In June 2002, seven of us went off to France to do some paddling, cycling, and/or lazing around. The group consisted of Dominic Morgan (chief organiser and fire starter), Justin Sims (chief drinker and back-marker), Mandy Wood (chief photographer and cross-stitcher), Tony Barrass (chief probe). John Leopold (chief caravanner), Lisa Gunton (chief student), and myself, Conor O’Neill (chief ‘that’s too big, I’m not paddling today’).
We arrived in the Alps after the usual mind-numbing drive across France. It was the day that the football world cup started, so Tony and John stopped in a café to watch some of the France / Senegal match. They were much entertained by the result (Senegal won). We all met up at our usual campsite, to discover that it was, as expected, closed, and completely empty. Justin chose a tent site around six inches from a nice smelly toilet block. Well, it wasn’t actually smelly until Justin had been in there… So we changed position to a different, more shady, part of the campsite.
Day 1 – Saturday
Decided to take this one easy, so we paddled the ‘sunshine run’, the Durance, from the Rabioux wave all the way down to the lake. The river was too high for the Rabioux to be working, but the play wave at Embrun was pretty high, and gave Justin and Tony some entertainment.
Day 2 – Sunday
Again, still warming up – there’s no hurry when you’re here for two weeks. A quick blast down the Onde in the sunshine. Then we did the Upper Guisane also. On Sunday evening, it started raining… There is no hot water at the campsite, so no hot showers, and we haven’t managed to talk to the proprietor, but we leave her a note in broken French.
Day 3 – Monday
Everyone (?) is now gunning for some harder water. Lisa decides she isn’t feeling 100%, so stays at the campsite. Later on, it was determined that this was an excellent ‘tactical sickie’.
We head off to do the Middle Guil – it should be a grade 4. Level looks about right. The gauge is hard to find – looks like the top has broken off. We inspected the Letter Box and the Staircase from the road. Anyway, the intrepid 4 get on just below the Triple Steps, leaving Mandy and Conor as shuttle bunnies.
The Staircase turns out to be much more ‘interesting’ than anticipated, and John manages to roll about 4 times before having to bail out of his boat. Result – badly cut up legs, and throw-line practice for Tony and Justin. The boat and paddles go off down stream – never mind, we can retrieve them at the lake later. Dominic decides to skip the next section. Tony and Justin understandably portage the Letter Box. Just below there, we find John’s boat, having been placed on the river bank by some nice Spanish paddlers!
The last rapid on this section turns out to be much bigger than anticipated. There are many other groups there, all with safety lines, etc, and all British or Irish. We use vague hand-signals to tell Tony and Justin to run it anyway, and they do fine, but it is entertaining watching many other paddlers swim here. Tony pulls an Irish swimmer to the bank, and we spend 15 minutes getting him back to the ‘correct’ bank.
By this time we are starting to realise that the water level is actually very high. And it is still raining.
We then start hearing a fuss from down below – the lake is only about 200 metres below here. But various frantic messages are being conveyed, mostly unintelligibly. Finally, we are warned that we might have our boats confiscated by the police – but we don’t really know why. So we dash off. No sign of any police. At the barrage we discover that the barrage has been opened for maintenance, and the lake has been drained. You would not want to drift down through here…
Later that evening, Lisa (designated driver) suffers as we tell her the story many times, getting louder and louder as the drunkenness increases…
Still no hot water at the campsite. The owner says she’s waiting for a plumber.
Day 4 – Tuesday
We ratchet back a gear to easier water. The Lower Claree looks OK, so we do this. It turns out to be boring, just grade 2.
Later in a café we discover the main difference between the ‘oldies’ (myself, Lisa, Tony and John), and the youngsters (Justin, Many, Dominic). The oldies drink coffee, the youngsters drink Coke.
And it is still raining. Still no hot water. She says she’s waiting for an electrician.
Day 5 – Wednesday
Lisa has booked onto a 5-star training course, with Stuart Woodward’s ‘Canoe Control’. They are camped about 10 miles away. So we leave Lisa there, and decide what to paddle. All the rivers are very high because it is still raining.. We choose to paddle the Lower Guil, straight into the Durance, and down to Embrun. All very big and bouncy – the guidebooks suggested 4.5 hours, so we did it in 2. Meanwhile, Lisa’s group paddled the Upper Durance, and then the lower Guil.
Still raining. We decide that if the hot water hasn’t appeared by Thursday evening, we will move campsite.
Day 6 – Thursday
The guidebook says the Drac is a good idea in high water, so we head over there. I decline to paddle, because it’s a bit of an unknown. Turns out to be big and bouncy, with some important stoppers to avoid. Again, a lightning fast run (1.5 hours instead of 3). Meanwhile Lisa paddles the Upper Guisane and the Gyronde. When we get back to the campsite, we have some hot water! Hot showers for the first time in a week. Still raining, though.
Day 7 – Friday
Tony and John want to be off the water in time to watch the football at 1.30pm. We decide to try the Middle Claree. Grade 4, according to the book. Turns out to be a fast blast down, few eddies.
On the way through, we pass Lisa’s group, who are being a bit more cautious than us… They also manage to paddle the Briancon gorge afterwards. Tony and John watch the football in a small hotel bar. The rest of us play Scrabble – John declines, because the french version will need french words… (think about it). After the football, we are forced to drink beers all day, and have another drunken meal that evening.
Sunny in places today. Then it rains again.
Day 8 – Saturday
Rest day. Lisa and I go cycling. Unfortunately, the cable-cars are closed, so we can’t try to kill ourselves by cycling down a ski run. Most of the place is closed – it is definitely their ‘off-season’ here. Even the restaurant near the campsite is closed. We end up cycling up and down the Guisane valley. We also go and have a look at the Biasse valley – the river is grade 5/6.
The others laze around, and some go karting. That evening, we go for a big night out in Embrun. The intention is to go clubbing. John isn’t feeling 100% so offers to drive the taxi (camper van), and sleep in the car-park in Embrun until we wake him up. But as it happens, it is off-season in Embrun too, so there’s nothing lively happening, so no clubbing.
Damp.
Day 9 – Sunday
Lisa heads off with her 5-star people again, and paddles the Ubaye race-course in high water. The rest of us (except me) paddle the lower Guisane, fast and furious, with some more overtaking, this time overtaking some local french kids while they’re inspecting one of the harder bits. Seems to be a tradition forming – never break out unless you _really_ need to…
And the sun starts coming out…
Day 10 – Monday
The youngsters decide to spend the first sunny day in a car, driving to Turin. Don’t ask why – you might embarrass Justin.
The oldies (Conor, Lisa, Tony, John) paddle the Upper Guil – again, a river that none of us had paddled before, but the guidebook suggests good for high water. We decide not to paddle the section by some roadworks where a JCB was scooping mud into and out of the river, even though we reckoned that if we got the timing right it would be possible to dodge past in the gaps… So we got on just below here. Lisa and I caused some entertainment by getting pinned on a weir. We then paddled a bouncy grade 2/3 section down to a small gorge. John seems to have failed to notice that the guidebook said grade 4, and kept complaining here that it was supposed to be a rest day. In fact, it turned out to be a nice grade 4- and 3 gorge, then a grade 3 bounce down to the get out at the impressive Chateau Queyras. We had a look at the Chateau Q gorge, but it took no decision at all to decide it was un-runnable, at least at this water level.
It’s still sunny – the air is getting warmer.
Day 11 – Tuesday
The keen ones had spent all week hoping to be able to paddle the infamous Durance Gorge, and today looked like the day. We went to look at the get-in, and the right amount of water was coming over the barrage, so there was no turning back now. As usual, I decided to be shuttle-bunny. So we left them to ‘enter the gorge’, with instructions to meet in 4 hours.
They appeared, paddling down to the slalom site, on the dot. It turns out that the gorge was ‘easy’ (grade 4), but the nasty 500m portage was correctly described as grade 6. They claimed that they would have paddled the whole section much faster, but they were stuck behind another of Stuart Woodward’s training courses, and didn’t want to overtake because they didn’t know where the get-outs for the grade 5’s were. Likely story.
The evening was spent getting pissed in yet another local restaurant. Tony gave the waitress 100% for style at this one. She offered to show the footie in the bar the next day for him, and Tony was tempted to return, until he realised the waiter was her husband.
Hot and sunny – at last – this is what we had been expecting.
Day 12 – Wednesday
After the excitement yesterday, something easier again. We let Lisa use her 5-star training and lead us down the Briancon Gorge. This includes a large wooden slide around a barrage, which I’ve never seen before. 
No one has any energy left to paddle anything else afterwards.
Getting hotter.
Day 13 – Thursday
Off to paddle the Ubaye race-course. When we get there, Lisa tells us it was two feet higher on the Sunday (likely story…) A Frenchie named John-Paul asks if he can paddle with the group. Again, I end up being shuttle-bunny. They paddle with no great problems, Lisa rolls twice (once in a flat eddy).
At the get out we meet the Perception play-boater team, who are getting on for the gorge. We go up the road to watch them at the first big section – the ‘Lion’s Den’. From the road it looked huge. From the water it must have looked huge also, because the play-boaters portaged it… But they did paddle down some pretty large stuff. And if it looks large from 300 feet up, then it must be large.
Getting hotter. I decide to drive back over the Col de Vars, because the scenery is nice, even though we had been told there were some major roadworks. The others spend the rest of the day grumbling at me.
Day 14 – Friday
A wind-down for the last day. Middle Claree again. I decide not to paddle, even though it is lower than the previous time, because I only just got away with it then. I take photos. Then Lisa swims on a nasty corner, with a badly undercut rock wall. Luckily, she gets off pretty quickly, and is not too badly hurt, except badly grazed legs.
The rest still have some energy for another, so they paddle the Lower Guisane again. Slightly lower than last time, and this time they even stop to inspect one drop. Nothing eventful, though.
Dinner that night at the local restaurant near the campsite, which has finally re-opened after their holiday. Nice food, but no really cheap wine this time (shame).
Still hot.
Day 15 – Saturday
We spend hours agonising as to how much we should pay for camping. Don’t want to pay the full fee, because of lack of hot water, shop, bar, restaurant, and everything else too (the campsite is still officially closed). Decide we’ll pay about 50%, and leave it in an envelope. However, the proprietor is there, so we have to talk to her. She gets out her pen and paper, and ends up asking for only about 33% of the full price. Good job we didn’t try the runner…
We finally head home. Very hot. We see lots of cars with boats on the roofs going the other way…
Conor O’Neill
