2022 LCC Alpine Holiday to Durance Region in France Day 2 Sunday: The Durance from the campsite to St Clement by Roy McHale
Day 2 Sunday: The Durance from the campsite to St Clement by Roy McHale
For the people who travelled directly to the L’Agentiere les-Ecrins campsite Saturday was a day of traveling and paddling only started on Sunday. The day started at a leisurely pace with the people who had arrived chilling out, eating breakfast and chatting to each other with the main topic of discussion being who had waited longest in the queue for the Euro Tunnel safe to say the award for longest wait goes to Nick & Oscar, well done lads 😊
So around mid-day I decided it was time to do a few runs of the slalom site, reports of low water seemed to be true with the Slalom section looking a bit lower than in previous years when the water was higher. The lower level made the features on the site more friendly than when the water was is higher.
I did the first run on my own and the boat did feel a bit twitchy on the first few rapids but as I neared the end of the slalom course the moves were getting smoother and more familiar. When I’d finished the run down the course, I bumped into Keith and Elliot, and they said they wanted to join so the three of us did another 2 runs of the slalom course doing as many moves as we could highlight of the run was surfing a pretty decent green wave halfway down the course. Following the completion of the 2nd run with keith and Elliot the rest of the group were ready to paddle so a shuttle was arranged down to the rafting base at St Clement and following what seemed quite a long shuttle 9 LCC paddles embarked from the beach at the bottom of the slalom site.
The water was low but not as low as I’d imagined, and it turned out to be a lovely trip with fantastic combining fantastic weather and beautiful alpine mountain vistas. These were complimented with a warm breeze blowing up the river that counter acted the chill of the water as well as the aforementioned there were waves to surf, rocks to boof and some submerged trees and shingle banks to avoid.
During the flatter sections I was also enlightened on the history of Pyranha’s Burn and BTwo series of boats.
All in all, a great first day, the paddlers were, Roy Mc, Stu Toulson, Martin & Nicky, Keith & Elliot, Oscar, Nick and Andy.
