#BackOffIndia Nepal Winter 2015

I've been here for a month now and already I can say this year is totally different to my last season here.

The unofficial Indian trade blockade is crippling Nepal's ability to gain valuable resources such as vehicle fuel, cooking gas and certain foods. This is effecting the whole of Nepal from the cities to the mountain communities. The blockade has caused the UK government and other countries travel advisors to put an warning on visiting the country. From my base in Pokhara this is really evident as there is barely any tourists wandering the streets and more importantly not so many tourists coming rafting!

The lack of tourists has only become apparent to me in the last week as up until this point I have been working non stop on trips mostly consisting of UK and international kayakers. Last year I mostly was photographing rafting groups. Photoboating for kayakers, you need to be a lot quicker in all aspects and the faster tempo this year has been a challenge that I have had to adapt to. This year has been about making sure I'm shooting the most favorable rapids and paddling the fast lines. Hopefully the race style photoboating I've been doing will make me stronger for next weeks Himalayan Whitewater Challenge.

North Devon a Swell end to Summer

Having got back from my Italy Norway adventure mid UK summer season I managed to get myself a end of season job at a Skern Lodge in North Devon. I was employed as a paddlesports and land based activities instructor. Due to the supreme placement of the centre after work I was able to whiz down to the local beach Sandymere, Westward Ho! every other evening to go surf kayaking, swell dependent.

 Before this employment I had played a lot in the surf however this has always been in creekboats or playboats. Luckily Skern Lodge is also a Mega Kayaks demo centre which allowed me to borrow a full carbon Mega Bullit S. Having never used a surf specific boat before the first few waves were very exciting. The speed and distinct difference between front and back rails lead me to throwing some spins I had no intention of pulling off. After some top tips from superior colleges and a better understanding of wave selection I was loving it and hooked. My style is still very much whitewater, stay in your box based, but it was great to keep my paddling fitness fresh. Now i've just got to get used to paddling a whitewater boat again as I'm heading back to work in Nepal until January.

MEDIUM

I admit the blog has been neglected for the past two months. In Japan water levels finally came up for about 4weeks of high/medium flows. I didnt get any photos as I was often assisting in rafts or had to concentrate on the whitewater rather then photos. Here is a few snaps from my time in this strange and wonderful land.

I love my job

If only we were infact team Pyranha

Boat Pin, Mukawa River

Boat Rescue, Mukawa River, M/H flows.

Pat peaking for the line on Red Bridge Rapid, Mukawa River

Raji ready for high water rafting on the Saru River

Kishor, Ganesh, Ben

The Suns Origin

First of all I quickly put together a post together that has been posted on RohanTime.com This is Rohan's social page for customers, events and news. I have worked for Rohan for the past 8 months and has helped me to continue to live in the Lake District and now move onto my next adventure...

JAPAN, so if blog posts totally drop off over the next six months its because I am working hard as a trainee Raft Guide for a company called Hokkaido Outdoor Adventure. Wish me luck.

SUP

The past two weeks I have been getting out surf kayaking with on the sea at Bournemouth beach. I've been going with my friends Peza and Cheryl who have both been showing me up on Stand Up Paddle-boards (SUPs). We've been out a number of times over and the waves have gadually became better and more surfable until the last Saturday when the waves grew to a whopping continuous 4ft high the with the odd wave rolling in around 5-6ft. For my ability, at times, this was terrifying. To surf the waves firstly you needed to get "out back".  The outback in surfing is the area where you wait for the waves to come in, spot them, then ride them. To get out back I needed to time my paddling correctly so to not get caught up in the large aftermath of breaking waves and also not be at the same point where the waves were breaking. Unlike a surfer, in my kayak, I cannot dip underneath the breaking waves, i have to punch through them, a downfall to surf kayaking. However I managed to predict my paddling fairly well and get outback always relieved.

From here I was able to get in position to surf the waves coming in as best I could. after surfing the green wave then also surfing the strong broken wave. I would often end up all the way back on the beach and have to repeat the process of getting out back, a tiring action.

I unfortunately had one swim on this day after getting caught out by a huge steep wave as I was getting out back. I ended up trying to go over the it at the time it was steepest. Unfortunately due to the steepness of the wave and gravity instead of punching through the top of the wave. I felt my boat sliding back down the wave face and start to plain. So i started surfing the wave backwards. Something I can just about do on a small wave. This six footer was no match for me. I was unable to spin back around to face down the wave and ended up going over. I tucked up and felt as the wave broke and carried me all the way to the beach still upside down. I tried performing my C to C roll but in the foamy wash I couldn't managing. I chose to come out of my boat. I then had to get myself boat and paddle to shore only 15m away the dumping waves made it a struggle. I emptied my boat of water and carried on as I had been doing before.

At the beginning of our session the tide was in and I was keen to get on the water. However I didn't put on my new GoPro mount as I didn't want to have it trashed straight away which it would have done. As the tide dropped towards the end of my session the waves became unsurfable for me, so I got my DSLR out and snapped some photos of Peza on the diminishing leftovers from stood in the shallows.

We use the site MagicSeaweed to predict what the surf conditions are going to be like.

After these exciting times in the next few days I then had an equally exciting time doing my first piece of commercial/non commercial work for an old friend Sam of Cumulus Outdoors. I was creating a promotional video for them to promote their coasteering programs based along the Souths Jurassic Coastline. The experience was extremely beneficial. Learning what skills I need to further develop and how to approach future work projects.

Descent Cycles

The week has been spent completing coursework. The week has not been pleasant.

Today however I handed in that coursework and balance is slowly being restored to the Galaxy. Also today I helped out my good friend Tom get some photos and video for his soon to be constructed website for his new mountain bike guiding company that he is aiming to have up and peddling strong as soon as uni is finished. The day was a new experience and hard. I was running/stumbling/rolling around Whinlatter Forest on foot chasing after Tom and his friend David. The trails were icy and I did a fair bit of sliding about getting into positions to capture the specific burms, jumps and climbing sections the two selected. Although bright out in the open the wooded sections of the trails were particularly hard to get good sharp images. I was relying on my Canon 600D, 18-135mm lens, tripod and GoPro HD Hero to capture the action I intend to to go through the footage and images with Tom on Thursday. The result from the day weren't my best so i hope not to disappoint my pal. Below is a snapshot from my GoPro of me filming.

I'm hoping to also do some kayaking with Tom this week but its rather chilly. Check out my Facebook and Twitter for on the day updates on my activity. Links to these can be seen on my website that has also had some alterations to it and pictures added so make sure you look at them.

http://www.hartridethestorm.co.uk/

In the world of kayaking this week has been the start of the White Water Grand Prix 2012 where the sickest white water boaters in the world compete over two weeks to win the title. Among the white water community this events coverage has been shared and viewed countless times the content showcasing the highlights of the different stages set in Chile. The competition currently only at stage 3 has many different competitions to test the different abilities of the paddlers. One of my favourite stages from last year was the Big Wave Freestyle where athletes perform kayak tricks and flips whilst surfing a wave similar to that of what a surfer would however the waves stays in place on the river. This is called a standing wave. If you cant imagine what that looks like the link below is to one of my all time inspirational kayaking films showcasing some of the best freestyle atheletes some of whom are in the WWGP. Good luck to all the athletes in the competition especially the GB guys whom are lagging.

Stakeout - https://vimeo.com/8208615

Twelve Hour Timelapse

This week has been a busy week for me mainly due to my new part time job at the Sands Center, Carlisle where I help build stages for concerts and theater productions. Its tough work and sometimes late hours but good pay to fill the car up with petrol so I can go Kayaking!

Unfortunately, since my last post, I have managed to get out kayaking only once and it wasn't the most successful trip to date either. The trip has been named as "The Reconnaissance Session". Our intended plan was for paddling on the River Kent (Kent Gorge to Force Falls section). However unforeseen problems lead to our team arriving at the river later then planned and with the now winter sun starting to set around 1630, getting on the river that you have never run before around 1500 wasn't ideal. However we carried on paddling the top three rapids. Portaged the weir "you really don't want to run". Then ended up portaging the rest of the rapids on the river due to the light levels, the fact that none of us had run these rapid before and weren't overly confident running them anyway. Not a total fail of a trip as we now have inspected the rapids and different lines we might want to run in the near future hopefully.

I had another go at creating a time lapse this week. Inside this time. The time lapse was over a period of roughly twelve hours and was during my work time. I left my camera to capture the building of the stage for the band Rizzle Kicks. The clip has come out well and I'm just waiting for approval from The Sands Center to add some music to it then they plan to pass it onto the company SJB that manages Rizzle Kicks's tour, could be beneficial. Video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvLU285v6Mw

Tuesday night was spent in Kendal watching a presentation by Dom Bush about his inspirations in the adventure film making industry and showed some his own work. A good chilled out event.

Today again I spent my time in Kendal at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. A great event where i was representing my university in the its yurt that had been setup to promote the uni. I also manged to escape that and watch a few ski films. Interviewed some adventure and media freelancers for my D..d...d.... (I dare not type it). Ate a load of free samples and gained a many freebies from the stalls there. The best freebies being the coat water-reproofing spray and wash which will save me £30. Brilliant!

Yeeeeehhhhaaarrrrr #2

So I've spent the last 10weeks over the pond in North East Pennsylvania at a camp called Camp Shohola. I was part of a two man crew taking children off of camp on trips to do different adventurous activities in real and challenging environments. Some of these activities included Kayaking, Canoeing, Rafting and Climbing. My whole time at camp was a great experience putting me in lots of new important decision making situations for the group I was helping lead. The best trips for myself were the kayak and canoe trips where I was able to not only improve the campers ability but also my own at the same time by setting specific goals for myself when on the rivers.

My final week in America was spent, not working, at a small town called Ohiopyle in South West PA. This town is built up around the Ohiopyle Falls and was comprised of either food or kayaking venues, superb. The waterfall (Ohiopyle falls) is 18ft and on the Youghiogheny River a lengthy river that has rapids ranging from class II to V. Mat and I spent the week kayaking on the sections named "The Lower" and "The Loop" These sections consisted of high class III rapids and took about 3.5hours to paddle at a steady rate. The first day of paddling here I was a little nervous still from my confidence being knocked after my nose break. However the morning of the second day I had managed to put it all behind me and from then on my paddling confidence and skill was back up if not improved. To the point where on the last day there we paddled the waterfall. I'm hoping one of my new found highly talented friends Jesse will have snapped a few photos of myself running the falls as I did quite well. A fantastic week, I strongly recommend anyone who is into their whitewater and in the area to venture there.

Below is a photo I captured on my GoPro on the back of my kayak going down one of the rapids called Cucumber. For more photos from the whole of my trip, like my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/HARTridethestorm