MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter / Spring 2018

WINTER/SPRING 2018 MLCM 91 words :: Carmen Kuntz THE DAMMED SOCA RIVER - SLOVENIA AND ITALY Crashing through the Kool-Aid blue whitewater of Slovenia’s Soča River, we dodge car-sized limestone boulders and paddle our kayaks onward in joy. With the snow-dappled Julian Alps towering above, and dense blankets of forest crawling up from both sides of the river, the Soča contains the most beautiful rapids in Europe, arguably the world. As the whitewater mellows, we crack celebratory beers and float along in bliss until the flow under our boats slows, and then stops. A massive span of concrete – the Podselo Dam – plugs the river ahead, turning the deepest section of the Soča gorge into a stagnant reservoir. We shoulder our boats and start walking, twenty kayakers carrying boats past what used to be beautiful whitewater. Half an hour later, feeling more like a rock climber than a whitewater kayaker, I’m wedged on a rocky ledge high above the river, eye level with the 20-story, algae-stained concrete wall that chokes the mighty Soča. We rope up the boats and lower them down into the shallow trickle below. This isn’t your usual weekend whitewater trip. It’s a paddling protest aimed at protecting the last free-flowing rivers in Europe from ending up trapped behind concrete like the Soča. This is the Balkan Rivers Tour, where kayaking, beer drinking and fun goes hand in hand with ecology, environmental conservation and political protest. As our boats hit the defeated water after the dam, I could feel my anger stirring, swirling, building… Since founding the Balkan Rivers Tour (BRT- see sidebar), Rok Rozman, has become a kind of Lorax for the rivers, speaking on their behalf. During 2016, BRT’s inaugural year, the crew paddled 23 rivers in six countries, protesting and partying along the way. After helping stop six dams in the Balkans, the tour was deemed a success. BRT2 was born. An eclectic mix of creatives, the BRT team is made up of an almost entirely Slovenian crew who share a love for wild spaces and strong opposition to capitalism. Other than myself, the Canadian writer, three Slovenian professional kayakers, a pessimistic designer, a 4-foot-tall photographer, a policy watchdog, a marketing whiz and three dedicated filmers create this wild team on a wild ride. When planning the second tour for the spring of 2017, Rozman decided to focus on paddling just EPIC TRIP WHITEWATER ACTIVISTS CAN KAYAKING SAVE THE WILD RIVERS OF EUROPE? Paddling the at-risk Valbona river,Albania. ANDRAZ KRPIC