Author Archives: dzjow

Hochschwab-Salza loop trip planning

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Diurnal instability triggering daily thunderstorms, the airmass in the boundary layer moist enough to keep the base of cumulus clouds low enough, often obscuring the mountain summits in fog, temperature at 1500m around a warm +11°c during the first few days with till Thursday 30 to 60mm of precipitation calculated over the mountains by the ECMWF model. That seems to be the weather I may expect on a traverse of the Hochschwab massif during next week, a limestone mountainous plateau in the east of the Austrian Alps. On Thursday a coldfront passage is expected giving lots of rain, possible snow at the end over the highest summits. Afterwards the 850hPa temperature of the operational run, although the ensembles plume is diverging significantly by that time, drops to slightly above freezing. Might become cold towards the end of the trip even though that remains premature to consider as a certainty at this point.

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Packed for the Hochschwab-Salza loop.

This forecast may sound discouraging to many. To me it sounds very exciting! It’s been a long time I have had such unstable weather on a trip. I like thunderstorms in the mountains even though it demands special safety considerations while planning the trip beforehand and while out on the terrain. I will start the 8 day loop on the Salza river with my packraft. The river has some beautiful canyons with up to class III white water. I will put out on the second day before the hardest part on the river near Palfau and then hike back over the mountains with a traverse of Hochschwabs summit itself (2277m) if conditions permitting. Winter has been snow rich, higher then average, but the recent warm temperatures have made things evolve rapidly when looking at the local webcams (Wildalpen with Salza river in the valley, Tauplits Alm at 1656m, Bergstation Polster at 1800m). The big question: carry snowshoes or leave them home? The only pair of snowshoes I own are 25inch MSR Lightning Ascents. That’s in general too big for spring snow and I will probably not walk on snow for at least about 60% of the hiking distance. The absence of night frost and all the rain will keep compacting the snow. If the snow has become portable enough I can done the snowshoes. Will assess the conditions just before starting the trip and decide what to do best.

Will be continued…

Pinhole repair

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Recently on a trip on the Ourthe Orientale river, I got a small hole, about 15mm wide, ripped in the floor of my packraft. The damage already occurred about 200m on the river after the put-in. I’m quite sure I didn’t hit a rock but that it was a metal rod or something instead. I had my camera tripod stashed on the floor of my raft between my legs and this sure was the cause for the occurrence of the leak in the collision as the rod bumped against the tripod and pinned the hole in the floor. Besides the leak, there are also long scratches carved in the floor around the leak. If I didn’t kept my tripod on the floor inside the raft, chances were high I only had some scratches and not an additional leak. Again a lesson learned. Upon closer inspection I even noticed I had two leaks, the second one being very small.

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I’ve repaired the leaks and the scratches with Aquaseal by the method described by Alpacka Raft. The pinholes got a thicker layer of Aquaseal on top. This movie also shows the rejuvenation method by Alpacka Raft. An almost pinhole on the tube now also received a thin layer of Aquaseal.

A small additional note: Mcnett’s Aquaseal is sold in Europe under the name Aquasure. You can easily find it at scuba diving shops like this one for example or you can try the alternative Stormsure glue from Packrafting store. When the repair is done, store the tube in the freezer or use it further to reinforce the seams on your new trailrunners. ;-)

My Llama is ready again to re-enter the water and that should happen already next week in the Austrian Alps!

A new look

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Today it’s already a bit more than two years when I changed my blog into this English version and yet it seems like yesterday. Yet I found it was time now to make some changes to the blog, especially its look. I was bored with the old theme and I noticed that more and more other blogs have showed up with just the same blog theme, so I even got bored faster with the look of my own blog.

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Hulle stream in the Ardennes, May 2008.

I’m sticking with wordpress. Since I’m not a hero at all in dealing with computer nerdy stuff I will keep using what I’ve become familiar with. The blog has now a wider and flexible width and new posts will from now on contain larger sized images compared to all the previous posts as long as you watch the site in a wide window.

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Taking a swim in the Houille river, May 2008.

Gear related posts have remained scarce so far, so I’ve also made the decision to start writing more about gear related stuff instead of focusing almost exclusively on trip reports. I’m not really the person who is very hard on its gear I must say, so I think it will be a challenge to find a good balance between the positives and all the failures, but I think it will go without saying. Concerning trip reports, I will still occasionally keep writing about old trips from years ago just like I’ve been doing from the beginning. I can really enjoy looking back at my brash years with an associated amount of nostalgia. So stay tuned!

The Magic Packraft Circle

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Last weekend 19 outdoor enthusiasts gathered along the Semois river in the south of Belgium to take part in the first packrafting weekend organized by Hiking Advisor, a Flemish online social hiking medium. Willem and I were the guides on the water while Debbie was involved in all the camping related affairs. A few of us had our own packraft, while the rest of us had never touched a packraft before and now borrowed one from the European packrafting store or from Off-Trail.

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The Semois river near Lacuisine, our put in.

We had a lot of fun and the group learned what packrafting is like. For many it became clear that blowing up the raft for the first time is not so easy if you don’t know the proper technique, that putting in on a steep bank or with a fast current can use some help from another person, that it is possible to accidentally have your paddle blades reversed and that the river always asks for attention or the sooner or later you will hit a rock. The swans were also present and were not always happy with our presence now the breeding season had started. Kevin almost got a kamikaze attack on him.

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Paddling break at noon.

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Lunch.

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The Semois river from the vantage point near Roche Brulée.

At noon we put out in the forest to take a lunch break in the sun. Afterwards we hiked onto the ridge and visited a vantage point overlooking a meander of the river. Then we put in again and paddled passed the picturesque village of Chassepierre to Camping de la Semois, our stay for the night. After dinner we parroted with some strong Belgian beers at the local pub and when the pub closed its doors some of us could not get enough from the Jägermeister after party in the tipi tent.

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Let’s stick close together.

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In the pub.

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Debbie has some work to do tomorrow.

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Belgian beers for you to cheer.

Not surprisingly a few of us awoke with a heavy head the next morning, though that changed rapidly when we started paddling again in the fresh air. We amused ourselves with sticking close together and creating a long multi packraft raft. Then the idea arose to form a circle on the river with our packrafts. This didn’t look so easy to accomplish at first until Debbie found the key. Keep the butt of your neighbor further away from you! And so suddenly the magic packraft circle appeared!

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Putting in again after portage of the weir of Bois de Ste-Cécile.

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Again lunch break.

In the last kilometers on the river we had a small accident as someone accidentally ripped a long tear in the tail of its raft when hitting something sharp while coming down a weir. Everybody got worried when we saw the person fighting against getting trapped in the raft as it lost all its air. Fortunately everything went off well and the group learned to better never trust all human made obstacles in the river when packrafting.

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The magic packraft circle!

We put out eventually, folded and packed our rafts and then hiked out towards the nearest train station. The end of an enjoyable and successful packrafting weekend!

Packrafting the Ourthe – a 30 hours hike and paddle in the Ardennes

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A few days of rain filled the buckets again and so I went to the Ardennes. The Ourthe river had already been a playground for me a few times. Last year I paddled the river till the confluence with the Amblève river starting from its west fork. The east fork, Ourthe Orientale, was yet unexplored terrain for my packraft.

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The Ourthe valley from Rocher de Hérou.

Friday I started at the Rochers de Hérou and hiked upstream for a day, passing the Nisramont reservoir and made a nice stroll along the Ruisseau de Martin Moulin to bivouac in the forest on the plateau. Rain and hail showers were alternated by sunny spells. The showers continued throughout the night while passing deer kept me out of my sleep several times.

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View over the Nisramont reservoir from the hiking trail.

Next day was dry and sunny and I descended down the valley again to meet the Ourthe Orientale in the village of Houffalize where I put in. Already during the first minutes I suddenly banged onto something below the waterline. It sounded more like a metal rod than a rock. Only half an hour later I realized there must have been beaten a hole in the bottom of my raft since I suddenly felt sitting with my butt in a pool of cold water.

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Crossing the Belle Meuse creek before it joins the Martin Moulin.

At leaving Houffalize I suddenly scared a beaver sitting very close at the waterline below a bluff. I didn’t notice him until he made its move towards me. The animal jumped against my raft, then dived underwater and kept sticking stiffened onto the bottom of the river as I watched him behind my back. He scared me too to say the least.

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At the banks of Ourthe Orientale.

Many kilometers downstream a tree strainer forced me to make a short portage. While pulling my packraft out of the river I noticed the hole in the bottom. It was only so small that it took an hour or so to fill the raft with water. Moreover I wore my drysuit so I didn’t really bother about it.

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The Ourthe river under Rocher de Hérou.

Passed the reservoir of Nisramont I quickly arrived at the rock cliffs of Hérou were a famous boulder garden is encountered. Yet I succeeded again to be so inattentive that I suddenly parked my raft atop of a boulder, just like the last time on the river. A little further I could enjoy playing in a surf wave before I put out. Then I climbed the rocky ridge of Hérou and completed this attractive 30 hours loop.

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Somebody has polished its teeth.

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The surf waves under Rocher de Hérou.