Storforsen

Apologies for use of kayak jargon in this post
We couldn’t let our trip through Scandinavia go by without a visit to Storforsen; the largest rapids in Europe.
These big volume rapid fall over 50m in the length of 600m, we could see the spray being kicked up from some distance away, above the height of the trees. The rapids themselves were incredible, the sheer power of such a volume of water falling so far is phenomenal.

After we picked our jaws up off the floor we had a quick game of fantasy line, however just imagining someone attempting to paddle it was enough to make me feel slightly queasy. Essentially for any route down the rapid one would encounter a terminal hole followed by another terminal hole above a steep drop with a further terminal hole at the bottom, lather, rinse and repeat several times and you sort of get the idea.
We spent sometime trying to capture Storforsen on camera and video, but I don’t think the pictures really do it justice, you have to go and see it for yourself. These were by far and away the biggest stoppers any of us had ever seen. The first picture is just upsteam and out of sight of the second picture, and there is still much more gnar both up and downstream of these pictures.

We spent another night in a mosquito infested campsite. Inspite of covering all exposed skin, (I even wore purple nitrile gloves for cooking), we have all been bitten a lot. Rory however has the most bites, possibly due to his aversion to marmite making his blood the tastiest.