Day 1 – Travel Drama
After arriving the night before the rest of the group we waited the next day for Mark, Ross, Shakey and Dave Walker to arrive as they were expected that evening.
Mark and Ross were the first couple to arrive and we helped to erect their tent in the pouring rain. After a previous HCC Alps trip where it rained for a solid week we had everything crossed this wouldn’t be a sign of things to come. We waited for Dave W and Shaky to arrive as they were due about 10 minutes after Mark and Ross however we had a phone call from Dave to tell us the tunnel to Briancon had collapsed and they couldn’t get through even though they were only about an hour away they ended up having to take a long detour over the mountains to arrive the next day.
Day 2 – The “Warm up”
The next day myself, Mark and Ross headed to the Gyronde for a warm up before the others arrived. At this point it was still raining and freezing cold so we all kitted up in dry suits. After Mark and Ross faffed around moving stuff from their car to their tent and then back again for about an hour we finally got on the river.
The river looked different to the last time I paddled it a few years ago as it was a slightly grey colour however it looked ok so we got on. We all broke into the first eddy apart from Mark who went over and then rolled up some way down stream. It was at this point I realised there was probably a bit more water on the river than I expected. Myself and Ross broke out and then joined Mark further down. The water was fast and pushy and we could see plenty of meaty stoppers that we all managed to avoid. In the words of Mark it was a bit “sketchy”. I got out to make sure the next section was ok and it looked rather big however it was good to go. We broke out and paddled down with myself leading, as I turned around to check the group was ok I went for a bit of upside down time and rolled back up just in time to get a few power strokes in to get through the stopper that was in front of me. Mark and Ross looked a bit worried and I could tell they were thinking if this is the warm up what’s next! I got out again to check the next section and it looked as if it was easier grade 3 as opposed to the full on grade 4 we just paddled down. I informed the guys and they looked relieved. I was correct and we bobbed down the grade 3 until we joined the durance further down. As the water flowed in from the durance gorge the water turned from grey to brown and there was rather a lot of it! We headed down the slalom course and it was like the Oetz in Austria, big brown and wavy! We played on the course for a while and it was a great laugh at this level before heading back to camp.
As we pulled up Dave W and Shaky were arriving and they looked relieved to have made it. Next to arrive was Dale, Dave Garland, Wendy and Michael. We all chipped in and threw up all the tents and the gazebo. We sat down set about cooking and eating spaghetti bolognaise and then went our separate ways to bed.
Day 3 – Sunshine Run (Durance)
The next day myself and Dale decided it would be nice for the group (Jonny, Dale, Dave W, Shaky, Michael, Dave G, Hayley, Mark, Ross) to do the sunshine run on the durance St Clements to Embrum a full 16km of grade 2 / 3 wavy white water. The water wasn’t white though it was still brown but the sun did come out. We paddled the first section to the Rabioux without any incidents, I was a little disappointed as it wasn’t as bouncy as I remembered and feared it had washed out with all the water coming down. Things changed though when we got to the Rabioux, it was actually a wave this time which surprised me as every time I have seen it before it has been a horrible stopper that sucks people in flips them upside down a few times and then if they are lucky spits them out where they can roll back up.
We all went down without any issues apart from Dale who decided he would go for a surf which looked pretty good until he flipped and rolled back up downstream. We stopped and played for a bit and then continued. The river then turned into what I remembered, big bouncy with breaking waves like on the sea much to Shaky and Dave Ws delight they thought they were at woolly! It was at this point Mark seen a massive rock that he wanted to flare off (watch YouTube if you don’t know what a flare is not Marks video) Mark went over the top of the rock and disappeared. This looked bad but Dave W seen it and thought it was a wave so followed him. Mark was stuck in the stopper the other side and managed to get out but Dave W wasn’t so lucky. In he went with a failed roll attempt and out his boat he came. We floated down the river having a chat to Dave in the water until I decided it would be a good idea if he swam to the side and got back in his boat. Dave obliged and went for a rather tiring swim to the side where he got back in and looked completely shattered, it took him a while to get back in his boat but he did it! We continued down until the get out where we were greeted by Wendy and a massive stopper under the bridge. It flipped a few people and they rolled back up and then we got off. It was a fantastic day and the weather was looking up!
Day 4 – Alpine style scrapey warm up
The next day it was off to the Gyrnonde again for some alpine style paddling (Jonny, Dale, Dave W, Shaky, Michael, Mark, Ross) Dave W had informed me he only wanted to paddle blue rivers the night before and his luck was in! The Gyronde was a lovely shade of blue. It was rather low and Shaky took a quick dip falling out his boat! We all got back in and had fun little scrape to the slalom course, what a difference to the first day!
That afternoon we headed up the valley to paddle the Onde (Jonny, Dale, Michael, Mark, Ross) The only time myself and dale had paddled this river before it was a dark shade of grey almost black and the surrounding trees and roads were getting ripped into the river as it was a raging torrent in flood. This time it was a tight technical blue river that was rather a lot of fun! Everybody had a blast and Mikey had a swim which was quickly recovered and we continued on to the campsite and got off for a well-earned rest.
Day 5 – Mountain Biking the col and Climbing
After 3 days paddling it was decided a rest day was needed. Michael and Ross went off climbing while everybody 
else decided to head for the ski lifts for some mountain biking. Unfortunately the lifts don’t open until July so we thought we were stuffed until Shaky and Mark found a man who told us to drive to the top of the Col Du Galibier and bike back down. With a map in hand we set off for one of the best days of the holiday! The trail was stunning and so were the views, we saw some marmots and then we all got lost after coming down of the mountain. Luckily we all managed to get back to the bike shop and find each other again!
Day 6 – 2 lost boats, 1 found, the other never to be seen again
Day 6 was set to be the last days paddling for 
Shaky and Dave Walker and their biggest challenge yet. Things didn’t start well as Shaky had to pull out due to “medical reasons”
After having the morning pain au raisins we headed off in the cars to the Ubaye Valley to paddle the Ubaye Race Course. I had paddled this twice before and didn’t think it was very difficult so couldn’t understand why the guidebook had put it down as a grade 3 / 4 trip.
When we arrived I checked the levels and it looked low so I conferred with an Irish paddler who agreed it was a low level. We jumped on and headed down to the first rapid smashing our way through the wave trains with big grins on our faces (this already felt different to previous trips down I had already experienced)
We then arrived at the first grade 4 rapid “La Salle a Manger” aka the dining room. I’m not sure why it’s called this but Dave W swam and I proceeded to rescue him resulting in him accidently eating the front of my boat. Maybe this is where the name comes from!?
I was a bit worried I had knocked him out and nobody else was around so I had to let the boat go. Dave decided it was a bit too much for him and proceeded back to the get on. Unfortunately his boat was nowhere to be seen.
We carried on down and spotted it at the side of the river where I can only assume somebody had placed it as it was the right way up. Me and Dale jumped out and fashioned a make shift spray deck out of Dave’s dry bag which I cut in half. This proved to be a good idea and made it easy for Dale to tow all the way to the get off!
We continue downstream successfully until we got to “sharks tooth rapid” I jumped into an eddy expecting everybody to follow but Ross got stuck in a stopper. After what seemed like 10 minutes of Ross trying not to swim he was finally out of his boat, luckily the Irish man from earlier chucked him a line bagging themselves a Scotsman, 3 English men sat in the eddy while one English man (Myself) Chased the Scotsman’s boat down the grade 4 rapids. I pinned the boat on a gravel bank and proceeded to jump out of my boat and run back upstream to get it. At this point the boat floated off never to be seen again! Ross then had to climb out in the baking sun and walk to the get off.
We all continued down and agreed that it was not a low level and more like a medium, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful paddling the remaining grade 3 / 4 in style until we headed under the Roman bridge the signals the get off before the grade 6 Ubaye Gorge of doom!
Day 7 – Mountain biking again! (Sort of)
As it was Shaky and Dave W’s last day we decided to try and get a bit more mountain biking in. We proceeded to spend most of the day trying to find a the trail only to discover the only road up to the trail was a pot holed off-road track and we couldn’t drive to the top. At this point we gave up and headed back to camp. Some of the group biked up the Onde but after the previous day most of us decided to have a snooze and recover!
Day 8 – The morning – Upping the game!
Day 8 was the day where things got serious. We said our goodbyes to Shaky and Dave Walker and headed for Briancon to paddle one of my top 2 French Alps rivers the Guisane.
Myself, Dale, Mark, Ross and Mikey jumped on the Upper Guisane which is the easier of the 2 sections paddled. This is normally a grade 3 trip with one grade 4 rapid the S-Bends. As usual the scenery was fantastic as we approached the S-Bends the river became more technical snaking between boulders, Mark went over and smacked his hand off a rock injuring his fingure but little did he know worse was to come for his hand!
We continue to paddle down the upper as it entered a small town and Dale proceeded to paddle under somebodies house where the bay window over hung the river. This section is always fun but not too challenging. In no time at all we had reached the get off for the Upper Guisane.
Me and Dale had a discussion about the Lower Guisane and decided the Upper was running pretty well which would make the Lower very challenging for the group and probably end in injury or lost boats. We decided we would do a scouting run for another day and leave the rest of the group to do the shuttle.
I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the Lower Guisane. On one hand it is an amazing rollercoaster paddle of nonstop grade 3 / 4. On the other it can be a painful swim of nonstop grade 3 / 4 where you get battered and struggle to get out as I experience on my very first Alps trip years before.
As a result of this every time since I get nervous about taking on this section of river. So I decided to let Dale lead…
As soon as we got on there was no time to think. The river was so much faster than any time I had paddled it before. As we paddled further downstream it became steeper and even faster dodging between boulder and stoppers we sped onwards. On a couple of occasions Dales little playboat squirted through the air and I caught up then had to back off due to the speed of my boat. Halfway down we managed to make an eddy for a quick breather where we both agreed we were glad we didn’t have to look after the others at the current high water levels. We continued on to the get off incident free where we were both on an adrenaline high. It was at this point we released we had beat the others who were in the cars!
Day 8 – The evening – Camp dog and Vallouise Baby!
After recovering from the Guisane it was time 
for a party! We headed into Vallouise where Dave Garland was very excited because there was live music! (He asks random strangers on any trip we go on for live music)
The first band sung a lot of music in English, we all joined in with a rendition of “The cranberries, Zombie” As in previous years I upset the locals with my dancing and apparently Wendy said a very nice French lady said I was an imbecile.
The beer served at these village square parties in Vallouise is always a bit suspect and from previous experience I decided to avoid it. Mark and Ross lapped it up and after a couple of small plastic cups they were smashed. Ross started to get jealous as Mark was trying to get camp dog back to the tent. At this point the French Ska band came on stage with their hit song “Vallouise Baby!” we sung the night away in our awful French and then I headed back to camp leaving Mark and Ross to it.
We knew it was a good night when Ross came back to camp as we were all getting up. He had spent the night in the Gyr bar in town with some locals who liked him because he was Scottish but they weren’t so keen on Mark so he came back earlier.
Day 9 – Something isn’t quite right?
After the previous night’s partying it was decided we would go to Embrum Lake to chill out. Mark and Ross were still in bed when we set off and spent the day watching kite surfers, eating and sun bathing by the lake.
When we got back to camp Mikey informed us that Mark and Ross had gone to the hospital in Briancon as Marks finger didn’t look quite right. When they returned Mark had his hand in a bandage and told us he had broken his finger (or that’s what he thought the doctor said)
Sadly this put Mark out of action for the rest of the holiday and to this day he cannot remember how he did it!
Day 10 – Fornell faffing
The next day involved a lot of faffing more than usual for a HCC trip. We decided to head for the fornell drops a series of manmade concrete drops that resemble waterfalls. After watching bunch of dodge Germans getting stuck in the drops on YouTube me and Dale debated whether they were safe or not.
At this point a Uni group turned up so we decided to use them as guinea pigs to see what happened to them. They faffed a lot, even more than we do. When we finally saw them run the drops we thought “what was all the fuss about”
We got on and ran the drops in style with no issues what so ever apart from Mikey accidently running the last drop backwards…
Day 11 – The Middle Guil!
The Middle Guil is also in my top 2 French Alps river list. This was going to be the biggest challenge the whole group would take on together. I was a little apprehensive but myself and Dale scouted the river which can easily be seen from the road. Although you can see it you can’t get up close everywhere so sometimes this is deceptive but it looked like a nice low / medium level, which was perfect for our group.
We headed up to triple step where
I told Dale he wasn’t doing the grade 5 / 6 above as I didn’t fancy rescuing from the 2 siphons or the undercut on the rapid. To be fair it looked pretty doable but the consequences of getting it wrong are pretty severe.
Dale proceeded to get on and paddle triple step while we put on safety cover. He ran down the first drop and flipped upside down. He tried to roll but was up against the rock wall. He then continued down the second drop upside down where I was convinced he was going under the curtain of certain doom, he narrowly avoided it and attempted to roll again but failed. He then went down the last drop still the wrong way up. At this point we all thought he would swim but after over 30 seconds of being upside down he managed to roll back up much to everybody’s amazement and relief. I wasn’t really feeling it and seeing Dale do it upside down we all opted out.
The rest of the group got on and we headed down. Everybody was top of their game and we raced our way through all the grade 3 rapids all of which are pretty difficult in their own right. We knew the staircase was coming up soon so our eyes were on stalks. We then arrived and got out to scout. Myself and Dale have run this rapid maybe 10 times between us and it looked higher than anytime we had done it before. We decided to walk around the first 5 – 10 meters as this looked a bit sketchy. Ross decided to get on after the staircase and the rest of us got on and ran it all. It was big, very big. When we hit the last drop we were surrounded by water and it felt like the water had parted around us.
Up next was the tunnel rapid. On the entrance we stopped in an eddy and ran the first drop. Mikey got stuck in the stopper and swam. He self-rescued and continued to sit on a rock while we scouted the next drop. When we returned Mikey got back in and swam on the next drop. Dale bagged him with a line but his boat was gone so he had to get off and walk to the get off. We all got back in our boats and picked the perfect line down the tunnel rapid with no issues.
At this point I always think the hardest bit is over. In actual fact it has just begun. There are several grade 4 rapids before the end that are unnamed. All I know is this is where I swam the last time I did it. With that in mind I led the way, the rapids kept coming and we were loving it. At this point I turned around and saw Mikeys boat pinned, we all jumped out and worked together to free the boat. Unfortunately it was badly dented but luckily for us Mikey was walking past so was able to retrieve his boat from the river.
We continued onwards and I was getting cocky reading and running grade 4 rapids. Then before I knew it I was bracing up against the same boulder on the same rapid in the same stopper I swam in back in 2012. I told myself I wasn’t going to swim this time so I kept my cool only to perform a rock splat on the boulder and land upside down. I quickly rolled up and broke into the eddy below the boulder. I jumped out and grabbed a line waiting for the others but nobody came.
I climbed onto the boulder and they had all stopped having seen what had happened to me. I signalled them all down the other side of the rapid and all was fine. We continued to paddle until the end where we reached the lake at the top of the dam and got out. Everybody was buzzing and it was easily everybody’s favourite paddle of the holiday.
We proceeded back to camp where the evening’s entertainment was provided by hanging Mikeys boat from a try and trying to remove the dent with boiling water, a large stick and a blow torch.
Day 12 – Lower Guisane, Briancon Gorge, La Lac
The next day myself and Dale decided we just had to have another run down the Lower Guisane. Our second run was much lower than our first run as well as much easier.
We then met the rest of the group to do the Briancon Gorge. None of us has done it before but the guided book said it was a short grade 3 run. We weren’t disappointed. It was low but a very interesting run through an amazing little gorge. This trip is a must for future Alps trips! The gorge the joined back onto the end of the
Lower Guisane and at this point we got off.
We spent the afternoon at La Lac chilling in the sun with an ice cream..
Day 13 – Durance Rabioux to Embrum.
The final days paddle was a group paddle and Wendy’s first of the holiday. Unfortunately she forgot her spray deck so I offered to paddle without one. After some convincing Wendy accepted the offer then off we set.
It was a very wet paddle for myself but I perfected the technique for paddling without a spray deck. Wendy had a fantastic paddle and we were all glad she gave it a go. At one point I heard my name and turned around to see Wendy out of her boat but this was quickly resolved and we arrived at the get off for the final ice cream of our holiday.
Final notes
Thank you to everybody who has helped make this trip possible. Especially Dale who helped lead and provide safety cover. I couldn’t of done it without you. Also Hayley who sorted out all of the logistics and booking of the campsite etc.
Well done to everybody who paddled out in France. All of the time and effort that you have put into improving and getting ready for the Alps has really shown and made my life easier as well as Dales. Hopefully you will continue to work hard on your paddling and maybe next time you can lead me down!
If your reading this and would like to get on the next trip now is the time to get out and paddle. Let myself or Penny know if you would like to come on any of the upcoming trips and hopefully we will see you on the water!
Jonny
