Upper Hoègne (B) - part 2 Cascade Leopold II (Les Nutons)

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Tripreport
Upper Hoègne

6 January 2001, Hoge Venen - Hautes Fagnes , Belgium

Paddlers : Steven-XXX, Piet-gliss, Vincent-voodoo, Michel-kendo, Bruno-kaituna, Dirk-topo and Birdy-vertigo.

Part two
Cascade Leopold II (Cascade Les Nutons)

This is another famous and spectacular part of the Upper Hoègne, the fall. It is known as 'Cascade Les Nutons' but if you look carefully on a map you 'll find the name 'Cascade Leopold II'.

It's a nice drop, I guess around 3 meters..., it's not freefalling but a very steep slide. You can try to boof or go for the dive, anyway there 's a sucking hole at the bottom that you can't escape from.

The first one that goes down is Bruno, fearless going for the boof. That isn't easy 'cause one meter in front of the fall is a little hole that stops you. So it 's difficult to take some speed. If you passed this hole you can aim for the right of the fall and boof of a little lip on the side.

He did this wonderful and boofed 'kind of sideways in front of the hole, but still the falling water caught his tail, so he went vertical, but got out. Great jump.

This is one of the better pictures, so enjoy. It's Vincent taking the middle, going for the dive, Bruno waiting in the eddy. I don't know exactly how he got out. I think he backlooped. Anyway, he went that deep that got trapped in a branch that was stuck in the hole. But after some struggling he rolled up and got out.

After having seen this log, nobody felt very save. Dirk certainly didn't. But he 's got a thing with this drop, until now he always got trapped in this hole and bailed out . This time was no different, except that he also was trapped by the branch (no picture). He swam out and when he jumped back in secured by a rope to get his topo, he also took the branch out. What we thought to be a 2 meter branch, appeared to be a entire tree, 5 meter long.

		So with the tree out, the following boaters were pretty relieved and so Steven jumped. He took the middle but didn't dive. He just came down and slid over the hole. He 's so light that his XXX rockered over the hole. He was so enthusiastic 'bout the lot that he almost got sucked back in.
		So next up was myself. I tried the same thing as Bruno, boof of the rightbank. It wasn't the best boof, but I still managed to get the noose of the boat 40cm out of the water and so it slid over the hole. But the tail was caught and off I went vertical, squirt, soleil, lucky I didn't go over backwards, no problem, passed the hole.

So last up was Michel, he walked up to get in his boat and jump. But we had to wait suspiciously long, somebody getting scared? For a moment I expected him coming out of the bush carrying his boat on his shoulder. But no way, there he was taking the middle , going for the deep, and yes, yes, he pops out, vertical, no backloop and out, yeeeehaaaa.

Then we continued the ride, 1 km grade III, to Belleheid, were another paddler joined us for another couple of kilometers relaxed playboating.

This was the hell of ride, great afternoon. Next time this thing has water, probably in a couple of years, I'm sure we try to paddle each drop. And perhaps take a videocamera along. So we can make wonderful carnage videosssss.

c u Birdy

back to pic's ! back to base ! back to part one

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