Alps 2012

Upon arriving at l’Argentière la Bessée, much grumbling ensued as the forecast was showing rain for most of the following week.   A few people, including Alps newcomers George Hamilton and George Elderfield, jumped on the slalom course at the campsite.

Both Georges, Fraser and Rupert on the Slalom Course

On the first day of paddling, we left the Sunshine Run section of the Lower Durance for the afternoon, and instead started with the Lower Guil (where I swear the grade 5 road was significantly over-graded).   The two groups, led by veteran Alps paddlers Tom Jenkins and Ben Marshall, set off about a half-hour apart.   The bigger and faster alpine water causes some of the newcomers some difficulty, but Stella and George bring their A-game and prove from day one that they have their river roll down.   Following lunch and a miraculous change in weather, we carry on down the Sunshine Run, where we learn that Stella has a knack for leading rivers unintentionally, and that Sam doesn’t like sticking to a group order.   When we arrived back at the campsite, the drinking began while Kieran and Tom made an awesome dinner of sausage and potato dauphinoise.   Oh, and Claire made Ben eat a lot of grass….

Day 2 – the weather picks up, but the water hadn’t returned to reasonable levels yet, so we set sail for the Lower Clarée.   While I’d never put this down as one of my favourite rivers, I feel it got a bad name in my first year, where it was paddled on a “confidence building day” at very low levels.   This time round, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t dull, and it gave Craig a great opportunity to make a difficult eddy above a tree (which, to my joy, he succeeded in doing).   After the traditional lunch of baguette with meats, cheeses and salad, we went to the Briançon Gorge – a river which always gives me pause despite never having had a bad experience on it.   Well, like all good gorges, the difficulty increases exponentially with more water, so the run was an absolute blast…though Callum met with some difficulty and went for a swim.   Back at the campsite, while Harry and Fraser work on their spaghetti Bolognese, I jumped on the slalom course with no other safety presence...and promptly capsized!   Fortunately before returning to the Alps, my river roll returned, so I managed to avoid a particularly gimpy swim.   Now, something happened that Tuesday night that I cannot, in good conscience, leave out of the write-up: Sam stole a dog!   Sam stole a dog and then let it off its leash.

Tom leading the last section of the Upper Guisane

After Sam apologised for being a drunken idiot to the dog’s owner on the rainy and windy morning we went to the Guisane.   I spent most of the Upper Guisane thinking just how high this felt compared to the previous times I’d paddled it.   S-bends, as normal, was the highlight, though Mr Elderfield spent most of his time playing pinball while traversing it.   The big boys, Ben, Tom, Sam and Rupert went on to do the Lower Guisane, though Ben (as normal) forgot to turn his GoPro on for the best bit of the river, where it looks like you’re paddling into the jaws of death!   Oh well, one day he’ll learn.   While they were doing that, the rest of us paddled the Middle Durance, where Kirsty picked up her first no-swim river and Craig came awfully close, but he swam twenty metres from the end of the run.   Back at camp, after hearing tales of heroism and near misses from the advanced group, Emma and Kirsty made cous-cous while others set about playing piggyback volleyball.

Piggyback Volleyball!

After more swims than most people realised, Harry decided that the morning of the fourth day would be used for some training.   Ben shot-gunned the advanced group consisting of Emma, the Georges, Kieran and Callum, training them in some slalom techniques useful in the Alps.   Rupert took Claire and Stella, Sam put in some work with Kirsty, and Tom gave Craig a masterclass in the basics.   This was followed by a run of the Gyronde (with far less swims that usual), and finally a run of the Onde in the evening.   That night, after Ben and Claire’s “chicken surprise,” we played ultimate Bago and British bulldogs, which Claire proved to be an utter demon at!

A tender morning the next day meant that the Sunshine Run was our destination – our first repeat run of the trip.   This was not Fraser’s day.   First, upon seeing Craig swimming, he found a wonderful little pour-over, leading Stella into it, and while Stella succeeded in making her roll, Fraser failed, marking the first ‘safety swim’ of the trip.   Then, after completing the run, Fraser managed to lock Harry’s keys in his car…   Following this, we returned to the Upper Guisane, allowing everyone to get on it this time, and letting some additional people run S-bends.   Following the faff-ful day, the Georges make mixed risotto for dinner…and it was awesome.

Almost half way into the trip, the lead four paddlers decide to go off and do something tricky once more.   In the past, I viewed ‘tricky’ as being rivers like the Gyr or Chateaux Queyras…well…this time it was the Durance Gorge.   In possibly the most depressingly funny moments before they head off with Rob Pilkington, the group mumble to each other in quiet voices:
Tom: “We’re all going to die…”
Ben: “What colour are your pants this morning?”
Tom: “…brown…”
While they were off paddling their über river, we went to the Gyronde, and had our annual epic – oh well, it was always going to happen.   And rather upsettingly, I found out that while I’m normally good with a throwline, I can’t throw one well when I’m not under pressure.   In the evening, after Sam and Rupert went for a play on the Fournel, Rupert and Callum made pesto pasta for the masses while cheesy music blared at the bank of the river.

Before the rest day, it was time for everyone to up their games: in the morning, Stella and Claire got to jump on the Briançon Gorge.    Unfortunately for Stella (and her boat), she had a swim above the barrage, and after a prolonged rescue effort, we finally managed to force it down the barrage…and made her Inazone’s nose bear serious resemblance to Jaws!   Add to this that while paddling the gorge, Claire and Rupert’s kayaks also split.   Before lunch, we went to the Gyr, where I finally feel confident enough to jump on with the elite four plus Fraser.   It was awesome, despite a backwards spell that I had at one of the trickiest bits.   We all finish elated…until Ben discovers that his boat had broken on the run of the Gyr!   After this, there’s another run of the Gyronde for which I lent Stella my Mamba…and she gave it its first ever dent.   We went to Regain for the Alps meal which, as usual, was excellent.   Craig and Harry did their best to embarrass the group, with the former being overly drunk and slurring French phrases, and the latter commenting that the waitress “doesn’t speak very well” while asking Emma to order his food for him.

The rest day began with welding (given that four kayaks had been broken the previous day that hardly came as a surprise).   By lunch time we had made our plans.   Most of us decided that a day at the walled city in Briançon would be the best way to spend the day, whilst Tom and Sam borrowed Fraser to take them climbing.

Claire photosniping at Briançon

Now over half way through the Alps trip, breakfast with croissants and pain au chocolat is becoming more of a chore than nutritious.   This is Ubaye day, meaning an early get-up, a long drive, and me pleading with Tom for him to drive as I want to take photos: naturally this meant that while I held shot-gun, the storms of the like not seen since the Old Testament rampaged so I couldn’t get any good photos.   The Upper Ubaye is a ridiculously cold river, though it proved that Craig can not only hand-roll, but he’s rather adept at hand paddling too.   It also brought a cheer to many in the group when Sam went for an unintentional swim/technical exit whilst trying to rescue Craig’s kayak.   The Ubaye Race Course, which was my favourite river in my first year in the Alps, proved to be several peoples favourite run of the holiday, however, it also brought about Kieran’s first swim since the 12^th of March 2011!   He was not amused.   To many people’s despair, as we were running late, we had McDonalds for dinner.

I did get one awesome photo though :)

The following day, the Upper Upper Guil proved to be our first ‘no swim’ river – a mere ten days into the holiday.   A sizable portion of the group continues down to paddle the Upper Guil, where a number of people have a rather intimate experience with it, with Claire swimming in the same spot I swam at five years ago.   After both of these rivers were completed, most of us went back to the campsite where Stella and I worked on our Turkey Curry (that was, perhaps, a little over seasoned), while Tom, Rupert and Sam went with Rob Pilkington to paddle the Guil Gorge.   With them seemingly gone for hours, a number of people began to worry that they had gotten in trouble.   Eventually we received a call saying they had bailed off the river, and there was a collective sigh of relief.   It turns out that they had been paddling it at a level several feet above what is recorded in the guidebook (so the gentle grade three warm-up was nothing of the kind!).   And yet despite this, and despite spending an hour abseiling down to the river, while halfway through dinner I heard:

Tom: “This is my Everest.”

Now that we were nearing the end of our stay, France seemed to finally pull out all the stops and the sun split the heavens!   Returning to the Lower Guisane, I had to make a choice: was I ready to get back on the horse that stopped me paddling for seven days three years ago, or was I going to sit it out and miss one of the best rivers I’ve ever paddled?   I think I’ll give it one more year.   After an uneventful paddle of a very low Lower Guisane, it was time for the group to tackle the upper section for the final time.   This was general uneventful except for a revelation from Mr Doyle, who commented on how much more stable he felt when using the H3’s thigh rests.   Upon hearing this, Ben, Sam and I couldn’t contain our laughter…frankly, after hearing that we were amazed Craig had paddled that well!

On our final day, we have a fairly relaxed start, and then head to paddle the Sunshine Run one last time.   Another river was considered for the afternoon, but most people just wanted to relax and let their kit dry for the two day journey home that was to follow.

Camp at Night 

Other than my first Alps trip back in 2007, this was the one with the most swimming, the greatest variety of rivers and the most learning evident throughout it.   The Alps trips for Glasgow Uni Canoe Club have never been a matter of taking the best people on ridiculously hard rivers (or I’d have never managed to make it onto one), but about pushing the boundaries of people at all levels of competence in the club.   In 2007, I was towards the low end of the bell-curve, managing to get through the basic rivers and a few of the harder ones more because of confidence than skill.   Now, it feels like that venire of confidence has been stripped away, but the skills I have picked up since then more than compensate for it.   I think that everyone who went on this trip had something they could be proud of – a ‘no swim’ river; helping out with a rescue; tackling a new river; developing their roll – and that certainly puts this as one of the best Alps trips I’ve been on.

Good job everyone, and thank you Harry.

Le Chapeau rouge

So, here is a blog of my feelings, perceptions and memories of this year's Alps trip. It will no doubt be factually inaccurate cos I can't really remember what happened when so hopefully some other people will also post blogs which are better. Day one involved driving, this is neither fun nor interesting. A bag fell off the roof of the M6 and Sam had to run into the middle of the motorway to fetch it and Ben's car broke within the first hour, but all this happened before I got picked up so were not my concern.

 Day two also involved driving which is not fun or interesting, paddling the slalom course which is both fun and interesting and eating pizza. The weather when we got there was fairly bollocks but luckily picked up.

Due to high levels on day one we went and did the Lower Guil followed by the sunshine run. Many swims were had (leading to Sweet Cheeks adopting 'Swim until you can't see land as his theme tune) but also a lot of fun. Other aspects of the day involved the owner of a French bakery refusing to sell us breakfast despite her advertising her business as a provider of pastry based products (no wonder the Euro's screwed).

Next day we did the Lower Claree, usually described as a 5km long eddy it was passably good with the higher water. It was made particularly interesting by trees with one very last minute portage to avoid a tree choke. The afternoon saw a run of the Briancon gorge which was back to its previous funness following the works on the barrage last year with the slide re opened and decent levels. It still smells of poo though and Gretel, Callum’s boat did a large section without him.

The Guisane is one river which in my opinion gives all abilities a classic French Alps experience and we got both the upper and the Lower done in a day. The lower was particularly awesome at pretty meaty levels and our notable lack of fitness became very apparent by the end. Meanwhile those not keen for the lower headed to do the section of the Durance from the campsite down. Sweet cheeks so nearly making it a no swim river but alas it was not to be. That evening while sat next to the slalom course a kind German man in very tight spedos gave me a detailed explanation of why my carrabiner was wrong, unfortunately this explanation involved quite a lot of bending over.

The next morning Harry lied to us and told us we’d need to get up early for the drive to the Sunshine run, when we were all up he announced that we were not in fact going to the Sunshine run but having a morning’s training on the Slalom course which was very useful despite his deceitfulness. After this we ran the Gyronde which all went fine despite Kirsty’s best efforts to get vertically pinned on the weir. The day was concluded with a quick run of the Onde accompanied by a strange man from Bath uni who claimed to have spent the previous night sleeping in a bush in Grenoble (his claims were corroborated by his odor), he then stole our food.

The group split up the next morning with most of the group heading off to the Gyronde which while some swim ffaff occurred I understand went well while a few of us went and did the Durance gorge. Fortunately we were accompanied by Sam’s mate Pilky so we didn’t die! In the evening we headed up to the Fournel for tea and for Pilky to show us all he’s much better than we are.

The next morning I think we did the Briancon gorge again, Stella’s boat went off the barrage and mangled its nose meaning Sam had to go abseiling (I think this is a word for a type of masturbation, but that’s not what I mean in this context if anyone is confused) to fetch it. Some criticism of the technique was received from another uni boater but it was later clarified that he’s a Dick. Next a quick and fairly uneventful run of the Gyr followed by an extremely ffaffy run of the Gyronde before heading out for a meal.

Rest day saw a morning of boat welding before everyone sobered up enough to drive at which point most folk went sight-seeing in Briancon while Fraser, Sam and I headed out for a climb. I gave the locals a demonstration of the British technique of squeezing into a crack and humping my way upwards, they seemed unimpressed.

After rest day was Ubaye day. The upper Ubaye was extremely cold and rainy but the racecourse was a good laugh and saw a freak of nature so rare even David Attenborough is yet to capture it – Kieran swimming! His paddles ended up stuck in a gorged in section which turned into ffaff mainly due to my very ill advised attempt to traverse back along a cliff to it. The plan was duly abandoned and Sam and Rupert just paddled back down the section to fetch it.

Guil day began with the upper upper which was pretty cold and rubbish followed by us getting on the Upper at the same time as team Pyranha, including Anton Immler which was a really fun grade 3+ run. The piranha paddlers carried on down chateaux Q, guardian angel and the middle Guil but got off above the Guil gorge. This should probably have told us something but a few of us decided to get on while everyone else headed back to get dinner on, fortunately Pilky came along to stop us dying again.

The abseil in took us an hour and the initial rapids which looked big from the road were even bigger at river level but they were manageable. Unfortunately it turned out that these were the warm up rapids. The first portage featured a must make ferry glide with probable death awaiting if you missed it. After this we got back on to some grade five read and run which eventually led to Rupert getting an absolute tanking in a hole before a grade five swim with self-rescue of boat and paddles. After continuing a little further and with only about a kilometre left we decided it was getting ridiculous and ran away like little girls, walking out up a very steep, long, hot path before collapsing by the road and asking a nice lady for a drink from her hose pipe (not a euphemism). We’ve since found out that it was a few feet higher than the level the guide book is based on so we feel a bit better about our yellow bellied fleeing.

Our return to the Guisane saw a few extra people get on the lower and everyone get on the upper. A good day was had by all.

Our last day was pretty easy with a run of the Sunshine run allowing time to get sorted before heading home.

Other amusing incidents included the bus being locked into a car park and having to do a spot of off roading to escape, a feud with Bangor involving a duct tape penis and Sam Gregory stealing a woman’s dog while she was having a Barry. Callum also vomited all over their tent (known as the tenthouse) but fortunately only got it on his own things while Paul Walker slept through it and Sweet Cheeks made an escape. Strangely, even though Rupert was supposedly a resident of the Tenthouse his whereabouts are unaccounted for during this incident, hopefully Claire will shed some light on this mystery in her Blog post.

A Small Etive Trip: 18/03/2012

With seven years of coaching experience with Glasgow Uni Canoe Club, it's been a while since anyone has really surprised me with their successes on a river, so I suppose I'm going to start out this post by saying well done to George and to Ross for catching me off guard.

Both of them had been looking at rivers they wanted to do, so when I invited them to come paddling they asked about doing the Middle Etive. Having paddled it a lot, I was willing to head there, but was expecting to have to portage a couple of the rapids due to limitations on safety coverage. However, Stephan was up for a jaunt to the Etive as well, so accompanied us, and was invaluable in providing safety cover while I demonstrated the line and set up cover at the bottom before switching.

Triple Falls proved to be Ross' best rapid of the day, styling all three drops, and managing a perfect boof on the third drop...though the amount of time he spent not capsizing while being pushed against the walls after the second drop was pretty funny.

We all ran Letterbox too, though I was the only one not to plug it, and George was shoved into the river right alcove by the water and had to make a technical exit onto the bank.

Ski-Jump was its usual, friendly, self - though I think it was one of the ones that had scared Ross most up to this point.

Crack of Doom was my screw-up of the day: my line in was great, unfortunately between choosing whether to run the drop at the end left or right, I went centre and then backwards down the right. On the plus side, my reverse boof/brace works fairly well. Ross and George both ran this easily. Stephan gave it a miss as his back started giving him some bother.

Crack of Dawn was it's usual portage and seal launch.

Great Waterslide was fun as always. Ross and I got the line right, Stephan just missed the wall and capsized (his flat-water beat-down did not result in a swim though), and George was our dedicated person for crashing into the wall.

Right Angle was paddled my me, George and Ross. Only Ross capsized, and his roll saved him. He then capsized against the wall, and after a little nudge from my paddles to move him away from the rockface, he rolled up again. Despite having a sore back, Stephan decided that sliding down the drop was a good idea...

Many moments were spent later sniggering as Stephan hobbled around at the Real Food Cafe and trying to climb sideways into his car. Silly Stephan.

It's been a very long time since I've been to the Etive and no-one has swum, particularly when with people who've never run it before. So well done again to Ross and George on what was, overall, an excellent trip.

The new paddles no longer look like this though....

Things which happened to me last term

Since not much has been posted on the blog recently here is an account of the rivers and stuff I’ve done with the club and people from the club over the first term of this year. Obviously other stuff did happen but if I wasn’t there then I can’t really write about it, hopefully someone else will. It’s been a pretty busy term which is probably why my exam at the end of it went badly!

Wet west: We went to it. A really good group of Gucc headed up this year and had a good weekends paddling thanks to excellent organisation of the SCA (well worth my Grandmother’s scorn for missing my cousin’s wedding). On the Saturday an impressive number of people got on the Morriston and Harry took one for the team with a good underwater beating. Sunday was a bit more subdued on the Garry as everyone was feeling the night before! It was good to mingle in the Scottish paddling community, even if Fraser did nearly punch someone from Dundee.

Freshers’ trips: We decided to be nice this year and not just throw freshers down scary rivers, we even had a flat water introduction. The flat water was Loch Lomond and we went to wallaby island where we saw Wallabies, this was the highlight of my life!

The second freshers’ trip went to the Teith (basically flat water), the biggest hazard turned out to be water bourne bacteria and parasites – unlucky Holly! After the teith one foolish and irresponsible member of the club decided to pass the rest of the afternoon by paddling Bracklin falls on the Keltie. This turned into a demonstration for the freshers of ‘how to swim off a seven meter waterfall with rocks in the bottom narrowly avoiding a massive siphon’.

The next weekend was spent doing the lower orchy twice, on Saturday it was a nice friendly level on Sunday pretty high so a reasonable amount of carnage ensued.
North East weekend: A beginners’ weekend up in Nethy bridge which went really well with miraculously little ffaff leading to rumours that Emma has a deal with Satan. Stayed in an awesome bunkhouse and did the middle Findhorn low on Saturday and a bit higher on Sunday so really good for learning and progressing and what not. Bumped into Dundee on the river but Fraser controlled himself.

Intermediate trip: Upper Braan; never done it before was nice, quite alpine in a not sunny sort of way. Had a couple of swims but all dealt with though my driving was very poorly received.

Mach: Surf kayaking weekend which I couldn’t go on but I understand some good surf was had in between the massive levels of drunkenness. However on this weekend Rupert and I hijacked a mountaineering club trip and went paddling up around Spean Bridge. Did Pattack, Arkaig and Abhain Gulibhinn. The many miles walked with boat was character building!

Beginners’ trip pre Christmas: Did the Avon near Edinburgh which is quite nice if cold and snowy (not that this is a year round feature obviously). Don’t think we got the hang of the get out though as we had to climb through a very private looking yard over a pretty big wall.

Stuff paddled not on club trips but with club people: The Tilt-Brilliant river, the 9km walk in almost adds to enjoymet by adding to the sense of adventure. The Leny- A lot! The Keltie- one of my favourite rivers in the world including a partially successful attempt at Bracklin. The Etive- had a day when a load of us did it at a really good level, great fun with plenty of carnage! Mousewater- an excellent river really close to Glasgow which I’m ashamed I’ve not paddled before (shuttle did take longer than hoped though). Kinglas (rest and be thankful)- lived up to all the hype even if we didn’t do it high enough to be considered real men! The middle orchy- a couple of times on 5 on the gauge the guidebook does not lie about the mind altering bit! My paddles did slightly snap in half though which was a shame. The Carron- Possibly a first decent? Probably not but it’s not in the guide and asked around and not found anyone who’s done it yet, pretty good 3/4 fun with one very definite portage. I might even get round to writing up a guide for it sometime. (there were quite a few swims in there too!)