Tollymore National Outdoor Centre
Alpine White Water 2010

Will Brown

This is a wee story about the 2010 Alpine White Water course run by the Tollymore National Outdoor Centre.

I know now that I wasn’t the only one who was in two minds about booking a place; I really wasn’t sure it was for me. But a couple of things helped make up my mind. You see, I’m a sea kayaker. I don’t really do rivers. But paddling in waves and tides, and around rocks you can spot the guys that have river paddling experience. They have a repertoire of strokes that far outstrips mine. So I thought I could use a bit of that…

Another thing was that (quite) a few years ago I was lucky enough to find myself paddling some rivers in New Zealand. Admittedly I was in a long boat then, racing downstream and just blattering my way through any rapids en route. I didn’t know what a low brace was back then, let alone a bow rudder. But it gave me a taste for paddling in nice big rivers surrounded by stunning scenery. Then, earlier this year I was chatting to Oisin, extolling the virtues of NZ rivers and scenery and he said, “Yeah, it’s like that in France”.

So after an early start on Sat 26th June, Roy, Laurence, Graeme, Wilson and I hopped on the flight from Dublin to Grenoble. We saw other passengers struggling with kayaks and gear through the airport and felt smug with just our carry-on bags. You see Oisin and Ashley had set off in the Tollymore van on Thursday evening with all our boats, camping gear etc on board! Not only that, but when we stepped off the plane in Grenoble, the boys were there to meet us, complete with picnic!

To get to our base at Guillestre (about an hour south of Briancon), we had to drive up and over the Col du Lautaret (2100m). I’d been dozing a bit on the way up so the chill mountain air and the sight of snow covered peaks towering above us came as a bit of a shock!

Oisin had booked ‘the usual spot’ at Camping St James, plenty of space for us all right beside the river. By this time, we’d met up with Catriona and Vix and for a treat on the first night; we all headed into the town for pizza (more on that later)!

Mornings at the campsite were a leisurely affair. The heat of the sun tended to wake most folk around 7.30 ish and we’d normally be on the road soon after 9.30, fuelled with coffee, croissants and pain au chocolat. After stocking up on baguettes and Camembert at the Supermarché we were usually on the way to the river by about 10.

We were blessed with good weather all week. Without exception, we awoke to blue skies and sunshine, and it stayed like this all day till we were off the water. Thunder clouds tended to gather in the early evenings making bbqs a bit difficult ... we tried on night 2, huddling bravely under the tarp in the absolute eye of the storm. It was definitely memorable but, and this is not a reflection on Catriona and Vix’s pasta delicieuse or even my own Alpine mussels (?) but for the rest of the trip we were downtown ‘Chez Antoine et Jessica’ for pizza (or pasta, or steak, or burgers, or crêpes, or snails, or salade au chevre chaud …). Oh, and no washing up in the rain either… definitely no contest!

Oh yeah, the paddling. Well let me say one thing. Tollymore has been running this course for 9 or 10 years now and the guys (aka Oisin and Ashley our capable guides, coaches and general all-round guardians) really have this area sussed. So we’re driven straight to the put-in and while we faff about with boats, buoyancy, mars bars and sun cream, one of the guys has sorted out the shuttle by dropping a bicycle down at the get out! They know what the various sections of the various rivers will be like under various conditions and they can make the judgement call about what the group can manage as the week progresses. Impressive. Enough said, for now anyway.

Now, this place is a known paddling destination and it soon became clear why. There is such a variety of rivers. On Day 1, we tackled a lower section of La Durance which is the biggest river here. It was a good place to start with bumpy bits but also plenty of calmer stretches for sorting out any mishaps. This isn’t like paddling back home - the water is shifting along and if you want to make an eddy, you’ve got to make sure you’re in the correct third of the river well in advance so you can push for the top of the eddy line. This big river gave us a chance to put this into practise … And as you can see, a few of the group took up the challenge of a high seal launch - while the sensible ones among us volunteered to take photos.

There were a couple of capsizes in the group that first day. At least one was mine I’m sure, but I witnessed some lightening quick rescues at the hands of The Guys. This was day 1 and we were clearly in good hands for the week ahead. Oops, I’m off again...

Anyway, the day ended with La Rabioux, a sizeable wave at the end of this stretch. I wasn’t quite getting the eddy line thing just yet, and took a swim on the first attempt. But there was an easy walk back up and with Ashley leading the way I nailed it second time around.

On Day 2, we headed for the Lower Guil, getting on the river just a few kms north of the campsite. We had a great view of the fortified town of Mont Dauphin high above us just before joining La Durance about 3km west of Guillestre. The last 200m stretch before the get-out was a slalom course, the easier of the two on this part of La Durance.

We had a chance to play on waves and make eddies in a relatively unthreatening environment - all useful skills for the days ahead…

The difficulty level was stepping up gradually. On day 3 we were on La Durance once again, this time spending much of the afternoon on the slalom course at L’Argentière-la-Bessée.

That was a bit hairy for me - bigger waves, bigger stoppers, and more turbulent eddy lines. I took a couple of spills, managed to roll once just to find myself going over a boulder and I let it all get into my head. I just couldn’t seem to shift the negative chat. But the thing is, that was fine - I just portaged the nasty looking bit, got back on again and with a bit of hand holding from the guys slowly started to build up the confidence again.

We used the opportunity to do a bit of throw-line practise, taking it in turns to leap into the flow and grab a (usually) well-aimed throw line on the way past the designated throwers. If it missed, you’d get a bit more of a swim - Wilson will tell you how much fun that is some day!

Day 4, Wednesday, and we were off to the Upper Guisane. This was a lovely scenic trip down a narrow, winding river which at one point took us under verandas of restaurants in the pretty town of Villeneuve in the Serre Chevalier ski area. There were no wide, gentle stretches anymore - we were now spotting and nailing our own eddies, often big enough for just one boat, and we travelled downstream, peeling off into our own little sanctuaries and back into the flow again.

On day 5 we headed north east from base to the upper Guil. En route, we got to see ‘The Steps’, a seriously chunky stretch of water. It would be fair to say that the group sentiment was that this could wait … till later in the week at any rate!

OK, talk about fast flowing. The water level was 75 (as opposed to 60 on last year’s trip, apparently) and it was, eh, interesting. Well no, actually it was better than that - it was a fantastic challenge … and the more distant the memory, the more fantastic it becomes (yes, one of those…). We all got down pretty much unscathed (or was this the day Roy tried to move a rock with his shoulder?). I walked a wee section in the gorge which was a bit intimidating but apart from that, I did it … and stayed the right way up! We paddled a lot of it in two teams, then when we got to the committing gorge section the guys broke it down into manageable stages, calling us down one at a time with support upstream, downstream and if necessary a couple of throw lines in between! I guess this was ‘paddling by numbers’ - the less experienced among us were shown what line to follow and got the benefit of instructions as we went … and occasionally a welcome hand to the bow if it looked like we weren’t going to make an eddy! The seasoned paddlers in the group provided a lot of support and I hope the leadership experience they got made up for the fact that the progress might have been slower than they were used to...!

We got off the Guil just upstream of Chateau-Queyras. At this point, it passes under a bridge and into an incredibly narrow gorge. You can spot the via ferratta cables and a couple of ‘rope bridges’ enabling climbers to negotiate their way along the length of the gorge in relative security (!) - another one for, eh, later in the week, we thought!

Day 6. Ubaye. Heading south / south east from Guillestre, we drove over Col de Vars, stopping at 1617 m for a hot chocolate and a lounge in the sun before heading down through St-Paul-sur-Ubaye and onto the river.

The scenery around here is simply stunning. A few keen cyclists were circulating at the summit of the col too, having bagged the climb before the heat picked up too much. There were a few souvenir shoppers around too …

This was a lovely stretch of river - one lovely, long rapid. We paddled in two groups again, giving each other plenty of space, coach in front and strong paddler coming along behind. In our case, that would be Laurence (aka ‘Speedo Man’, pictured), a veteran of the Tollymore Alpine experience!

Incredibly, it was our last day. The week had flown. We broke camp in impressive style (obviously didn’t have enough beer the night before, despite our best efforts - eh Graeme?) and were on the road by 9am - the earliest yet! We headed up towards Vallouise to get on La Gironde. It was flying past us in a torrent with not much of an eddy for a put-in. In truth, one or two of us were feeling a bit on the shaky side to start with and there were warnings about sudden increases in flow due to hydro electric barriers up stream and it was all a bit unsettling.

Anyway, I headed off, got bounced around a bit, went backwards through a stopper, bounced sideways off another rock … this was a baptism of fire. I mean, I know this is day 7 but where’s the warm up? We re-grouped and there was talk of a nasty weir just down stream. I’d had a good week … could I just end on a good note? Well we paddled another short section - equally bumpy. Not for the first time this week I remembered the advice about breathing and smiling … and I felt good. But with the water level as it was, this section was an unknown quantity for ‘the guys’. There were trees and rocks galore. We even retrieved a deserted boat which was wrapped around a fallen tree on the far bank. This was enlightening in itself. With a fancy rope / karabiner arrangement giving a x 3 mechanical advantage, it took 4 of us to free the craft which turned out to be badly bent and holed. At least it would no longer be a danger on the river. Oisin made the call that this next section was not for us and we would call it a day. A week, for that matter … we were heading north. I could have bought him a pint!

The week had been an intensive learning experience - it would take a year of paddling back home to cover the same ground. The variety of paddling and the quality of the coaching / guiding were simply top notch. Yet this was a hugely fun holiday at the same time; the leg work was all done for us and the craic, as they say, was mighty. Pure good value.

By Will Brown, with thanks!