Late Autumn in Austria with Kayak School Arlberg

Though our kayak school has closed its doors for the 2025 Austria season, there is still water in the rivers at home so we have been enjoying some down time kayaking on the river Sanna and the river Inn.

There is no one around at this time of the year and so we have the rivers to ourselves.  The Autumn colours are still going strong up on the mountains and there are some leaves left shimmering in the sun by the side of the river.  The water colour is beautiful with the Inn almost turquoise and you can see the river bed in a lot of places on the Sanna.  With no more glacier melt and the sediment that comes down with it, coupled with a few days without rainfall you can really see how clear the river water is.

The river Sanna loses all its pushiness with the low levels, making it super easy to kayak compared the the Spring.  There are still plenty of features to play on the river with and that is why the Sanna is an Alpine gem, it is good fun at all river levels. The surfing has been great on the Sanna this season, with some new Autumnal waves coming out of hibernation proving to be so much fun.

It is just the Imst Gorge section of the River Inn currently working this Autumn around Base Arlberg.  The dams kept the Finstermunz, Toesens Gorge and Landeck Gorge sections of the River Inn in Austria dry all Summer and throughout the Autumn.

With current low levels the Imst Gorge has certainly lost all of its volume that makes this section so much fun, usually the big and bouncy waves throughout the whole section puts a smile on the majority of faces!

There are still some waves to punch through and a few places to surf, the big difference now is that you are having to paddle the flat sections down to the next rapid but with no-one around and beautiful Autumn scenery that glow just keeps on going making those big water runs a distant memory!

To be fair, late Autumn can be a bit hit and miss, both with the weather and also the water levels.  So far the weather this Autumn has been a mixture of lovely sunny days with deep blue skies,  interspersed with rain in the valley and snow in the mountains.  Here where we are based in the Arlberg region of western Austria, we had snow already down into the valley and outside our house and over a metre of snow fell up in the high parts of the surrounding mountains!  

The river levels have been more challenging with just the Imst Gorge and Sanna to kayak here limiting us dramatically, however, as we live here, we can just pick and choose our days to kayak, head into the mountains or meander in the forest, Autumn in this part of Austria is a special place!

Though in 3 weeks Steve will be in Chile preparing everything ready to lead a kayaking trip in December from Santiago down to Pucon, stopping off at the Rio Claro and the 7 Tea Cups on the way down.

Greetings Steve, Ute and Toby from Kayak School Arlberg in Austria.