Mår (Lower)
| Stretch: | Abandoned House at the end of the gorge to the lake |
| Difficulty: | Class III (IV+) |
| Distance: | 1.6 miles |
| Flows: | 15-40+ cms (no gauge) |
| Gradient: | 143 fpm average |
| Put-in: | End of the dirt road up river left from the lake. |
| Take-out: | At the lake |
| Shuttle: | 2.0 miles (5 minutes one-way) |
| Season: | April to June |
| Written: | © 2015 |
| Featured in A Wet State #101 | |
Norway 2015 - Day 3 Afternoon
I will keep this brief. The guidebook stated it was a class III to IV run, which was the same rating that it gave the Upper Austbygdåi so we expected a fun, but short run with some good size drops. It also said there was one class V (which on the other runs similar rated rapids were BIG!). To our surprise this run was actually class III or III- even. And the class V was a class IV to IV+ with an easy move to make in front of an undercut on a slide and an ok size hole at the bottom. Even as flows come up and the hole becomes meatier I cannot imagine the rapid being Norway class V.
Note, we almost made the mistake of just continuing down from the Home Run thinking that it was the "Lower" run. We then noticed the book had a blank section with no info that we figured out was the gorge section and is apparently fairly full on. In fact, that section is called the "Middle Mår" and is indeed the hardest section of the Mår. It was featured in a video that Marianne Sæther put out this spring and looks really good. Apparently you go there when the rest of the river is full of water. Looked pretty fun though, maybe it was too bad we didn't accidentally drop into that section.
Anyways, we had low water on the Lower, probably around 12 cms or so. It was just a low level boulder bash for the most part other than the one nice slide. If you are bored at camp it can fill an hour nicely... but I honestly wouldn't go out of my way to plan to do the Lower.
Last: Norway 2015: Day 3 Morning - Austbygdåi (Upper)
Next: Norway 2015: Day 4 - Numedalslågen
Mi 0.0:
- Island (III to IV). As the river recombines just below an Island just below put-in, there is a class IV-ish rapid. We were on the left side of the island and stayed right.
Boogie (III). Really, there wasn't anything on this run that stood out, just some boogie. More water would have been welcome of course.
- Slide (IV+). The guidebook called this class V, and after our previous day on class V, and this morning on class III to IV, we expected something big. But alas it wasn't. The right side is undercut, the hole at the bottom can get real with water apparently. But we just stayed off the right wall and kept it straight.
Boogie (III). More boogie that after the road bridge putters off to class II by the time you hit the lake.
Take-out: From Atra, continue on 364 for an additional 1.2 km before crossing the Mår river. Continue after crossing it for 1 km before turning right and dropping down into a rock quarry type area. We parked here which is on the left at the very top of the lake.
Put-in: Go back out and towards Atra. Turn right just before crossing the Mår river. This road turns to dirt and forks several times, stay left at the forks. Follow it until you can't anymore which is near an old cabin and a large split in the river.
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