French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 13 L’Argentière-la-Bessée to Embrun 2019 by Stuart and Kurt Toulson We departed the campsite on what was to be the club’s penultimate trip in the Alps this Year at 10am. Most departed from the beach, whilst a few carried up to the top of the slalom course, a great cure for a hangover!! The weather was perfect for this long paddle, we had a steady head wind to keep us cool in the scorching sun. This being the second week of the trip, everyone was working together well as a team. This would be tested later in the trip. Rounding a gentle bend, we were astonished to whiteness Helen at full flight. With the speed of 1000 gazelles she caught her boat, just before it drifted off on its own! The next incident occurred at the undercut cliff, the location of one of last week’s swims. As we approached, I thought I spotted a kayak wedged in the undercut. As we neared the cliff face, I saw it was a folded raft wedged fast. Luckily the crew were safe downstream. We made contact with the raft guide and offered our services. A line was attached to the stricken raft, from the other side of the river a large team of us (10) tried to free it. We needed to try the pull from 3 different directions but finally managed to free it using a direct pull. Once free its buoyancy fired it vertically up the cliff and out into the flow of the river where it was pendulum it into an eddy. A very relieved raft guide thanked us, but I think owing to an international salvage agreement the club is now owed a lot of beers!! We next arrived at the slalom course; […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 12a The Upper Ubaye by Martin Aldridge Another “early” start (the definition of early varies throughout the group and has a strong correlation to the previous evenings activities). Whilst we’re on the subject of the previous evening, it was the groups evening out the night before. We ventured into Briancon old town and had a lovely evening with good food and a fewbottles of alcohol (one bottle of wine each in some people’s case – despite to say, early was any time before the afternoon really). Off we went up to the Upper Ubaye, dropping off SUP’s and people at the lake at the end of the race course. Having less water this time than last and considering we broke two boats last time, Keith decided to park the shuttle car a little sooner before the shallows. We also used the new get in, the fisherman friendly one, and to be honest a much easier access point. It was like a completely new river! On we got for a rather shallow start, but the water picked up and we could float down the river for a pleasant G3- trip. Many boulders later we arrived at the “green” bridge, which was decidedly brown/rusty and marked the end of the trip. Many played in the boat killing wave whilst the car shuttlers scuttled off to do their duty. Bring on lunch and then to the Racecourse… More photographs……….

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 10a The Middle Guil by Kirk Williams A happy bunch of paddlers set of from the campsite around 9:06 am, somewhat later than the announced start due to the driver looking for his keys. Or just being late. Or something. But definitely not texting. It just needed mentioning. We headed up the Guil valley, peering over the edge at each opportunity to see the river looking a little bony to say the least. A final inspection from the get out layby confirmed we were going to go for it but from the raft get in rather than the usual bridge further up. We split up into teams of four and set off in slightly staggered intervals to give each other space on a rocky technical river but keeping contact between the teams in convenient group eddies when they presented themselves. The paddling went well with everyone relaxing into what can be a daunting trip, especially for first timers, with teams working together to make our way safely down a classic Alpine river. It was a bit harsh that the Toulson Trio decide to give Jake (not paddled for a decade…) the playboat to tackle the rocky road ahead, but he had the sense to realise his dad/brother had set him up and bail out early (hope the thumb is just a sprain…!) The rest of the team worked their way carefully down the river, negotiating some tricky sections without too much drama, finally arriving at Surprise Drop with few mishaps to find it was more of a surprise chute at this level. A couple of the group departed for the road at the raft get out above the Staircase rapid, with the rest choosing to brave the daunting portage (better than daunting rapid….!!) to […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 11a Upper Durance by Michael O`Rourke A leisurely depart time of 10am saw us waving goodbye to John on his journey to see his sister/avoid the minibus journey home. We were re-joined by Stuart and Dom after their previous day’s excursion to the Chateau Queryas in Dom’s hire car the Duck Egg. A modest 10 Euro entry fee into the Chateau seemed well worth it according to reports. Stuart was back to minibus door duty, it’s a tough job, but it’s no opening and closing window job. Stuart had to be remined on self occasions how to perform his duties. We separated into our now usual groups and headed on down the Upper Durance. Keen to avoid the leaders swimming curse Ian quickly delegated the leader’s role to Stuart, Myself and Hannah and we all took it in turn to lead. We took turns leading, selecting eddies to break into, hand signalling and the choo, choo full steam ahead signal with added sound effects. Hannah carefully navigated us through a set of rapids that curved around and under a bridge with a very colourful skull graffiti piece on then inside. After this we were given free reign to break in and out of as many eddies as we could. We let the other groups run though, not because we were slow, but we thought the more people there were down the bottom, the more people there would be to help us with our boats. Kirk`s group were also doing a significant amount of eddying and it seemed to become a race who could make it down the river the slowest. Eventually we all made it down to the bottom and once again Ian had avoided the leaders swimming curse. Unfortunately, we had left it […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 10c The Guil Valley by Nadja Ford On the 10th day of the Alps tour a group of five people, the three Twingo Boys and two Fords, made a detour from the rivers and went off site seeing. The morning promised us a glorious day so away we went. First on are list was Mont – Dauphin. From the car park hill our eyes opened on a magnificent view of the mountains, waterfall and we looked down at the River Guil, water of which run from the Queyras massif to maintain torrent. It hollowed out a canyon in the morainic sediment, having two plateaux of similar height face to face. After we indulged ourselves with the view and a bit of history we went further, deeper into the bastion, which looked spectacular from the main road. Skipping down to the bastion, Dom give some guided tour about how it’s built and how people of the bastion defends themselves from the invaders We passed double gates of defence, with some elements still intact. Walking down the street with old buildings, with little shops in it, and some consulting rooms and I believe family homes. Down the alley there was a monument which had been put there in 1921 to commemorate people who defended the bastion numerous times. Down we go past the old armoury buildings, old arsenal building and a Catholic Chapel. Outside the Chapel a gipsy circus was setting their performance place for later and we are making are way back to beginning of are tour. Passing living area, with old French houses and new twists on living. After short rest in the shade we make are way back to cars with some family stories about WW2. When we get back, we spot some […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 10b Chateau Queyras by Kirk Williams We headed up to Chateau Queyras after a great morning on the Middle Guil. There was a bit of talk in the minibus about plans for the afternoon, mostly about ice cream, a little about Via Ferrata, and a few whispers about the “toilet flush”. We arrived at a beautifully sunny quaint mountain town and the chips were down. “Whoever’s paddling stay in your kit cos we’re going now and then eating ice cream all afternoon, who’s in?” The answer, a team of 8 for the paddle, a few more just for the spectating and the ice cream was the answer. Chateau Queyras is not that technical, but it is intimidating, so kudos to everyone who went for it, and encouragement for next year for those that didn’t. You can probably split it in to 3 main sections; a tricky, rocky lead in that can unseat a few and unsettle you for what follows; the central “toilet flush” that narrows and fires you through some balance challenging water features at pace; finally a more measured but still interspersed with rocky drops section to lead to the get out before the bridge section. We all gathered in the eddy at the top bridge to agree the approach and running order as once you set off that’s pretty much it. We basically decided to run as two teams of four in a bigger team of eight giving each other enough space but staying together. Work that one out if you can! So we set off one by one and entered to increasing flow realising that know it was hold on tight, stay loose and keep it straight, or else….Well there was no or else, everyone nailed it and we even did […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 9b The Upper Gyronde by Aleksander Ford The Gyronde was alpine great volume grade 4 – river which started from Valloise to Les Vigneax . It is formed from the Gyr and Onde which meet at their confluence at the barrage in Les Vigneax where we got on and set off. The Gyr and Onde water is normally taken off through the hydroelectric power station and re-enters the river Durance some 11 km downstream. They had been doing work on the barrage and consequently all the water down comes down the Gyronde and when came out of the raised dam barrier it was lot faster. There were ten people on the river in two groups of five today. The first group was Keith, Aleksander, Sarah, Neil and Ian. The second group was Kirk, Ron, Mark, Aaron and Helen. The start was at the Barrage which had an enormous wave which was right next to the weir. We had a difficult river with lots of hidden rocks. When we got to the most difficult part of the river there were two ways to go. Our group went first. The left side of the river you had swerve past a large boulder and immediately go river right to avoid a rather smaller boulder, which everyone missed but Mark choose to go over the rocks a different way and go back river left. The other way was down between two rocks and you could carry on straight and go left. This route was called the chicken chute which Aaron and Kirk took. When we came to an eddy after the bridge section there was a `boulder choke` in the middle of the river. Keith confidently described the route for the next part of the river; ‘Go right […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 9a The Upper Durance by Hannah Bellamy Monday was to be a two-river day, and in the morning, we headed to the Upper Durance. It was to be a warmup for those who would be paddling the Gyronde in the afternoon, and with plenty of opportunities for eddy hopping and mini wave surfing, an all-round nice river for everyone. We unloaded the trailer in our now well polished fashion, and in our groups (today our group adopted John), we set off down the river. Ian took the opportunity of this friendly river to give us all an opportunity to lead (some might say that he was delegating to avoid the leaders ‘curse’ that has unfolded over the week…!). During our turns leading, he reminded us all of four key points of leading; C=communication – to communicate clearly with your group using a combination of speech and river signals L=line of sight – as the leader you should maintain line of sight with the rest of your group A=avoidance of hazards (rocks/weirs/trees/even forgetting kit) P=position – as a leader you should position yourself where you are most useful to the group, be that at the front, in the middle or at the back depending on the river features/bends etc. In our group we took it in turns to lead, signalling into eddies frequently until we were about 1km from the end – then we eddy hopped and surfed our way to the get out, a bank just before the dam where we sat in the sunshine and waited for the shuttle to the afternoon river. More photographs……….

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 9c The Middle Durance by Jake Toulson So the Toulson brigade arrived yesterday with a little warm up session in the lake Kurt playing assistant coach to Jake, and got him warmed up for today’s paddle on the river Durance. Setting off around 10am with beautiful blue skies we headed down river after Jake eventually got his Cag on. Head coach dad (stu) taught Jake how to break in and out followed by some ferry gliding we got off to a good start. That practise had to soon come into action as Jake was stuck onto wrong side of the river with a huge tree coming his way. He did the best he could to avoid missing the trunk and luckily only hit a few leaves! Leaving Jakes and dads arses both nipping. Some beautiful scenery was observed along the way. As we floated down we spotted an eagle and a white water duck who was showing off his skills on the rapids. After about an hour we stopped for a break got out our kayaks Kurt thought he’d let some water out of his kayak losing his draining bung downstream; never to be see again. Dad (Stu) was ready to improvise with a stick and a bit of tape which saved the day! We headed back onto the water for the second half of our journey passing a group of French kayakers to which one shouted ALREET! (Geordie slang for hello) to which Jake replied with ALREET MATE! after further discussion with the group it turns out he wasn’t a Geordie at all he was simply saying salut! Which was a bit embarrassing for Jake but he blames the noise of the river for the mistake. We then had a steady paddle/float down […]

French Alps 2019 paddling trip Day 08b Lilo Race Slalom Course 2019 by Neil Jones Return of the famous Lilo Race not for the faint hearted, only for the stupid!! So after a nice leisurely morning paddle down the Durance with a bit of tasty surfing to finish off at St Clements we returned to the camp were the crazy 8, inflated their children’s toys and headed off up to the start of the L’Argentière-La Bessée Slalom course. Quick brief from Keith, basically condoning our stupid antics and the best line to limit casualties. He lined us up…..sort of…..and we where off!! I just imagined total carnage from the off but we were all doing pretty well. Keith must have thought the same as he instructed the first race photographer to set up at the first drop. But first fence…drop, was taken well by all and we continued down Couse. This must have been the fact that the first 4 across the line would hopefully receive one off the four throw lines set up at the bottom to catch us?? I cleared the second fence… drop and was beginning to lead the field with Sarah a very close second. As for the rest…..who knows what the other riders where going through; all I knew me and my trusty Pegasus was in with a shot…. As we approached Becher’s Brook, it was me on the flying Pegasus and 3 times regular French Alps Lilo racer Sarah on the stable cactus neck and neck with the experienced river runner Ian in 3rd ridding his new Spiderman camp bed. Also going strong was Nickki, riding “Terry the Turtle” very well indeed for her first time. As for the rest they were a thing of the past… (may not have still been alive, never […]