2015 ICF World Championships Slalom
 
1
2
3
K1M
CZ J. PRSKAVEC
PL M. POLACZYK
US M. SMOLEN
K1W
CZ K. KUDEJOVA
DE R. FUNK
DE M. PFEIFER
C1M
GB D. FLORENCE
SI B. SAVSEK
GB R. WESTLEY
C1W
AU J. FOX
CZ K. HOSKOVA
ES N. VILARRUBLA
C2
DE ANTON/BENZIEN
FR PICCO/BISO
FR KLAUSS/PECHE

Extreme

My first flight!

canoe kayak wildwater whitewater sabrina barm norway river waterfall sportscene 32 feet 10 meter Jordalenselvi

Sabrina Barm | Sportscene - 32 feet are damn high. So high, so terrifying, the first sight of the horizon line made me cry. I had read about this waterfall long before, and for even longer, I had been dreaming of running a waterfall this high or even higher. I had run an 8m high drop before, but that 10 m mark seemed magic, like a door to a new dimension.

What I had not foreseen was that dreams can become bigger than reality once you want to make them real. Of course I knew that this would be something new and that I would be scared, but I thought that I somehow could overcome nervousness just like I often had in some juicy rapid, not a big deal at all. But now, the moment it should become reality, I was so scared of the drop it felt like I would never be able to do it. It was a sunny day in Norway on the Jordalenselvi at a somewhat low flow. A couple of days before, I had arrived in this northern paradise of whitewater and steep creeking, and the very first river had already smashed my self confidence into pieces.

canoe kayak wildwater whitewater sabrina barm norway river waterfall sportscene 32 feet 10 meter JordalenselviI'm not a daredevil - actually I'm a rather timid person. At least not the kind of person you would assume to run gnarly whitewater. But I had heard the call of the river, and as big as my fear often was - I just couldn't resist. I just wanted it so much, now I had to find a way to deal with fear and nervousness!

I was with two very experienced kayakers who kept saying this wasn't even a big river and that at this low water level this was easy. Maybe, but still those were the biggest volume rapids I'd ever run. If you watch 'bombflow TV', it looks all flawless and while we know that it's not as easy as it looks, we have no idea of how hard it really can be. Especially if you're not one of the daredevils those guys seem to be, but just an ordinary girl who at some point has heard the call of the river. You can't resist the call, that's what brought you here in the end, but this doesn't mean it's not scary or not hard to do. Now there I was, on a creek in the highlands of Norway. Sight never reached very far before the next horizon line came with a rapid to scout, most of them ambitious, and after several hours we reached the point when my friend said it would be only two hundred meters until the big waterfall. I was exhausted after hours on the river, and when I came round the corner, all I saw was the river dropping away into nowhere. A medium, but sketchy looking drop and the horizon line of the big fall after that, you couldn't even see the pool below. My first thought was "no way!" Despair. Was it all gone? Creeking and the wish to progress into the real art of it - those dreams, that had meant so much to me, was I not strong enough to live them? Tears running down my face.

After a while, I thought, I could have at least a closer look at the scenery and the pool of the big drop. Thinking of a possible line. The pool was big enough to get safe if something should go wrong. Slowly, I went back to my boat, running the first drop, letting a kayaker lead the way as a safetyboater just in case I'd mess it up. Then I scouted the large drop again. I sat down on the rocks, silently. I listened. To the wind, the water, to my inner self. Until I had the answer.
I moved my boat out of the eddy, into the big unknown. There was the horizon line. One last check on speed and position and there I was: Flying trough the air!

The flight took only two seconds, if at all, and the impact when I hit the water in the pool was remarkable, but not as bad as I had thought.

What matters is that I listened to my inner self and could hear the voice giving me the answer. What matters is that this answer was yes and that I found the courage to believe in myself - that I took another step forward, towards living a dream.