Nordic Packrafting Roundup 2024

The fourth Nordic Packrafting Roundup was scheduled for June 27 to 30th 2024 at Dala Floda, Sweden, at the venue of Kajaktiv. It’s the second time that the Nordic Roundup has been held in Sweden. Last time in 2019 I was a part of the team behind the roundup as a founding member of the Swedish Packrafting Association. This time I was only an ordinary participant driving the 5 hours up to Dala-Floda from my home in Mollaryd on Thursday afternoon. For me the roundups have always been mainly about socializing and connecting with new and old friends. The first legendary roundup in Sweden in 2016 was one of my first occasions to meet up with other packrafters and the friendships formed there have been long lasting and the core of the groups of people I am paddling with today. On this roundup the socializing was important as well but above all this 2024 roundup has been all about learning and becoming a better packrafter. First, Jeremie invited me to join the second day for an intermediate course all Thursday. The course, which Jeremie teached together with Fredrik, was a huge improvement to my skills of peeling in and out of eddies, surfing holes and improving my paddling techniques. Jeremie and Fredrik were good at spotting the small errors and giving me advice on where to improve. After 12 + years of packrafting, it was good to know that I still had a lot of potential to learn. Saturday there was a full program at the Nordic packraft Roundup 2024. Clinics, lectures, film night and community meals. I joined two of the paddling clinics for more eddy catching and surfing. It was really good to feel my improvement from the day before. And then there was the very first packrafting race which Edvin Mellergård won (congratulations Edvin). I didn’t do that well in the race - In my heat Tobias won and could continue to the next heat. I had hoped that the technical paddlers like Tobias couldn't resist the urge to stop and surf all the waves on their way down. But this wasn't the case. My friend Johan Grönblad managed to give a fine lecture in trip planning in Sweden, even though he had been up all night drinking whiskey and mocking Caj about Cajs new tunnel tent. Also on saturday we had a community meal and movie night. I finally got the chance to watch Cris Burkards newest film "The Forgotten Coast” starring my old Grand Canyon companion “Doom”. The community meals were grilled burgers made by Kajaktiv. The rest of my roundup I had enrolled in a two day whitewater rescue course - something that has been on my bucket list for a long time. Even though I’ve been participating in numerous shorter rescue clinics during the years, I’ve never been on a longer course. Our teacher was Fred Fredrik from Guidestugan. Fred is a very skilled rescuer, a good teacher and the curriculum was very thorough. I especially enjoy getting a lot of swimming exercise in swift water and shifting back and forth from defensive to offensive swimming techniques. From there we continued to learn and practice wading techniques, using mechanical devices and the use of life bait and more complicated rescue operations. The grand final was two simulated rescue scenarios where we as a team had to perform a rescue of an entrapped doll. The doll survived (maybe with some minor brain damage but who can tell - it's a doll). All in all I think I’ve learned more during this roundup than during the last couple of years paddling around. And I can really recommend everyone to step up and take a rescue course or paddling classes. Even if you, like me, had been paddling for a long time. Thanks to everyone that I’ve met along the way and all the other course participants. (front drawing by Jeremie Lamart)