French Alps 2013 - Numero Twa

Sunday was a day that Jonny, Stu and I paddled as a three, as we wanted to check out the Guil. We had heard that it was running high, and the drive up confirmed this. A morning paddle on the Upper gave a good warm up, and Stu did the cycle from the bottom to get back to the car at the top. By the time he got back to us, you could tell it had taken a bit out of him. So we stopped for lunch before attempting to find a section of river that none of us had paddled before; the ‘Bouchet’.

The get on was easy to find, and I said that I would take the car and bike to the get off and cycle back up to the top so the shuttle was done before we got on. Now, I have been attending spin classes over the last few months, and one of the many things I have learnt is that if you point your toes down and shift your hips forward you can engage your quads. However Sunday’s cycle up a shallow gradient taught me two things:

1.  My quads don’t like being engaged at all. In fact they want to remain bachelors forever and never have to go through the painful ordeal of being utilised again.
2. In spin class, it is a lot easier to make the most of the recovery time, as you can cheat and not pedal much. However this is not so easy on a cycle up a ‘hill’ (I used this term lightly), as when you stop peddling, you either fall over or start going backwards!

The Bouchet was a quality little section of river, not really covered by the guide book. The start was a nice steep section of small drops, flowing into a continuous grade 3 river ending with a fast section of white water. Worth a run if the levels in the Alps are high enough.

On Monday we went to look at the Durance Gorge. I told the lads that last year, when I did the Durance Gorge in high, it was a 12 on the gauge; therefore we agreed that anything below a 10 would be a goer. However upon rocking up it was lapping between a 10 and 11. We thought that we were good enough to take it on regardless. Once changed I had a cheeky peak at my guide book to find that I had written that the previous year we had taken it on at a 9 on the gauge and this was tasty (A little later we checked previous blog posts about the trip and I had stated we walked away from a 12, and ran it on an intimidating 9). Apparently my memory for things like this is as useful as ‘Fire Exit’ signs at a dyslexia convention.

I can safely say that the Gorge was high, and was still daunting. I took the lead for the whole thing, which was brilliant. The run was cracking, the holes were big, the water was fast, but we took everything on in style. Not a place I would want to be in again anytime soon, but enjoyed it none the less.

The evening comprised of a big ass bonfire and people getting fairly leathered. Jonny king had an awesome night away from the comfort of Stu and I, being that he didn’t return to the tent that evening. However this is not the forum for such sordid affairs!

Long Exposure

Jonny's cheeky face in the morning

Tuesday was a hangover day. We spent the morning recovering from headaches and sore tummy’s. Driving up the Gyr, Stu looked as though he was going to die. On arrival we saw that the Gyr was apparently the only river that was running low in the area. This made me very grumpy for the rest of the day, and a run on the Lower Guisane in the evening did not help matters. The water was now running at a level that was washing everything out; too high for things to be technical and interesting, but not as high as they were the first time we ran it to make it a hole filled killing machine. However the group down after us had a swimmer, and this added a little bit of excitement to the day. At the get off we just saw a boat drift past. A quick scramble and we sent a vehicle off to chase it. About a 45 minute wait and the boat’s owner walked into sight. Apparently he got spanked harder that a gimp at an S&M party. Luckily the lads down river were able to get the boat, but we found that an Ambulance and a rescue team had been sent in search for the body. When they found us they were extremely nice, and we were amazed at the speed at which they were on the ball, seeing as they had already been searching for a while.

The evening was spent just recovering from last night’s affairs, and the disappointing day. Keep ypur eyes peeled for the last post of the French Alps 2013 tour, hopefully coming to you sooner than this took to publish.