Canoeing Görälven

Görälven is a nice canoeing water that mostly flows slowly with some elements of stronger rapids. The canoe route starts in Norway but most of the route towards Sälen goes through Sweden. The canoeing is well suited for a three-day trip with pleasant canoeing in a beautiful environment.

Watch the video for more info about kayaking along the Görälven river.

Canoeing Görälven

This tour started at Stötens camping because the border to Norway was closed during the pandemic. The stretch in Norway is supposed to be one of the finer parts of the tour, so it needs to be investigated and returned to on another trip. Due to this, the trip was shortened and the first day we only paddled for about 1 hour before we set up camp.

Finding good campsites was a little harder than we had first anticipated. One thing to take into account is the current. If you missed a good place, it was not obvious that you could turn around and paddle back as the current was often too strong.
The first night was spent at a sandbank along the river and we tried our luck at fishing, which did not yield anything and unfortunately would be a consistent feature during the trip.

The next day we continued paddling down Görälven. The paddling floats easily with the help of the current. Even in the calmer parts of the river you notice the current and get help from the flow of the river. A section of about 2 km occurs where there are more rapids and you have to take the entire distance without any paus. It’s not extreme, but you have to sharpen up a little extra and keep an eye on the rocks for the risk of capsizing. When this stretch is over, Görälven flows together with Fulan and forms Västerdalälven.

The whole day offers nice and varied kayaking. Several small islands are passed where you can paddle into small tributaries and explore. The fishing continued to be disappointing as it was completely dead. We fished with spinners, maybe we would have had better luck with the fly. The search for a nice place to set up the tent continued towards the evening and even though there were many places that would work, it was difficult to find something that felt perfect. In the end, we found a place we liked on a small island.

The third and last day was mostly about packing up and getting back to Sälen. Now the river flows more calmly and when you approach Sälen buildings also start to appear.
Canoeing in Görälven has a lot to offer with beautiful nature and varied canoeing.