Alps White Water Holiday – France 2026 – Sunday Day 09 Upper Durance

2026 08 09 Upper Durance

We put in at Briançon at the rafting access point, having left a car at the Prelles Dam next to the tunnel. The route from the Briançon rafting access point down to the Prelles Dam is an initiation whitewater run on the Upper Durance covering roughly 8 kilometres of Class II–III rapids. This section is heavily used for initiation and technique training.

Over the first 2 kilometres, the urban landscape, roads, and concrete reinforcement of Briançon fade away as the river moves into a progressively quieter, forested valley. Here we found a small play wave, and we all had a go at surfing it.

On reaching the tall crane (used by the builders’ yard to load and move materials), we came across a good but technical section which requires careful navigation until you reach the next bridge and halfway access point.

From here on was our favourite section, which had well-defined channels with small boulder gardens. Eddies behind riverbank boulders were highly visible and stable, making them ideal for target-practice eddy-hopping.

After this we had to look ahead for classic “V” channels of deep water. The waves here become punchier but lack significant hazards or pinning potential under normal flows. The final rapid is graded as a Class III (The Prelles Entry Rapid), but it felt a lot easier than that at these levels.

Several of our party had a final “Alps roll” in view of Prelles Barrage before we hauled the kayaks up the steep bank to the waiting cars.