The Voxnan River - rapids x 55

The Voxnan is a river situated more or less in the middle of Sweden, or rather in the southernmost part of northern Sweden, that is popular among whitewater canoeists. It is a long stretch of river through woodland without the accompaniement of a road. This is otherwise very common, especially in southern Sweden. The headwaters being only some 400 kilometers north of Stockholm, it is also more accessible for people in this densely populated area than the great northern rivers. The stretch between Rullbo and Vinströmmen with some 55 rapids seemed a perfect place to practice my packrafting for a couple of days in May.

By Jörgen Johansson

Getting the ship in shape at Rullbo. This is a bit downstream of the actual headwaters, but it is where the whitewater sort of starts. I was driven there by Christoffer from Voxnadalens Canoe & Camping, leaving my own car at Vinströmmen, where I planned to end my journey.

"The Canal" showed up pretty soon, after a couple of smaller rapids. It was actually the only rapidI scouted, before I had developed a feeling for what the rapids where like and what my own rusty paddling skills were like. It is a grade IV rapid and was very easy and straight forward to paddle. Not many rocks to avoid at the current water-level (which was bit lower than average), and the biggest challenge probably that once you are committed you cannot eddy out and comtemplate life or the rapids. It runs like a train for a couple of hundred meters.

The first and only casualty of the day, the bottom/floor of the packraft was ripped by something after a couple of hours, and half a dozen rapids, of paddling. Luckily the rip was at my feet, I probably would not have enjoyed whatever it was doing the ripping at the other end of my legs...

I planned on doing a quick fix repair, sewing the rip with some dental floss and then duct-taping it. Surprise when at the first stitch, the eye of the needle broke, leaving we with two useless parts of a sewing needle. It is one of those things that simply does not happen. Who brings a spare sewing needle? I mean you just cannot bring spares for everything that might break. Needless to say I might bring two in the future...

So I had to switch modus operandi; I made a hole in the fabric with a needle and then pulled a short piece of soft wire through the hole instead of the floss. It took a while, since the holes in the rubberized fabric closed quickly, making it necessary to attempt the trick about ten times before getting the wire through. Three short lengts of wire pulled through this way closed the the 10 cm rip to a reasonable degree. This done I duct taped both sides and paddled on in the evening.

The preliminary fix lasted about one hour, then the duct tape was gone; first the outside pieces and then on the inside of the raft as well. The pieces of wire, however kept the rip semi-closed. That is, water kept running into the raft and I had to stop every 15 minutes or so and dump 25 liters or so from the packraft to keep it from growing extremely sluggish in the rapids. It was not as problematic as could be expected to sit and paddle in 5-10 cm of water, but it was a chilly evening and the water was cold, so I had no trouble keeping myself from laughing.

At camp that night, after putting on dry clothes and generally thawing out with some noodles and beer sausage, I fixed the rip more permanently. The Aqua Seal that comes with the Alpacka repair kit takes 10-14 hours or so to cure, so doing it overnight has its advantages. Which of course is why I did choose a couple of hours of wet paddling before setting up camp instead of stopping for the night where the rip occured.

First camp on a greyish evening, with rain more or less proximate as the day faded. The tent is a Gossamer Gear The One, the tarp a silnylon Tentwing from Tatonka.

Cooking was done on the Bushbuddy. Pretty excellent in these surroundings, but not so hot (or maybe too hot) in the tent. With a separate tarp for cooking it works like a charm in any weather. A separate tarp is pretty handy in country with people habituated bears, where it is advisable not to cook where you sleep. Bears are no problem whatsover for campers along Voxnan, though, although there are bears in the forests here. And wolves as well. I did not see them, and neither will you.

Compared to a canoe the packraft is extremely easy to portage past rapids that look too overwhelming. You literally take it under your arm, at least if you have a lightweight pack, and walk, in this case some 100 meters past a grade VI.

After a thundershower that evening, when I more or less fell asleep in my tent, it cleared up and I ventured outside. That certainly was a stroke of luck. A glorious spring evening followed. I lighted a small fire down by where the river widened out and reflected the setting sun. All the sounds of a spring evening by a forest lake surrounded me as the day slowly went home.

The morning after was no less glorius. I had breakfast down by the faded coals from last nights fire and watched the morning mists give way to a warm and sunny spring day.

Lunch breaks consisted of drying out the wet suit stuff (it did not really work) and wearing dry clothes to get warm. I brought a long sleeve sweater, shorts, socks and gloves made from thin neopren, and wore my raingear on top of this. This was barely enough to stay reasonably warm while paddling on the first 1,5 days. The last day, when the sun was shining, it was much better.

However, it made me consider some other clothing for extended packrafting in less than summer temperatures. I have consequently invested in a 790 gram Ursuit MPS drysuit made from Goretex. This will replace 600 grams of neopren and 200 grams of rain pants on future trips. Maybe even my rainjacket. I have yet to test it, but the feeling is that it will keep me both more comfortable and safer in cold weather packrafting.

I used a couple of 3 l Ziploc bags for map, GPS, camera and Solar Power Monkey and attached slave. A loop made of duct tape at the corners of the bags made it easy to fasten them to the pack on the 'front deck'. Sad to say they did not keep my gear dry, so I have already invested in two Ortlieb waterproof mapcases for the stuff I need handy on deck on extended packrafting trips in the wilderness.

There were abundant signs of busy beavers all along the waterway. The beaver was extinct in Sweden in my boyhood, but has made a strong comeback. Of course, some people do not like this, nor bear nor beaver, since it means they have to adapt to different circumstances. Always easier to simply kill...

I only saw this one beaver in front of my packraft. However, I saw it for a long time and it was my first beaver sighting. After the first frantic scuffle to get the camera out before it scarpered I took a number of photos, none of them particulary sharp. I then paddled on, and it dove. I supposed that was the end of it and thought no more of that until it surfaced 25 meters ahead of my packraft and swam there for a while. Then it repeated the process, dove and resurfaced in front of me and accompanied me for another hundred meters or so. Then it disappeared for good. Maybe it wanted to check that I did not sneak of with any birches, unauthorized.

The last rapid, Vinströmmen (The Wine Stream) graded class IV, ends this rapid dense part of the river Voxnan. I do not think it was a grade IV on this day, the water was a bit low, but it was fun to paddle nevertheless. Summing up the 45 hours spent on or near the river it totaled to 3 rapids grade IV and the rest more or less 50% grade II and grade III. There also where a couple graded VI or more that I portaged.

I had no problems in any of the rapids I paddled, unless you count getting more or less stuck on some rocks in shallow water now and then and getting thorougly sprayed on a number of occassions, but that is par for the course as far as I am concerned. Gettting stuck was most frequent in the grade II rapids, but usually I could wriggle and pole myself free. Only on one occassion I had to get out in the knee-deep water.

I certainly re-learned what a tough and also forgiving vessel the packraft is in the hands of an amateur. Taking a canoe down these rapids will undoubtedly take a different level of skill, since running into any rocks at all is not what you want to do, while it is part of the package for a packrafter. At least for this packrafter so far.

All in all a very good dress rehearsal and confidence builder for the real thing...