Click here to view the embedded video.

2009 der zweite Versuch: Der Pegel sah ganz passabel aus, weniger allerdings der Ölverlust des Bullis. Der verreckte nämlich am Einstieg und vermasselte den Jungs beim zweiten Anlauf die Tour. Ärgerlich! Und zwar so ärgerlich, dass Matthias nie wieder nach Portugal wollte … Doch 2010 war es dann wieder so weit. Matthias hatte wieder schlaflose Nächte. Die Bilder des Castro brannten sich in die Träume ein. Also wurde wieder geplant. Freunde wurden für den Plan begeistert, wieder waren Till und Picco von der Essener Kanuschule am Start, aber auch  Micha, Ise und Christian von der Outdoordirekt-Kanuschule wurden an Silvester mit Rotkäppchen abgefüllt und von der Teilnahme überzeugt. Auch Dany Frenzl war schnell von der Idee begeistert …
»Wir brauchen auf jeden Fall zwei Autos«, so Matthias. »Damit uns dat egal is, wenn wieder eine Karre am Einstieg explodiert, bevor wir den Castro wegverhaftet haben.« Gesagt getan. Ende Februar war es nun endlich so weit: Die Karren waren gepackt und es konnte losgehen. (Und ja: Beide Autos haben wieder ordentlich Potenzial, das Land am Westzipfel Europas  gar nicht erst zu erreichen.)

Portugal Kajak-Land? Die Jungs sind noch nicht so sicher…

Auch eine weitere Angst blieb: Zwei Wochen vor uns waren Max Eberl & Jonas Grünewald in Galizien und Portugal unterwegs und berichtete von trockenen Flüssen und schlechten Wasser-Prognosen. Doch wir trotzten diesen düsteren Aussichten und machten uns im strömenden Regen auf die Bahn. Nach 32 Stunden erreichten wir Santiago de Compostela in Galizien, von dort aus ging es zum Warmpaddeln auf den ersten Bach. Und was uns hier überraschte, war Wasser satt. Auch die nächsten Bäche waren voll bis oben hin. Da wir aber nicht wussten, wie viel Wasser der Castro Laboreiro wirklich benötigen würde, machten wir uns schleunigst zum Einstieg auf, um den Pegel zu checken. Und was sahen wir da? Es war zu viel im Bach. Und zwar deutlich. Aber die Autos fuhren noch. Also weg vom Castro Laboreiro und erstmal noch ein paar andere Bäche paddeln. Nach einigen Tagen ließ dann der Regen nach, die Sonne übernahm die Kontrolle über den portugiesischen Himmel und die Pegel fielen. Also wieder zum Castro. Und jetzt stimmte auch der Pegel.

Fetter Boof auf dem ersten Wasserfall des Rio Vez

Eine weitere schlaflose Nacht stand bevor, dann ging es auf den Bach, der das Leben des Matthias in den letzen Jahren so arg beeinflusste.

Rio Laboreiro - ein Traum für Wildwasserpaddler

Fieses Wildwasser im vierten und fünften Grad erwartete die Freunde. Dann tauchten Sie auf: die drei Wasserfälle des Rio Laboreiro. Nach einigem Gescoute und den darauf folgenden, spektakulären Befahrungen folgte die »Umtrage der Hölle«. Durch Unterholz und Macchia mussten die Freunde ihre Boote um den vierten, unfahrbaren Fall umtragen. Mit zerrissenen Jacken und blutigen Fingern kamen sie schließlich am Ausstieg an. Zerkratzt, zerschunden aber irgendwie doch glücklich endlich den Laborairo in seiner vollen Pracht erlebt zu haben …

Suddenly they´ve been everywhere. In every kayak-magazine, in every calendar and even in the playboy. Three clean waterfalls in an awesome surrounding. But where are they? In California? Corsica? No! You can find them on the west-edge of Europe, in a small country, nearly unknown for whitewater-kayakers – in Portugal.
Surrounded by Spain, small Portugal always stood in the shadow of its tall neighbor. More and more paddlers visited Galicia (northern Spain), but only a few paddlers crossed the border to check out the rivers of Portugal. But they found what paddlers all over the world are searching for – three beautiful, clean waterfalls on a small river called “castro laborairo”.
However, little Mathieux saw the falls on the pictures and immediately he was on fire. In the year 2008 he took his boat, his stuff and also some friends and began his long journey to the Castro Laborairo. But after 3200 kilometers he reaches a very dry river. “It´s been the driest winter in Portugal since decandes” said the old man with his house near to the castro-river. Mathieux had to go home…
Second Try. In February 2009 Mathieux took the same friends for the trip, but another bus – a very old bus. After 2000 kilometers the oil of the bus was boiling. With the last power they reached Portugal, but the way up to the river was too much for the old car – mission failed and Mathieux decided not to visit beautiful Portugal again – “not in my life”!
2011: “We need two cars, al lot of spare-boats, spare friends and we have to pray to the god of rain”. With a huge window of time to catch the right waterlevel Mathieux and his hundert friends in twenty cars started to castro-mission number three. But when Mathieux arrived at Castro Laborairo there was too much water in the small creek. Kayaking impossible!
Kayaking impossible because of heavy rain and cumecs of water in the rivers? Not really. The friends decided to check some other rivers and came back to Laborairo in a few days.
A few days later, after tons of sun and clear blue sky, the Laborairo had the perfect level for Mathieux and his friend. No broken car, only one broken boat and one broken finger was the result of the third try to paddle the Laborairo – mission complete!

As it turned out the water levels were too low on the northwest coast, we scouted drops like Metlako and Punchbowl, but it was not even close, so we decided to drove along the west coast and stop at famous places like San Fransisco, LA, etc.

After some days driving thru US we entered the country of tortillas, sombreros and tequila. They didn’t even ask for our passports at the border, so we didn’t really know what to expect from this country. However, we drove like 700 km south in Mexico before the police stopped us and asked for our Visa and drivers permission. What, how, where? We didn’t know a thing about those issues but we were soon to find out that we didn’t have much of a choice. We had to drive the 700 km back to the border and get ourselves the right papers for the passport and the car. To get the Visa was no problem, but on getting the drivers permission we failed pretty hard since we couldn’t find the ticket for the car. A bribe or two didn’t help, we couldn’t drive our car in Mexico!  After a couple of hours at the border not knowing what to do, the only option we came up with was selling the car and take the 46 hour bus ride to Veracruz. So it was!

The Mexico-Crew posing after a session on Tomata I: Juanito, Lachie Carracher, Jules Domine, Daniel Rondon, myself, Aniol Serrasolses, Aniols sister and Tino Specht!

When we finally made it to our final destination Tlapacoyan in Veracruz state, things turned out so well. We were renting a big and fresh American pickup, stayed at every kayakers paradise Aventurec and were running some of the best sections every day for almost two months!

Me running "Meatlocker" on the Alseseca, such a cool drop!

Me on the "Silencio" on the Alseseca. High must-boof due to the cave on the left side. Photo: Jules Domine

Me on Tomata I round two.. I had a good line the first run, but the second time I pulled the stroke to hard making my bow go up way too much. Photo: Juan Antonio de Ugarte.

A drop with a really sticky hole on the Alseseca. Hard to get you bow up here! Photo: Juan Antonio de Ugarte.

Low-water San Pedro fall! Find your way out of the eddy and dont do anything.. Just toss your paddle! Photo: Lachie Carracher

After two amazing months in Mexico the next stop in this tour was Chile! More to come

Mathias

Click here to view the embedded video.

After a long flight from my home Norway to Calgary in Canada, followed by a couple of hours on the bus I met up with Ryan Lucas, Rush Sturges and Liquid Logic team buddies Evan Garcia and Fred Norquist. The boys had a spot for me in the car and took me around in this beautiful state for a month!

First in the east of BC, in the area around Revelstoke, we ran classics like the Sutherland falls and lower Pingston, and crazy runs like the Fosthall creek, where Evan and Ryan fired up one of the stoutest waterfalls I’ve seen in a while!

Evan Garcia running the first of the two Sutherland falls.

Fred Norquist on the second Sutherland fall.

Baby Bird Ryan Lucas cleaning the stout on the Lower Pingston.

Ryan and Fred enjoying campfire right by Fosthall creek.

Evan running THE stout on the Fosthall creek. Rapell into a boily and undercutted pool before dropping 20 meters!

From here we drove towards the westcoast and the famous area around Squamish/Whistler were we got to run many of the BC classics!

Me running the famous triple drop on Rogers Creek. Sick shot by Evan Garcia.

Rush Sturges on the beautiful Tatlow Creek. I was injured this day and decided to walk together with Matt Baker into to this drop to take shots. The distance to walk was only 300 meters, but this area is "BC bush hell" at its worst so we spent like one and a half hour getting there. I even managed to screw the shot but decided to put it up anyway due to our effort.

Me dropping down the Callaghan creek. Photo by Evan Garcia.

We also did a mandatory trip to the tidal wave Skookumchuck.

Rush showing off his skills

Bomb Flow studios in the making of episode 4.

The boys went back to the U.S after this so I had to find new friends so I could do some more kayaking in BC. I went to Ric Moxon’s house in Whistler and lived there for a while. This house was the base for most of the kayakers in the area, so there was no problem to get together a crew. I met up with three germans and we decided to run the beautiful multiday Homathko.

The view from the put-in at Tatlayoko Lake.

Matthias Stöckli scouting "Birthday Canyon" on day 2.

Thomas Motz running the rowdy "The Bet" at the beginning of day 3.

Me scouting "Tragedy canyon, Act 1". Hmm. "looks small from here..."

Mandatory group picture at the take-out. 4 days of amazing kayaking and beautiful secenery!

After Homathko and a couple of days running Clearwater we returned to Whistler where the winter was getting closer and closer every day. At this time I teamed up with Australian Lachie Carracher and French Jules Domine, and we decided to leave BC and head for Mexico. But there was one thing that still kept us in the freezing BC: running the Grand Canyon of STIKINE. There was only one problem: even though it was snowing up by Stikine, the water level was still way too high.  We checked the gauge every day, but still not even close and after about 10 days of waiting (and running good runs like Fear Canyon, Rogers creek and Birkenhead), we packed Jules’ car and started our long drive from Whistler to VERACRUZ, MEXICO.

While we were waiting for Stikine the rain was pouring down in Whistler. I tried a highwater descent of the triple falls on Rogers Creek. Failed hard and ended up swimming pretty bad! Photo by: Matthias Stöckl.

More to come!

Mathias

Episode 7 “Minor Fails and Epic Wins”

Later E.G.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As a kayaker/film producer I have been striving to produce professional whitewater kayaking videos, improve my editing, and my filming. These are some of my best shots from the past couple seasons.

Thanks to all kayakers in here for producing good lines to film.
Filming and Editing by Fred Norquist
Shot on Canon 7D & GoPro HD

Visit BombFlow for more sick edits.

GoPro asked me to put together a 100% Hero Reel from Slippery When Wet to promote the original GoPro Hero. This segment boast footage from all over the world including California, Pacific Northwest, Mexico, and relief work in Japan. If you enjoy what you see PLEASE order the film (you can order HERE) and support the project. Be sure to check out the NEW GoPro HERO 2 with not only 1080 HD filming capabilities, but 11 megapixel photos as well. BIG shout out to all the boyz involved with this project especially those featured: Ben Stookesberry, Chris Korbulic, Evan Garcia, Cody Howard, Ryan Knight, Devin Knight, and Drew Duval, there wouldn’t have been a film without yall, thanks for your contribution! More content to look forward to with a part 2 photo update from Japan dropping early Jan. 2012.

Enjoy the 100% GOPRO REEL and feel free to like, comment, and SHARE! see more at www.shastaboyz.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.