ObsOmmer 37
Olaf FILM MAKER NUSSDORF, GERMANY
Why he rOcks: He’s the great European purveyor of paddling porn; classic flicks like the Sickline series, Extreme Harmony and Painkillerz. But don’t let the lights and camera fool you, there’s nothing fictional about Olaf Obsommer’s story; no special effects have been added to this article. Catching the fever from his parents at just seven years old, Obsommer started by way of canoe, mostly flatwater family outings, turning to longer, more hearty solo excursions through Germany as the years went by. An industrial mechanics post-secondary education would have served him well, but paddling came more naturally, and learning to kayak opened new rivers that had to be filmed. Since 1992, Obsommer has scoured the globe looking for sweet drops and twisted runs over extended, multi-month long expeditions, most notably throughout Norway to create a river guide, in Canada as part of the first European team to tackle the Grand Canyon of the Stikine and major first descents in Pakistan. NOt WithOut risk: After a hundred trips, each with its own little lesson about what to pack, where to get reliable information or who should make up a team, Obsommer says the most important lesson he’s taken from the river is to trust yourself, but not too much. “The last time I cried for my mama was probably 25 years ago,” he says. “It was just a quick descent of a small creek in February. There was snow everywhere and it was hard to scout. We decided to put in because we did this run before, knew it quite well and we’re heroes, of course. My friend scouted, didn’t see the whole waterfall and I ended up in a narrow slot without exit. After some cartwheels and a lot of contact to the walls I jumped out of my kayak and came to the point where I thought, ‘okay that’s it.’ I learned never to over-assess my skills and to always scout on my own.” iN Other WOrds: “When I started travelling with Olaf we were only in search of new rivers. Normally you would paddle the classics and then look for something new—we did it the other way around. We spent more time walking and climbing around unknown valleys than actually sitting in the boat,” says friend and fellow film producer Jensen Klatt. “He was always looking for the upper-upper, or the un- run canyon in the middle. We often got into trouble, because sometimes we just tried it, even when we had no info. ‘Yeah, that looks like its gonna be a tough one. I’ll go first and will film you from below’, he’d say.” lOOkiNg ahead: In July, Obsommer is planning a major exploration of Greenland’s whitewater and he will be organizing the Adidas Sickline extreme kayak race scheduled for October. —NEIL ETIENNE
www.rapidmag.com 37
RAPID PHOTO JENSEN KLATT
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