Italian Alps Kayaking Trip

The last weekend in April saw myself and friends Greg, Dom and Paul heading out for the Italian kayaking paradise of Valsesia Piemonte for seven full days of creeking on the world class rivers that this beautiful area is blessed with. Levels were high for the first few days so we enjoyed some big water runs on the Sesia and an upper Sesia run which included some pretty good waterfall drops. Once levels dropped a little we were able to get on the classic runs of the area, although levels were still medium to high and as such a bit on the sporty side. The upper Mastellone was exciting, and a good warm-up run for the superb and steep Gronda and Sorba slides - amazing rivers with loads of steep slides and boof drops. As the levels continued to drop to more normal levels we were able to paddle some of the other classics, such as the Egua, Sermenzina, Sermenza, including many of their various sections. We paddled such varied river conditions during the trip, involving alpine runs, steep and technical runs with loads of boulders, slides and drops, through to some pretty cool gorge paddling on the lower Sermenza and lower Mastellone. A lot of the rivers were pretty full-on grade 5 paddling, but it was all pretty cool being in such a beautiful setting of snow-capped mountains, steep wooded valleys, and quaint rustic villages dotted randomly throughout this amazing landscape. Definitely looking forward to the next trip! :)