Scandinavia

A weekend trip on Krokån

Written by Tobias K Andersen

Yeah, our first video is out! Check out the footage we got packrafting Krokån in August 2017 filmed with an old Go Pro. Hope you’ll enjoy the video!

Wanting to do a loop, we parked the car downstream of Krokån in the town Knäred and hiked for 3-4 hours close to the town on Egernahult.

With the Summer ending and Jesper going to Boston for the next semester, we decided what other way to say “see ya’ soon” then going for a short packrafting trip. So in the beginning of August, we sat out on the 3 hour drive from Copenhagen towards the Swedish stream Krokån just east of Halmstadt to spend our weekend there. In the car we had all the necessary equipment for a short packrafting trip: Our packrafts, paddles, PDFs, wet suits and backpacks with a tent, sleeping bags and food for two days.

From what we could gather of information on the web, Krokån has been a playground for kayakers for a long time with especially Flammafaldet, three smaller consecutive rapids, drawing some attention. Though there was not much information out there on common places to start and the duration of such a trip. Actually, you will have a hard time locating the stream on Google Maps. Luckily, we found much inspiration from Urban Packrafter‘s site (it’s pretty cool – you should definitely check it out).

Wanting to do a loop, we parked the car downstream of Krokån in the town Knäred and hiked for 3-4 hours close to the town on Egernahult. The forest scenery was beautiful even though we stayed on the main road for most of the trip. Just before we reached Egernahult, we left the road and started bushwacking. To our surprise we soon heard the loud thunders of roaring rapids.

Most sections of Krokån can be divided into three sections. Either the river has cut into the stone foundation and created rapids or very small gorges. This was definitely the fun sections of the river, where we found our self doing multiple runs. There are a handful of them scattered along the river. We felt that none of the rapids were to dangerous to paddle with one exception: At the lower sections of the river, there has been an old water mill where the drop is approximately three meters down into more rocks. At the right side (same side where there houses are located), we dragged our rafts along the stones.

Then there was the flatter sections along pastures or wetlands. These sections were beautiful and tranquil and really giving you the opportunity to catch your breath and take in the scenery. And then there was the broader sections with just not enough inclination to increase the speed of the water, leaving behind all of the bigger stones. These sections were bumpy and at times irritatingly time consuming, enough so that we wadded along the river a few times, but not enough to dampen our excitement for the river.

All in all, Krokån is perfect for a weekend trip! Krokån is close to Copenhagen, has a handful of very fun rapids, easy to hike to and navigate along (just follow the river!). We cannot recommend the river more for beginners of packrafters or rafters just needing to do some paddling!

Either the river has cut into the stone foundation and created rapids or very small gorges. This was definitely the fun sections of the river, where we found our self doing multiple runs.