Over the boarder and back to the snow

Finally having been on the road delivering courses since late March I got to spend some time at home in Finland. June 5^th -11^th had been in my diary for months for a 7 day IRF Guide training program combined with a Rescue 3 Europe Whitewater Rescue Technician Professional course based at the ideally located Basecamp Oulanka, on the shores of the beautiful Kitkajoki river, in the land of the Midnight sun.

I arrived home in the south of Finland for few days rest before the 9 hour drive northeast to Basecamp. This gave me time to make some lesson plans and prepare for the workshop. Miia told me to check the weather? I happily fired up my trusted weather website of trust www.yr.no to check the weather. Doh -1 degrees and snow, it was June for crying out loud as I reached for my dry suit & extra thermals.

The course was based just outside the Arctic circle in the village of Juuma. June in Finland is normally the beginning of summer and most of the snow and ice have melted. The rivers are at ideal levels and we are blessed with the Midnight Sun. During the drive north I realized this was not going to be the case. All of the lakes were still frozen & there was plenty of snow around still. The forecast for later in the week  was for highs of +25 degrees and sun. I thought to myself I won't hold my breath?.

The guys at Basecamp Oulanka had given me a really nice room and I unpacked my kit and prepared myself for a scouting  trip the next day.

After a quick breakfast I threw on an extra set of thermals under my drysuit and met Henri, the host for the workshop. We were also joined by some of the course participants as this was going to be the first trip down the river of the season. So not only did I need to re-familiarize myself with the Kitkajoki, we also needed to see if the winter had made any changes to the river. Before all of this could happen we had to brake a trail through the ice on the lake in order for us to get to the river. Easier said than done!

 The commercial section we were to paddle today was called the Wild route, a short section around 5km in distance. The trip begins on the Juuma lake and then make it's way down the beautiful picturesque canyon with the Myllykoski rapid class 2+ and the amazing 900m long Aallokkoski rapid before for a compulsory portage around the Jyrävä waterfall. The trip normally lasts for around 2 hours. One of the unique points about this run is that the trip almost completes a full circle leaving a 15 minute walk back to the base so no return transport needed as its' all done on foot.  

The Wild route is the most technical section of commercial whitewater in Finland. Rafting is not a huge sport in Finland so the rafting community is quite small and closed. With the lack of international experience throughout the years rafting trips are still operated the way they were 20 years ago, this includes equipment and approaches to river running and guide training. Hats off to Basecamp Oulanka for having the sight to see that things need to change. 

The checkout run went well, we even got to see an impressive snow bridge over the Jyrävä waterfall.

This weeks course was going to present me with 6 trainees & 2 trip leader candidates one of which (Nathan) had travelled all the way from Singapore to attend the course. The  course progressed the following way:

Day 1

The ice had slowly been melting so we had a bigger pool to practice our basic paddling techniques & commands. I am a big fan of spending some time on the flat water for the first day of a guide training programme. I feel it gives the students a chance to feel how a raft moves before you take it to the moving water. We also looked at safety talks before we got on the water. I delivered 2 examples of a safety talk. One of which was completed in silence to emphasize that actions speak louder than words. We then took to the Wild route to look at basic guiding and moving water skills. I got to test the skills of the 2 class 3 trip leader candidates (Nathan & Henri) on the Aallokkokoski section and they both did a really good job. The homework for day 1 was to learn the IRF river signals. I noticed them practicing these well into the night. 

Day 2

After watching Henri & Nathan give some really solid safety talks we took to the Wild route. The guides were starting to grow in confidence which was heartening to watch. A visit from the local press in the afternoon gave us the chance to look at swimming skills. Having spent 8 seasons working in Iceland as a guide I thought I was accustomed to cold water but I noticed that the water was freezing cold and I was happy that all of the students were in Ursuit drysuits. I made a mental note to myself to soften up a little and maybe start to use some neoprene gloves in my old age. That thought lasted as soon as I watched someone try to pack a throwbag wearing gloves. The local press were really interested in the course and produced an amazing article. Day 2 homework = safety talk planning.

Day 3

Off to Russia we go. The logistics on the Kitkajoki are not easy, every few days the guides need to transport the rafts 20km down the river to the nearest road on the border with Russia. I took the opportunity to give the guides as much stick time as possible so I made them R2 5 rafts down the river  and this enabled them a full day of stick time. We focused on eddy hopping, ferry gliding & river running strategies. The day started with ghosing the rafts down the Jyrävä waterfall. We stopped for lunch at a small fireplace in the Oulanka national park. The weather was now sunny and +18, the weather had changed at last.

Day 4

The morning session started with the candidates each giving a section of the pre-trip safety demonstration. The candidates had the choice to do this in Finnish or English. I had roped my partner Miia & her mother to be live rafting customers for the students to practice and this turned out quite well. During today I wanted to assess both Henri & Nathan for their class 3 trip leader awards. I set 2 challenging scenarios on the river which both included run away flipped rafts and various amounts of devious carnage. Both Nathan & Henri demonstrated strong trip leader capabilities when dealing with the scenarios, hats off to the guys.

Day 5

Today was the first day of the Rescue 3 component of the workshop.  My biggest selling product this year has been the combined IRF & Rescue 3 workshops and this was to be my 5^th one since March. I like to keep both of the aspects separate. This way I can concentrate solely on the core: raft guiding skills on the IRF section of the workshop. I can then incorporate the remaining IRF rescue elements into the WRT component, including swimming, flipping, throw bagging, rope work. Both the IRF & Rescue 3 elements complement each other really well. Next year I am already planning advanced workshops combining WRT advanced with class 4 trip leader &  safety craft.

We spent the day working through the Rescue 3 philosophy, incorporating it into swimming & throw bag sessions and then into more complex situations including rescue harness release & tethered swimmer rescues.

Day 6

Today we looked at shallow water skills along with foot & body entrapments. After lunch we all spent some time on a simulated strainer exercise before finishing the day with a mechanical advantage class where we also completed the IRF rope work test.

Day 7

I was starting to feel it I have been running course nonstop since March, today I felt as tired as the students looked. Straight onto the water we spent the time looking at 2 point tethered rafts and tensioned diagonals along with line crossing techniques. The weather turned poor in the afternoon so we finished up the course by looking at the theory side of the WRT programme before the IRF written paper & final debriefs.

During the debriefs I wanted to focus on making the students realize that practice practice practice is the recipe for being able to move forward and gain more experience.I look forward to visiting Basecamp Oulanka next year to see the progression of the guides.

In the meantime congratulations to Henri, Nathan, Jessica, Maiju, Tiia, Janne, Markus, Miia, Kaisa & Ilkka, it was a pleasure to work with you.

Many thanks to Miia Komi & Basecamp Oulanka! 

Next week my travels will take me from the Arctic to the jungle in Thailand where I will get the opportunity to work some more with enthusiastic raft guides.

Happy paddling,

Mark

Training with the maidens of the Arctic

During the summer period each year the Suomi cup attracts teams mainly from the Arctic region of Northern Finland to enjoy a race series throughout the short summer. The series of races are normally dominated by 2 teams, the mens team from the town of Muonio and the ladies Routa rafting team from Rovaniemi. 

Routa were fresh back from an early season outing to the European cup race in Bosnia where they finished in an encouraging 7th place. This was a good result considering that none of the rivers in Lapland are possible to paddle until early May as they are all still frozen. For most of the team this was their first time in a raft this season. During the race the team were inspired by the performance of the Czech ladies team.

On returning from the European cup the Routa ladies team continued with their success by winning the ladies race in the next race of the Suomi cup series back at home in Finland by a convincing margin. 

The following Monday from the race I was lucky enough to be invited to work with the team on a 2 day training camp in their home town of Rovaniemi. Toini, a member of the team, had contacted me to ask if I would come and help coach the team for 2 days and see if there were anyways in which I could improve there performance. I was honored. 

The turn out was perfect. We had 6 paddlers which meant I could coach from my kayak this enabled me to observe the team really well.

Before we got on the water we had a discussion about the aims of the team and what they wanted to get out of the 2 day workshop. All of the team explained what each of them wanted. The reoccurring theme was a desire to improve there performance and be able to compete with the top European female teams, in particular the female Czech team. 

The team also wanted to improve their own observational coaching skills in order to improve their own coaching sessions once I was gone.

With the objectives of the team clear in my head I could now start to plan the workshop in fine detail. 

We took to the water for a paddling warm up, straight away I noticed 2 really positive signs

1. Power & technique

The team had bags of power and technique. We were paddling on the flat water of a lake and they were keeping up with me in my kayak. 

2. Communication & Discipline 

The Ladies had really good discipline and the communication lines were wide open. 

With a nervous smile on my face I sat back in my kayak and though to myself it's going to be a long 2 days where can I help this team, they are better paddlers than me.

Pushing the negative thoughts aside we started to look into the fine details of  the forward paddling technique. This started a discussion based on how many strokes were needed to reach top speed. We really slowed things down and took an in depth look at the sprint start and manged to compare the start of a raft sprint to the start of a 100m athletics sprint.

We moved onto the water and really started to break down every aspect of the teams performance when entering and exiting eddies. We tried different approaches and experimented. I slowly started to notice that the team were coaching each other, I was simply facilitating the session. This allowed me to observe the team and give back some useful feedback.

We moved downstream to the Vikakongas slalom site. As it was still early in the season we still had plenty of water which was great. We decided that on day 2 we would base ourselves at the site and really work on the slalom aspect of the teams performance. 

We paddled down the remaining sections of the river experimenting with aspects of the teams performance and technique when ferry gliding and running rapids. To make life more challenging I gave the team tasks such as blind paddling & paddling without talking. The team were surprised at how well  they managed to complete the tasks and realized that they had a really good team work ethic already in place. 

Day 2 started with a few tired looking faces and some achy joints including mine. Day 1 had been a heavy day. We slowly warmed up and were ready for more action. As previously agreed we decided to base ourselves at the slalom site. I set the team and demanding set of gates to achieve. 

I then took one member of the team away on each run so that they could observe and evaluate the run in order to improve the performance on the next run. This worked really well.

What started out as a pretty hard series of gates to make now started to become achievable and by the end of day 2 the team were making the gates with ease and starting to style the course which was encouraging. We also used a little bit of video coaching analysis which worked well. 

We took some time at the end of day 2 to look at flip drills. None of the commercial companies in Finland operate on water above class 3, therefore flipping very rarely occurs to the point where flip drills are never taught or rehearsed. 

We looked at the finger reflip technique. Instead of using the traditional technique of 1 person climbing on top of the up turned raft. we used 3 members of the team to quickly reflip the raft from the water. This technique was warmly accepted. 

Once changed we discussed the outcomes of the workshop and agreed on specific training targets for future sessions. This was all fed back to the team with a wrap up email. 

Mark.   

                                                                                    

First course of the summer

On a not so warm Monday morning in Jerisjarvi quite a few kilometers inside the Arctic Circle. Harriniva Hotels & Safaris hosted the first ever International rafting federation guide training program on Finnish water. Hariniva were the very first rafting company established in Finland so it became fitting that they hosted the course. 

8 enthusiastic potential  guides from all corners of Finland attended the course. Finland has a popular raft racing culture but the commercial guiding scene is still developing. Monday kicked off with the normal introductions and registration. Once changed we spent a while shaping and discussing safety talks, then we took to the chilly waters of lake Jeris to practice some flat water paddling skills and commands.We were paddling on a 100 m stretch of ice free lake as the lake was still 90% frozen. After lunch we had a dry land throw bag introduction session followed by some practice throws on the water. We rounded the day off with swimmer rescues & flip drills. Harriniva had kindly given us the use of there water side sauna to use so that we could warm up after our swimming and flip drills. The perfect place to review the days activities .

 Outi dialing in on her dry land throw bag skills. We also spent some time looking at the various re throwing techniques with the new TRU technique becoming a firm favorite.

 Ari with a text book throw.

 Flatwater flip drills.

 Day 2 started with a small ropework test from the previous nights homework. I also had the opportunity to learn the Finnish names for some of the knots. This became a 2 way learning session which was great. After a hydrology session we took to the water. Our course dates had been planned perfectly as the Muonio river had reach peak springtime flows of around 1000 cumecs. The Muonio river forms the most peaceful boarder in the world between Sweden & Finland. The Muonio river is also Europe's longest free flowing river & an excellent fishing river. 

 The commercial section of river that we were using was an excellent run for our guides. 6km of big volume bouncy class 2-3 rapids. We honed our basic skills on some of the more easier sections of the river before laying siege to the mighty Saarikoski rapid. The locals have a healthy respect for this rapid a huge river wide wave train. The guardian wave was around the 3- 4 meter height with a nice tasty flushy hole behind it.We cautiously ran a few chicken shoots and spent time discussing our lines and back up plans should it turn out in a flip. I wanted the team to be absolutely relaxed and happy swimming in big water before we tackled Saarikoski so we moved downstream to practice our swimming skills. Saarikoski mainline would have to wait until day 3.  

 Me leading the way on a practice swim. The weather was improving to around 20c with amazing sunshine.

 Day 3 started with the excitement of tackling the Saarikoski main line. The team had scouted the rapid on numerous occasions and were primed and ready to. Having the opportunity to sit back and watch the team make their own decisions and come up with a safety plan was very rewarding to watch. Big smiles and cheers we had when we successfully ran Saarikoski. Throughout day 3 we managed another 6 clean lines.

   

 Day 4 was dedicated to whitewater rescue skills. The morning session we practiced our dry land wrap drills and learned some basic mechanical advantage systems. After lunch we moved onto a small tributary of the Muonio river. The tributary flowed straight through the center of the Muonio town so the local public had an afternoons entertainment on their doorstep. We practiced 2&4 point raft tethers along with live bait rescues along with shallow water crossings . We finished the day off  with setting up a tensioned diagonal. During the evening we also had the chance to follow and observe a full commercial trip. I ended up guiding one raft. Little known to me my raft was full of celebrities including Ms Finland 2013, a very close line was had in the Saarikoski rapid for the benefit of the tv cameras.  

Day 5 Was a chance to tidy up some loose ends and give the group the chance to practice anything they had not gotten to grips with. For some reason they all wanted to run a flip scenario in a big rapid. Saarikoski was chosen and executed in a swift manner.Our final afternoon consisted of admin followed by a well earned BBQ and a few beers. So many thanks to Harriniva and most of all Bjorn, Henri, Hessu, Outi, Marko, Ari, Jere, Joonas, Kalle for a highly enjoyable week. 

Mark