Norway by SUP

In January, in the middle of winter in Europe, the two Fanatic riders Kai-Nicolas Steimer and Lena Albrecht decided to discover Norway – not scared of fighting conditions with temperatures far below zero degree.

But not equipped with snowboard or skiers as you might think. No, they started their adventure-trip to Europe’s biggest glacier with their iSUPs, drysuits, an off-road-trailer and a twenty square meter tent accompanied by  Lars Jacobsen, a photographer from Hamburg and Maximilian Stolarow, a cameraman from Berlin.

The two athletes had the idea to discover places far away from their hometown Hamburg and far away from well-known, warm destinations that you normally combine with Stand Up Paddling – ready for real adventures. Exploring landscapes nobody discovered with a SUP so far, not meeting a single soul on the way, was their idea.

After three days setup time with a lot of organisation and research they decided to start the trip with one car and one trailer loaded with their tent and heaps of watersports-equipment. They took the ferryboat from Hirthals, in the north of Denmark, to Langsund in Norway. From there, they left the well-known roads to drive through beautiful, lonely valleys and frozen landscapes with lakes and rivers covered in ice and snow. Finding a place to stay for the night, with just a thin a tent in that rough landscape was quiet challenging. They knew it would be cold, however none of them expected  minus 21° during the first night. The iciness didn’t only affect their bodies, but also froze almost all of their food and the gas for their stove. That´s when they started to doubt if that was the right idea after all. But even though they were worried to have underestimated the temperatures and rough nature, they were still fixed on their goal: to discover the biggest fjord Europe´s with their SUPs.

The unreal beauty and the deep, shining blue of the glazier was absolutely impressive. They stopped in front of the completely frozen lake to enjoy this awesome scenery. Unfortunately there was no water but just ice and so they had to move on, searching for a place to paddle.

But after all, the rough nature and cold did not stop the two paddlers but opened their eyes once more for the versatility and passion of SUP. They are looking forward to many more SUP-adventure in landscapes no paddler had seen before!

FANATIC SUP