“Did the earth
move for you?!”
French Alps
Women’s Course 2000
The first I heard of this course was at the end of May doing
the shuttle for the Findhorn – a maniacal white transit van shot past me,
slammed its brakes forcing me off the road.
Before I could retaliate with some choice verbal abuse, Jim bounded out
of the van towards me mumbling something about French Alps, women’s course, and
was I interested?? From this shaky
start, a weekend was organized at Jim & Steph’s in June for us all to meet
and tentatively make plans for France (I think this was the point Jim had
severe doubts about our ability to organize ourselves especially seeing as one
of us (who’ll remain anonymous) forgot all her clothes for the weekend!) but,
the kayaking was great and we were starting even then to work like a team
(although I’m sure Jim’ll disagree with that!)
… several phone calls, e-mails,
letters, etc later and we were all sorted and crossing the days off the
calendar ‘till we were off.
Thursday
20th July arrived and
Pauline and myself set off for Inverness to meet Lynn then drove off in convoy
to Kirkintilloch and picked Kate up from Glasgow. Next day (Friday 21st
July) the four of us in two cars set off south and picked Claire up at
Ferrybridge (somewhere in England). We
stopped at Medway Services near Dover and one of us used her skills of
deception to sneak five of us into a Travel Lodge room booked for 3 adults and
a child only – we smuggled 7 paddles in through the window (don’t ask!) and
text messaged Jim on our mobiles to say we were on our way and would
(hopefully) see him tomorrow (still can’t believe Jim was gullible enough to
believe I was bringing my non-existent “child” with me!)
Saturday
22nd July, we set off
early, escaped Customs and experienced our first time driving on the
right. After a very, very long drive in
blistering heat we made the fateful decision that it would be quicker going to
Briançon via Italy … ok, you look at the map yourself – there’s more motorways
indicated going through the Tunnel de Frejus and Italy than going via Grenoble
so it wasn’t a blonde ‘girly’ mistake!
(don’t even think of commenting here, Jim!) By 1am we were clinging to the Italian gorge
going down what became nicknamed the “intestines” – none of us had ever
experienced a mountain pass that clung to its sides with 360° hairpin
bends! By 2am we finally discovered
“Camping le Verger” and started hunting for Jim’s van on foot. After some wee silent(!) stage whispers, we
heard a tent grunt and the sleepy apparition of Jim materialized mumbling about
what a racket we were making and something about a storm?! To Jim’s credit, he helped us put Claire’s
four person tent up and we crashed for the night.
We woke to a beautiful Sunday morning (Sunday 23rd July) and after pitching the rest of
the tents, we headed off to the slalom
course at L’Argentière. I don’t
think any of us had ever seen moving water so clear & blue, moving
extremely fast (compared to Scottish rivers) and with so many fantastic
playholes, waves, etc in the one wee stretch of river. Jim and Nikki threw us straight into the
course by splitting us into groups and asking us each to take turns leading
down, breaking out into eddies and working on different ways of running it –
eddy hopping, working with a buddy, leapfrogging, etc. We also managed some rescue practise with
throw lines as the speed of the river and sharp eddy lines caught many of us
off balance! After running the slalom
course 4+ times, we headed off to the supermarché to stock up with essential
food and alcohol. That night swigging
back the old vino in Bernie’s massive (now communal) tent, the heaven’s opened
up and the storm Jim had warned us about descended. It rained constantly for 15 hours that night and Jim kept
assuring us it would have no effect on the rivers as they were all controlled
by dams and barrages, so we slept(?) fairly relieved that everything would be
ok even though the thunder & lightning lasted solidly for 12 hours – at one
point when the storm was at its peak directly above us, an almighty clap of
thunder shook the very ground we were all sleeping on – so the earth did
literally move for us all! (Steph wanted this added!)
Monday
24th July we awoke to a
very drowned looking campsite and Jim scurried off to check the river
levels. He came back looking serious
and took us all back to the slalom course at L’Argentière to show us the
devastation. Our wonderful clear blue
river that we’d been paddling only 20 hours previously had become a raging
torrent of chocolate coloured gunk with trees and other debris rushing down it
– it had risen about 2 metres and all the wonderful playholes, stoppers, etc
disappeared either entirely or mutated into horrific holes with jammed trees
sticking out and, there were warning signs posted forbidding people to kayak as
it was way too dangerous. (Jim &
Nikki – a wee piece of advice … for our second day this didn’t exactly boost
our confidence!?) They both made the
wise decision to hold a flat water session on one of the Lakes nearby as all the rivers we drove past had distorted into
rampant mud torrents. We started with
the basics (forward paddling, backward paddling, support strokes, rolls, etc)
and worked hard undoing all the lazy habits we’d gotten used to. Steph videoed us so that we could watch our
own mistakes and see how we could improve and develop our techniques – this
sounds like it was all hard work and no play, but there were loads of fun
especially when the ball came out and we all fought over it – I think this was
when Jim first realized we’d all naturally gang up against him! That afternoon, we were allowed some time
off and headed into Briançon for some shopping and icecream.
Tuesday
25th July – as the
river levels were still extremely high, we drove to a different valley to try
paddling the Upper Ubaye which is
normally dried up at this time of year.
We put in at St Paul’s (get out was at Jaussiers) and all enjoyed this
scenic grade 3 river – there were a couple of ‘interesting’ swims, notably
Pauline’s impression of a continuous forward roll (helmet, feet, helmet, feet,
etc) until Nikki & Jim intervened!
We all headed off separately and Joan (amongst others) worried when one
car (driven by someone who’ll remain anonymous) took a slight wee detour and
didn’t get back to the campsite until 9pm!
Wednesday
26th July – the
weekend’s storm provided enough water for us to tackle the Lower Clarée – a fast scenic Grade 3 river with some annoying tree
hazards that caught some of us off guard!
Thursday
27th July – today we
paddled the Upper Guisane – a fast
flowing Grade 4ish river with 250m of “S bend” rapids. We eddied out and inspected it and all made
the decision to run it in buddies.
There were two epic swims (thankfully no one hurt but a lost paddle) and
those that survived intact (and upright) jibbered for hours about the amazing
rapids from the pure adrenalin rush!
Friday
28th July – Jim and
Nikki decided that since our group comprised of varying degrees of skills and
competency, we’d split into two separate groups for the day. Joan and Claire joined Nikki to experience
the Middle Guil (account of it from
them later) while myself, Pauline, Lynn and Kate initially went on a magical
mystery tour of the French Alps with Jim – we took a look at the Grade 6 rapid
on the Gyronde, looked at the Gyr and the Onde before finally heading down the
valley to the Middle Durance. This relatively easy Grade 2 river allowed
Jim to hand over the leadership to myself and Pauline (and gave him the
opportunity to cause mischief – never, ever
believe Jim when he talks about rainy squalls, or “wait a sec – you’ve ripped
your cag” or “you’re plug hole is out” as they all end up in one thing –
getting very, very wet! Mind you, we
did get our own back on him … and not only with the loaded water pistols!)
Saturday
29th July – we all
paddled the Gyronde today putting in
below the Grade 6 rapid. Jim and Nikki
made me scout ahead and the others split into two groups and ran it by whatever
method they’d agreed on (leapfrogging and eddy hopping with buddies, etc) - I’m
still convinced Jim was trying to subtly get his own back from ‘drowning’ him
yesterday as I’d to look out for a nasty weir that we’d all have to portage-
fortunately the weir (with a nasty chunk of iron sticking out of it) and another
tree hazard was spotted well in time.
After the tree & weir portage, Pauline was given the chance to scout
ahead. This wonderful river gave us all
the chance to develop our leadership/teamwork skills whether we were scouting
ahead or leading our own individual wee groups down the river to the slalom
course at L’Argentière (which was still really high although now bluish in
colour rather than chocolate brown!) As
this was officially the last day of the course (and Joan was leaving the next
day), we all went out for an evening meal in La Roche-de-Rame. Tales of epic adventures from the week
flowed with the heady mix of good wine and excellent food – Jim even managed to
live out one of his ‘fantasies’ … just picture this … Jim walking through the
streets of France and dining with eleven young females surrounding him (his
‘harem’) – the looks he got from the French men said it all!
Sunday
30th July – Claire
joined Jim and Nikki to paddle the Lower
Durance while the rest of us had the day off swimming in the Lake near to
La Roche-de-Rame.
Monday
31st July – for those
of us who were left, today we put in at St Clément and paddled the Lower Durance culminating at the
infamous Rabioux wave – my everlasting memory of this whole holiday will be
Steph paddling just ahead of me, dropping down into the Rabioux wave and then
shooting straight up for the moon as she ‘tail-ied’ big time!
Tuesday
1st August – Jim took us
up to the Middle Guil and seven of
us (myself, Steph, Sarah, Pauline, Claire, Kate and Jim) paddled this excellent
Grade 4 river – I think this was my favourite river as it’s like a non-stop
slalom course with lots of drops and boulders to navigate around and I’d have
loved to do this stretch of river over and over again all week long!
Wednesday
2nd August – our last
day of paddling so we headed back to the slalom
course at L’Argentière. I’m not
sure if it was exhaustion from a week and a half of paddling or too much wine
the night before, but most of us only managed to run the course twice (Jim didn’t
even venture near his kayak!)
On behalf of all the participants of this course (Joan,
Claire, Lynn, Pauline, Kate and myself) I’d like to thank both Nikki and Jim
for all their hard work, time and patience, and skill at hastily re-planning
our week due to the storm and consequent high river levels – for Nikki’s
beaming radiant smile as she lead us on the rivers, her calm demeanour, the
‘smiley faces’ and chants of “we’re big fat hairy bastards” to boost our
confidence on rapids – and, for Jim’s perseverance that he’s not living in
denial … how can one man lose so much stuff, ‘accuse’ everyone about it (even
blaming first us, then ‘dogs’, then ‘wolves’, followed rapidly by ‘bears’ about
nicking his socks!), then ‘find’ it all and claim he knew exactly where it was
in the first place and we were the ones in denial for thinking he’d lost it …
ok, I admit it must have been human hands that put his knickers in someone
else’s car but it certainly wasn’t one of us!
Anyway, there’s loads of stories of epic thrills on the rivers and tales
of après kayaking that haven’t been mentioned (like Steph’s roasting chickens!)
so catch up with one of us for more (except Jim of course who’ll claim he’s got
the ‘real’ truth – Jim … just accept it - how can eleven women be wrong?!?)
June McMillan