Chippewa Falls and Grand Canyon!

WOW! The last month and half flew by in a hurry!
After spending not even two weeks back in Canada we headed out to the Grand Canyon, then Vegas and now back in Winter Wonderland!

First off was a descent of Chippewa Falls. To anyone doing the drive across Canada it might be known as a great sightseeing spot about 50 km past Sault Ste Marie, heading North.

We're not sure whether this has been run before, chances are low though. Waterlevels in this area are really touchy and the drops are rather sketchty in a few spots with shallow landings, cauldrons and sieves.
I know that none of the locals have attempted the set!

I personally first saw the drops in 2008 during our drive out West, they were running way too low then.
I looked at them again in 2009 and when I came back this year there was way too much water. With slowly dropping waterlevels I kept coming back and eventually found what I thought was the perfect flow.

With a few calls I got the Sault Crew to help with safety and photo/video and after a few more hours of scouting managed to pull this off the day before we flew out to Arizona!
All these shots are taken by Tiia on my Camera, I didn't even get to collect the rest of the pictures. So maybe there'll  be more updates.

The first rapid is rather long and has a few moves to it, going from this twisted slide...

straight into a series of ledges

The second half, a double slide lands on rocks just to the left of where I ran it and has some deep cauldrons on the right side.

I am stoked to live in an area where there is so much to explore! Though now it's all covered under snow and probably will be for another three months at least! Time to bust out the board for the meantime, haven't used that in a few years, hehe. But as soon as it melts... Can't wait!

Alright, so Grand Canyon now...
I always said it'd be something I'd do when I'm 50 or something.
But when I got the chance to join Tiia and her old Manitoba Paddling Crew I got pretty excited. One of the best decisions I made. We had an amazing team of 14, all with big outdoor, kayaking and rafting backgrounds. We did the trip in 23 days, starting at Lees Ferry going all the way to Pearce Ferry traveling a total of 279 miles through the fall facing some pretty wild weather to start with, -7 at night, 100k winds...
I was in charge of one of the gear rafts but was able to bring my little Nemesis and got lucky to run some nice and pushy rapids and even got to surf a bit in it (there is barely any playspots on the whole run!).
The Grand Canyon is not about the rapids alone anyways, the whole trip is an experience for a lifetime.
Traveling more than a mile below the rim for a period this long you get into your own rythm with the river!
It's hard to put this experience into words, I recommend to anyone who can though to go and see for themselves!
I won't do a full write-up on this and there's not really any action shots yet, as all the pics I have are from my own camera and I focused more on off river photography, so here's just a few teasers.
Within the next year there will be a film of our trip hitting some of the Filmfestivals though. We were lucky to have Renaud Lafond on the trip, who owns his bucks filming some very ambitious projects for the canadian TV... I'm excited to see what all the effort he's put into capturing our mission will turn into.

gorgeous campsites all along

the tabernacle view, looking down towards unkar rapid

Granite Rapid. The pebbles on river left are overhead tall!

Renaud, a fully loaded 16ft raft, his onboard camera and Granite Rapid

Deer Canyon

some ledge

And that's that!
Almost.
After the Canyon we hit Las Vegas...
And this blog is not where I wanna get too personal, but:
Tiia and I GOT MARRIED!!!
We already got engaged in the Canyon and decided that this would be the perfect end to an amazing trip and year!
I am super excited about that and our future together in Canada!

Merry Christmas,
Sven