A Team: Keith, Martin, Nikki, Terry, Sarah, John
B Team: Stuart, Kurt, Roy, Jackie, Dom, Stephen 

Swim Tally = 9 (no names shall be mentioned)

As we were staying at our usual base camp in L’argentière la Bessèe, we had an early morning to set off to my favourite alpine river in the next region over. The Ubaye Racecourse!

We dropped a few of the group off at Du Lac near the get-out for some sunbathing and light watersports. Four SUPs were also unloaded for some post-river activities to come later on.

All twelve of us set off from the usual get-in of Le Martinet Rafting centre. It was a cool morning, and the sun hadn’t quite come over the peaks of the mountains yet.

The levels were pretty low, but it was manageable. The whole group paddled okay for the first couple of km. We had a swimmer not too long after, and it wasn’t their last of the day.

It was a slow start, but we made steady progress until we hit the first major rapid. Where the river splits into two channels. We all got out to inspect and to decide on the best line we could take. (During winter/spring, the river often floods, changing the riverbed, creating new flows.)

Five Paddlers portaged (including Ste Hitchin 😉). The rest went down with no issues. 

The rest of the section was standard until we hit the gorge, just above the infamous shark’s tooth rapid. We had a few swimmers whilst navigating our way through, but these were dealt with speed and efficiency, with paddlers back in boats ready to continue the rest of the section.

The rapids soon sloped off, and we arrived at Keith’s famous picture rock in the big eddy above the final grade 4 rapid. All got down this apart from one… Stuart also had to roll his way through. We put this down to his “slicey” boat.

Heading under the Roman bridge, we tackled the last remaining section as one big group. Getting out of the river on the left side of the boulder beach and up the steps towards the cars.

We then headed up to Du Lac for a snooze, beer, swim and paddleboard.

A great day was had by all, and an amazing test for some paddlers in the group. New skills learned, tested and lifelong memories were made for parts of the group doing their first descent. All with a smile on their face.