide eddy free trench, so you better scout first.

Another rapid right after that corridor, is quite tricky. A former right S drop, over two huge boulders have now been half burried with debris. Another one bites the dust...It should be scouted first and possibly set safety. The river has changed so much. Even the once infamous kataract, is nothing more than just the last rapid. What a waste!

I know what you are all wondering...No we didn't use the headlamps this time, even if Pavlos wanted to test the difference the new batteries would make!
On our way back, we stopped for some lamb chops in Sperchiada, were we met our Team's representatives, Chris and Harris, together with Panagiotis (known to the wider Greek kayaking community, as Gavros) They were on their way to Karpenissi, to join Metavasi kayaking school, in a Trikeriotis Sunday run. We 've heard that they also had a nice day, more sunny, more early and more crowded than we had.

You may see some more photos of this trip, in the new gallery section - access by the main menu, upper left. Photos from a 2001 trip can be seen here

More Inahos pages:

• Inahos River Data
• Inahos River Map