“After returning from my kayaking trip to Chile, I was hanging around Europe for couple months with no money and not much kayaking going on. Everything has taken a good turn with a couple weeks working for Gene17 in Italy and then I was off to Norway. I love Norway – Great whitewater and stunning nature. It usually rains like crazy here, but this spring has been different. Not much snow left here in comparison with last year, but still good water levels and beautiful weather. So I put my Meridian dry suit aside for now and have been enjoying kayaking in my Rogue dry top or just even a shorty, which has been a nice change. Love my Kokatat gear. I wore my dry top over 160 days on the water this year and I am still dry and warm. Perfect.

After two days spent in my car, I turned up to Voss, my summer location this year. Voss is sick, so many rivers to run on such a small area so there is always stuff to paddle, even after a full day of raft guiding. The summer almost never sets here, so it’s not a problem to put in for the local runs around 9pm. I had been enjoying Myrdalselvi and Raundalselvi runs with the local crew and experiencing an unusually warm Norwegian spring in Voss.

Voss is also hosting the annual Ekstremesportveko event, one of the biggest extreme sport festivals anywhere, attracting hundreds of athletes and thousands of fans and spectators. This is my favorite week of the year. The festival tent always has a great atmosphere and you can meet friends from all over the world. There are competitions and events held in BASE, skydiving, paragliding, hang gliding, multisport, rafting, Big Air, free ride, kiting, MTB\BMX, climbing, long boarding and kayaking. All the athletes and fans meet every evening at the big festival tent to watch the video from the day’s events, share stories and party big style indeed.

This year Veko has been a little different for me as I have also been working most of the week for Voss Rafting. This has turned the Ekstremeveko into an endurance week, but I also managed to compete in few events. On Monday I entered the Hogri Ned multisport event. This race usually consists of a skier, downhill biker and kayaker. Because of the lack of snow in Voss this year, the skiing part had to be abandoned. I teamed up with John Indrebo, one of the local bikers, and we placed 3rd overall. Cool, my first Veko podium this year. The main kayaking event was held at the Mjolfjell race course. This was a big change from the traditional Branseth course, which was out due to low water levels. Mjolfjell has been rising on the contrary so most of the competitors had been welcomed by a very sticky hole at the bottom of the section, which caused almost a third of the competition field to drink a bootie of beer by the end of the day. I had couple great training rides and felt pretty strong for the race. The first part felt very fast and on track, but I got pushed behind the rock by the bottom hole and lost any chances for the finals like many of the others who went through the “back door”. Anyway, it got better for the team race as I teamed up with my ZET kayak mates from Czech, Viktor Legat and Jiri Kopecny, and we managed to get second behind the Italian team. The rest of Veko followed with amazing parties, great everyday events and loads of stories to be shared. I am already looking forward to next year.” – Jakub Šedivý

“I spent the first week of January working for Cascade Kayak School during their trip to Chile. There were nine kids coming down to Pucon, Chile to have fun and kayak as much as possbile. After a day spent on the Liucura we packed a truck, van and trailer with all are boats and gear to go to Pichilemu. We spent two days in Pichilemu kayak surfing and enjoying the beach experience. The waves were pretty big; there were some cool rides, as well as beatdowns to be seen.

After two days in Pichilemu we packed all our stuff again, and went to paddle the rivers around Los Quenes. The weather and river levels were perfect!

The last day of the road trip was dedicated to the infamous Siete Tasaz section of the Rio Claroa. The short but steep hike was a mission by itself with a group of this size, but we didn’t have any problems. The run was well worth the hike. Everyone styled the super clean drops of the Rio Claroa

Back in Pucon I spent a couple more days coaching and paddling with the group on the Trancura River. It was cool to see the kids super fired up and getting into paddling like they did. I had a great time, and hope to see them on the water around the world soon.

Kokatat Ambassador Jakub Sedivy checked in to tell us about Cascade Kayak Schools trip to Chile.”

-Jakub Sedivy

Jakub Sedivy Checks in from Chile.  It looks like everyone is in Chile right now!  Why can’t I be in Chile?

Chile 2009- Spring in Pucon:

 “After my return back from BC, I chilled at home for a month until my flight to Chile on the 11th of November. The flight from Europe to Santiago was pretty long, but flipping through the movie selection on the plane I found a great educational movie about kayaking in Pucon area with Rodrigo Tuschner and the crew. The boys were going pretty big and I was looking forward to sitting in a boat again.

My friend from Czech, Mira Kodada, together with his girlfriend picked me up at the Santiago Airport and with a short detour through the city we got on our way south. Our first stop was in Los Quenes at my friend Todd Ericson’s place, who is running a rafting company and hosteria there.

Todd was amazingly helpful and hooked us up with boats as well as provided an accommodation for us. Hosteria Los Quenes became our base for the next few days. This place was an amazing start for my Chilean adventure as there is a confluence of 2 rivers- Rio Teno and Rio Claro of Teno. After a couple days, we were joined by my good buddy from Idaho Mike Goglin and we headed up to the top of Rio Teno. This run was pretty high with few big class V rapids and not many eddies. We drove all the way up and decided to portage some of the biggest drops. The river became a full day mission that kept us highly entertained as the river at this flow was pretty full on.

 After a few days and couple Pisco Saur parties, we were ready to hit the road again. First stop was by Rio Claro and the famous Siete Tasaz. Unfortunately it was raining but not such a big deal. By the campground of 22 teacups we met Dave Hughes and the Go Huge kayak academy; they filled us in with the necessary directions and beta needed.

 Pucon is a chapter by itself and could be the ultimate creeking and hucking centre . There are so many creeks and waterfalls in one hour drive distance, it is hard to choose sometimes. We got to Pucon at the end of November and due to heavy rains, most of the rivers were pretty high. I grouped up with Mariann Saether, Steve Fisher and Valentin Grollemund to show me the area and paddle as much as possible. The lifestyle here is hard to beat. Beautiful sceneries with volcano Villarica and the lake together with chilled out atmosphere and great parties full of kayakers.

Most of the rivers here are low volume creeks and those were pretty high when I got here. Since the end of November the levels have been falling and we were able to get most of the rivers at the optimum water-levels.

 Stoked!

 Tomorrow leaving for another road trip with Tyler Curtis and Logan Grayling, stay tuned…”

 Jakub Sedivy (To see more go to jakubsedivy.blogspot.com)