The French Alps, June 2005

By Katy Hogarth (other paddlers: Max Bilbow, Adam Dumolo.)

Having received a phone call from Adam saying him and Max were looking for another paddler for their booked Alps trip, visions of grade 5 water and certain death came into my mind, I decided I would be a liability and declined. As soon as the phone was put down I realised that this was an opportunity I couldn't chicken out of. I quickly made my excuses at work, rand Adam back and booked my flight. After some last minute purchases (A guide to the Rivers of the Southern Alps, Peter Knowles) We flew out to Turin with the boats and inflatable roof racks. Little did we know that the hire car awaiting us in Italy would be a Nissan Micra. It took us almost an hour to work out how to fit our kit into the car and secure the boats on possibly the most curved roof ever. And a few more hours to negotiate Italy without a road map. We found the campsite later that evening at l'Argentiare and established ourselves between some friendly looking tents.

19th - Middle Durance from slalom course at camp site to Embrun

Although I had paddled with Adam before, Max and I did not know each other or our paddling abilities and only the two boys had run rivers together before. Fully aware now that the two people I was with were awesome, experienced paddlers I was starting to wonder what I was doing here. Living in Norfolk I hadn't done a lot of white water, and the Tryweryn didn't really seem to compare to the rivers we were looking at, but Adam had a lot of faith in my roll. Camping right next to the slalom course meant we could walk it carefully and take a look. With plenty of eddies, a flat stretch afterwards and lots of get outs it looked well within our abilities, so we ran it with no problems and continued down the Middle Durance. Ranging from grade 2-3+ parts of the durance were bouncy and interesting, and other parts relaxing. We came across a couple of beautiful natural play waves, and my rolling got some refreshing practice. We had the whole river to ourselves, it was a beautiful paddle. The sheer size of this river meant there was little pressure to select perfect lines, but we got some invaluable group work and river signal practice in. At the get out Adam and I had a wait in the rain whilst Max hitched up to the car. Everyone agreed that though we had enjoyed the paddle, tomorrows rivers needed to be slightly more challenging.

20th - Chateau Queras into Guardian Angel gorge, down to Triple drop.

A group of 4 rafts showed up in time to see me get a total trashing on one of the drops, taking two rolls and finding some great sub-aqua lines, but I rolled back up smiling. I definitely found this paddle a challenge, but loved every minute of it. By the time we stopped for a much needed lunch break I was exhausted. My S6 didn't punch through the stoppers with as much ease as the boy's creek boats and I had been paddling hard. We paddled the grade 4+ section before triple drop to where the car was. By this point I decided I'd achieved enough for one day, so whilst the boys scouted triple drop I heaved my boat up to the car and took photographs. They got out a few metres below the drop and we headed back for camp.

Impressed that we had made it through two of the Guil's gorges without any epics or major problems, Max and Adam set the base grade of our future rivers at 3-3+. Whilst socialising in the evening, one of the lad's coaches from Leeds, Lauren (originally from France) talked us carefully through the Ramonche, no eddies, very fast, with a grade 5 section definitely worth a look after two big boulders on the left.

21st - Ramonche and Middle Guisane

The Ramonche (4- 4+ ) and the Guisane had been recommended by the Irish inhabitants of the friendly looking tents next to us, and Lauren, and Max had paddled the Guisane on previous alps trips, so we decided to give them a go. The Ramonche was a long drive from the campsite, but luckily some Irish paddlers had lent us a CD to listen to. Sadly the Kaiser Chiefs started to grate after the 3rd playing of the album, and we reverted back to French radio. The Ramonche had been recommended due to its reliable water levels… but in June after the snow has gone, 'reliable' meant glacial melt water. The get out was immediately above a nasty looking weir. The term 'get out' didn't really apply, as there wasn't really an eddy or a beach making a nice spot to disembark. However we headed back up to the much prettier get on, below a grade 5 rapid which, as Peter Knowles had warned, was full of metal. It was obvious that trees could be a major problem on the river, as the flow went fast, straight under some low branches. Adam and I waited for Max for what seemed an age in the heat; it was an epic of a hitch with very few cars passing along the remote road. Eventually he got back and we got on in a synchronised seal launch fashion due to the speed of the river. The temperature of the water quickly dispelled the heat induced doze me and Adam had been in.

We made perhaps 2 eddies over a 3km rollercoaster stretch of river, and quick decisions about lines and obstacles had to be made. As we shot past the second of a pair of large boulders on the left, panic filled me as Lauren's warnings came flooding back. The difficulty level did jump up, but we made it through the frothy rapids, dodged some more trees and in no time were approaching the get out. Whilst trying to catch a tiny eddy behind a rock, I managed to capsize and I think I performed a record breaking speed roll knowing the weir wasn't far downstream. However, the water here was slower than it looked and we disembarked safely. We basked on the roadside trying to re-coup some body heat after the freezing whirlwind of a river, but it immediately became one of our favourites for sheer thrill and excitement.

The Middle Guisane was another fast river, but it was less furious than the Ramonche and a bit warmer. There was a nasty weir we had to portage, but it was clearly signed and easy to get round. There were several sections which were choppier, and required a bit of planning and thought, but nothing too extreme. After a couple of days of paddling this was an ideal river, challenging but friendly, we had a lot of fun running the river. With the get out in Briancon, the drive home wasn't long either.

22nd - Middle Claree, Middle Guil

Doing two rivers seemed to work well for us, with a good break for lunch in-between, so this was the plan again today. Max had wanted to run the Claree from day one, as he had run part of it when he was young and had to sate his nostalgia. We had scouted it a number of times, but the water level had been touch and go. We knew it would be higher in the morning, and had had plenty of rain the previous evening so we got up before sunrise and decided to go for it. (My boat still hasn't forgiven me) The get on was the stillest, gentlest little trickle of a river but just around the corner it quickly became a hard, bouncy rapid. The challenge on this river was determining which rocks were deep enough to get over, and which rocks were too sharp to go anywhere near. However the scraping noises, bumps, and occasional shouts of 'Ouch!' suggested we didn't manage it very well. Peter Knowles in this case had not mentioned the significant tree hazard. No-one was stupid enough to take a roll luckily, with razor sharp rocks just below the surface. The scenery was stunning, and it was nice to be on a totally different type of river again. The water was running quickly and soon we were at the get out, I enjoyed the run despite the damage to my knee caps and boat.

The rain the previous day had a very different effect on the Middle Guil, there had been a landslide affecting the course of the river and the water was running chocolate brown. We scouted everything we could from the road carefully, and came across a man sat on a rock in the middle of the river with his paddle. His boat, we found out, had totally subbed in a strainer in the river. Submerged trees littered the river and the landslide definitely needed portaging, as the river now ran through a forest. For the first time I felt scared of a river, but the boys were very reassuring and once I got on, just below triple drop I was fine. We eddy hopped the river carefully, as not even the guide book was up to date on the new rapids and obstacles which had developed due to the rain. Portaging the landslide was a challenge, as the new mud was very soft, and paddlers who weren't light footed started to sink. After the landslide was also interesting, as we knew the grade 5 'X-box' was coming up, but couldn't see another eddy before it, and portaging it was not possible from where we were. Luckily this drop was further down, and we could get out and have a good look at it first. I portaged it due to the sheer size of a stopper mid way down, which looked more than capable of eating an S6. Whilst scouting this drop we also got a good look at an ominous black cloud which was rolling towards us down the valley. Not wishing to get caught in any further landslides, and with the river closing to paddlers at 6pm anyway, we dashed down some more fairly intense grade 4 rapids teamed up with a larger group of paddlers fleeing the cloud. The rain caught us at the get out, but after reloading the roof a few times it had become a well rehearsed performance, and took only a few minutes in the torrential rain, much to the amusement of other paddling groups we met with their big vans.

23rd - Ubaye racecourse and gorge

The Ubaye racecourse and gorge seemed to be quite notorious, rivers not to be taken lightly, but we had done our homework and again they had been recommended to us. We scouted the river carefully, parking up and walking along the grade 6 Lions Den and other sections we could see from the road. However as we pulled into the rafting centre at the get on, we were met with a united feeling of disapproval. The Placy Brenin van was there, and they seemed insulted that we might be paddling the same river as them. Our image, in an Italian Nissan Micra with inflatable roof racks can't have been that impressive I suppose. Not helped by coloured sticks of foam we had purchased in a local supermarket and had fashioned into spoilers for our boats. A number of paddlers decided it was their responsibility to warn us off, and did their best. I had already decided I wasn't running the gorge, and had arranged a lift from the racecourse get out, but the boys were not discouraged by the rumours and tales of gravestones. The racecourse was good fun with some great rapids, but nothing too dangerous. There were some big wave trains and a couple of boulders to dodge. We followed some hydro-speeders down, which made it seem safer still. We pulled up at the racecourse get out and I waved goodbye to Adam and Max. I then had to wait an hour and a half for the guys I was getting a lift with, they had obviously taken a lot longer over the river. I met Adam and Max on the lake at the bottom of the gorge, who were luckily fine.

24th - Le Bonne

At this stage in the week we were starting to run out of nearby suitable options, so we decided the Bonne would be worth the 2 hour drive. The usual get on was out of the question due to a large tree blocking the whole river just below, so we had to improvise a get on a bit further down. We scrambled down to the river to inspect the grade 4 section at the start; it was breathtaking, the river was no more than a few feet wide and wiggled its way through a dramatic channel it had carved in the rock. Whilst Adam and I waited for Max to hitch back up from the get out, Dublin University Kayak club turned up at the get on. There must have been 40 of them, and they were planning to run the river as one group. We predicted carnage and so rushed to get on the river before them. The grade 6 'slimming machine' further downstream was not accessible for scouting from the road, so we set off cautiously checking round every corner. The first grade 4 section was even more awesome on the water than it had looked, and afterwards it opened up into a nice grade 3 river. Sadly our caution meant Dublin caught us up just before the slimming machine. All the eddies were jam packed, and they held us up for 45 minutes running the section above the grade 6 with several swimmers, and subbed boats. Max and Adam ran the slimming machine anyway, which didn't seem as much of a grade 6 as Peter Knowles had made out, probably due to low water. The rest of the river was beautiful, with a great play wave just before the get off.

25th - Lower Durance

On the last day we decided to chill out, and paddled the lower durance down to Embrun to check out the play spots. This was a 16km expedition of mostly grade 2+ - 3 water, and Max and Adam decided I should lead it. The Durance was vastly wide, but parts were very shallow, and the river split into as many as 4 channels more than 10 times, which gave me a lot of scouting and decision making to do. Far from a chill-out paddle! Although I didn't need to worry about the ability of my group, I had to keep an eye on them and I hadn't paddled the river before and wasn't sure which channels were clear and deep enough to run. Before each split I had to take the widest line so I could check around the corners, and then use the river signals we'd spent all week practicing to direct the group down the river. I managed well considering, avoiding all the shingle banks and shallow sections. To add interest we also avoided imaginary syphons, boulders and stoppers. Although I knew the Rav play spot was coming up, the drop was not visible until we were too close. Luckily I led the guys down the tongue and through the wave, instead of the messy stoppers both sides. They went back in to play anyway. There were no more major splits or features downstream, some bumpy waves, but nothing big until the next play wave at Embrun. This was busy with other playboaters, so with the other two in creek boats anyway, we only stopped for a while before getting out and heading to the airport. Despite the pressure of leading, this was a gentle and enjoyable trip to conclude our week.