Here I was again, trying to think of how many hours that I’d spent in this ‘ERPA van over the years. It’s always for a good reason, though, and none better than this: The Alps! Sean’s been going for a few years now, skiing and paddling, so it must be worth the 14+ hour drive - 14 hours on a seat designed for midget amputees, with two 6ft+ highly tuned athletes crammed onto it - you had to be close friends!

At the campsite, we were greeted with hot chocolate by Sid & Clare who had already grabbed a good pitch for us, giving us time to reflect on our surroundings. And what surroundings! Huge mountain ranges, warm sun - I just had the feeling that this was going to be my type of place.

Early next morning, Team MTB (Kev, Mike & Jezz) rode off to check out the local trails, arranging to meet back for breakfast and a mellow paddle on the lower section of the Guil, a really scenic river with small waves and play holes to get everyone into the "Alpine paddling mode”. After lunch at a nice little hole & tailsquirt spot (I’m sure Sid had bricks in the back of his boat!) we continued to play our way down this lovely river. One wave had Petra’s name on it, starting off the week's "fish ladder".

The Guil flows into the Durance which took us right back to the campsite, with another candidate for our fish tally. This time it was Mike's turn. Unaware that Sean and Jezz were heading towards a cliff with most of the river piling onto it in order to perform “rock splats”, he was caught out by the very boily water and bailed out. We soon discovered just how much water an RPM Max can hold!! Soon we were back at the site (via a compulsory surf on the excellent play wave), for a beer and chillout in the sun.

Next morning, Team MTB went to ride the area around Mont Dauphane, a fortified town set up high on the cliffs. We found the source of a very high waterfall that we had paddled past the previous day, but since we had no boats with us running it was not an option!! (Cycling next to the edge was enough adrenaline for me, anyway!)

Back with Team Kayak, we went to paddle the Guisane which, although a little low, still had enough to catch out the unwary. Past the grade 4 section (our safety set-up was fortunately not needed) Clare was worried about the amount of water in her boat, so we gave it a close inspection and found a small split (good old Piranha again!). Still, it's a rare use for the "fully comprehensive boat repair kit" we all carry (not!)… Sid excelled himself with a very professional wax repair job whilst every one else helped by absorbing as much sun as possible! (Too many cooks etc..., you know). And I thought the sun must have gone to my head: Coming down the river were 15 yellow do-nuts propelled by kids with kayak paddles! We watched with amusement as they bounced through the hole we’d been playing in and were caught by their guide apart from one who ended up on our bank. Of course, Sean just had to have a go! He didn’t seem his usual cool self, though, as he tried to control a craft that cannot stay in a straight line through the hole. (How about some for the club?!!!!! )

At the take out it was suggested that a group of more experienced paddlers tackle the next 6k of river - a very continuous grade 4. So the "Fab Four" (Sid, Sean, Kev & Jezz) set off, only to be forced to get out after about 50m to inspect what was causing the deafening roar under a bridge. The route through was blocked by an annoyingly placed rock and the other poosible ways were very rocky, too, so I decided that a bankside route would be the best, closely followed by all except Sean who ran it - making it look easy as usual.

Back on the water, we were treated to continuous grade 3+ water made scarier by the fact that there was an unrunnable man-made weir somewhere soon. It was well sign-posted on the river, though: “Get off here!”, “No REALLY get off here", “Look, Stupid, get OFF", etc. And what a masterful piece of French design it turned out to be: A concrete slope with jagged rocks sticking out at all angles to rip the bottom out of your boat if you managed to avoid the pinnings - nice!!

Gladly back to face natural hazards again with what must be the most continuous, fun, exhausting stretch of white water that I have ever paddled, everyone was looking out for each other. Sean was leading and at one point he looked back at me with a huge grin on his face and pointed down with the sort of angle you might expect on a ski run. Just how steep could this get? Arms pumping we paddled on. I even considered a deliberate pin just to have a break! In an attempt to help me get off a not so deliberate pin, Sid achieved the "Move of the Week": A weird broadside against a huge rock with him and his boat totally out of the water, leaving me enough room to pass under his boat after I had sorted myself out. Eventually, it eased off and we floated down to meet the others, tired but elated by a classic stretch of river. Highly recommended!

Next AM as ever, Team MTB arose early to find more downhill kicks which today meant an hour's climb in the sun followed by only 5 minutes of descent! (But what a wicked one it was!). At camp we collected Team Kayak for a run of the Onde - superb continuos grade 3 with our new “leapfrog” group order system working well. Mike and Sonia did some impressive “synchronised swimming” which tested the group’s rescue abilities (well done for hanging on to kit, guys, it really helps). Mike's combined “pin&swim” technique earned him the title of “Rock Magnet”, still he never stopped smiling all the way down!!

We met up with our shuttle, at the point where the Onde meets the Gyr and becomes the Gyronde (no imagination, these French). Sean ran across it and I figured that if he was able to walk it, I was not going to paddle it! I opted to do the shuttle instead! The run turned out to be a bump & scrape but the bonus at the end was the slalom course with some nice play spots. When the kayakers met up with their shuttle crew (oops, we’d only just gone into that bar, honest!!) it was back to camp for the well-earned beer (and dinner…).

The next day, Team MTB opted for a ½ day of biking using ski lifts for some downhill fun but it turned out that they didn’t open until the week after (DOH!). After much map-searching, we decided to try the area around Guillestre. And did we find a trail! Steep at first (it always looks much steeper on a bike!), with near impossible hairpins, it then followed the contour of the mountain with a path only 12”-18” wide with a lethal drop to one side and solid rock on the other. This was true mountain biking! After two circuits involving a long climb in the midday sun (Mad Dogs and Englishmen… Ed.), we went back into town to pick up Sonia who we had left annoying the locals whilst practising her French. She was cajoled into driving Kev's van down a nearby hill so that we could do the cool downhill bit without the sweaty climb. After a hilarious “crash course" in the finer points of Bedford van column gear shifts, she agreed to meet us at the bottom - shame, it turned out to be a different hill… Still, it all worked out and the rest of the day was spent surfing an excellent wave at the slalom site whilst irritating French slalom paddlers.

The evening brought what has to become an annual competition: "Eat a whole dustbin-lid-sized pizza and not be sick". The current record holder is Mike with an impressive whole Pizza (most of his own plus two pieces of Sonia's whilst he was waiting)! ... it had been a long cycle!

We inspected the Claree on the drive out and it looked a perfect level. Easy grade 2 leading into a small grade 4 drop with a nasty rock on one side, forcing us to put cover on both banks, but we made it with varying levels of elegance. Further down, it was more typical alpine grade 3 with everyone showing how much they had learnt over the past days, avoiding rocks and generally paddling with more confidence. It was decided that a spot of "role reversal" was in order on the easier lower section with the less experienced paddlers leading their advanced “buddies” down the river, breaking out where necessary and picking lines on rapids rather than “blindly following” and getting more of a feel for what river running is like from the front! That’s the sort of experience you don't get on a BCU course! Judging by everyone’s reactions, it was highly enjoyed by all and they learnt more than they could have expected.

The ACC Alps Rodeo!! Although rather poorly attended due to the early start (which had already been delayed to 9:30 to encourage entrants), there were some elaborate excuses: "I’ve got to fill my water bottle and wash my hair!" - Mark; "ZZZZZZZZ" - Sean&Petra; "But I have a hole in my boat, dear Siddy" - Clare; etc. In the end, the event - held on the famous Rabioux Wave at the campsite - was hotly contested by the four entrants Sid, Kev, Jezz and Mike with paddle tricks galore. Pop outs on the gnarly top wave and silly antics all-round made it a great fun and totally chilled paddle. The judging was held on the basis that every paddler voted for another to win. It was a nail-biting time as three names where read out with the last being the deciding vote. In the end, Sid squeezed it over the rest and was awarded the coveted Kettle Challenge Trophy which he will have to defend next year.

Incredibly, we were on to our last river of the week and we wanted to make it a goodie. The Ubaye was chosen as none of us had paddled it before and it had a good grade 3 section, followed by a 4+. There is also an infamous gorge section at the end which Sean was laying down big hints about how we could run it even though the guide book used phrases like “extremely nasty and possibly grade 6 !!!" I was wearing my best chicken-suit and just kept on changing the subject…

The Ubaye has one unusual feature for the Alps: It runs warm water! Normally rivers here are powered by snowmelt which means they get higher throughout a sunny day - but they are always bloody cold. (Now, this hopefully would not mean that the Ubaye was full of sewage! ). A classic grade 3 run followed with much playing and with Sonia doing a couple of impressive “pressure rolls” halfway down a rapid.

We "portaged" the gnarly looking middle section by shuttle to paddle the famous Ubaye Race Course which according to Sid “can’t be that bad as it is a slalom course”. (Sid, let me explain - SLAP) The race course used to be a “pool & drop” type of river until flooding a few years ago changed it into a fast run with a reputation for having big powerful holes. I had a personal close look at one of those as I lazily dropped into it and had most of my brain washed out through my nose! I didn’t "just drop" into anything else that day!

As none of us had paddled the river before, Sean took a back seat. Sid, Jezz and Kev did all the inspecting from the boat, eddy hopping truly not knowing what’s downstream - it made it so much fun being out there in front, not knowing which route to take or if there even was one. This is what I learnt to paddle for!

More excellent water followed and all the time we were looking for our memorised marker to ensure that we did not accidentally enter the “Lion’s Den”. It was an old Roman bridge built right across the mouth of that gorge, and it was just such a bridge that Sid was casually drifting towards when I pointed out the error of his ways to him. I have never seen anyone so determined to make an eddy, paddling like the Duracell Bunny with a look of steel on his face. However, on closer inspection it turned out that there must be two bridges as this was not the one we had seen earlier. The river bhere entered a kind of mini-gorge with beautiful sheer rock on each side and deep bluey-green water. We finally came to our take out point above the genuine gorge which according to Sean “looked alright” (we later looked at it from the road and it didn’t look “alright” at all).

Team MTB were having withdrawal symptoms that evening from not riding all day, so a quick blast around the trail at Guillestre was suggested. And quick it was! As we now knew the trail, we were going for it “big style” - until in not such big style I put my front wheel in a dip at the bottom of a steep slope. As the bike sailed past my ears, I remembered the immortal words: “You wouldn’t want to fall off here”. I then landed my head on the path (apparently with an empty thud) to bounce off the edge, saved from “free-fall” by trees and bushes...

Next day was home time and there I was again in the back of that van with an unbelievable amount of kit inside and the two largest people on the trip crammed into a tiny space with about as much air as a Spud airbag. It makes you wonder: Is it worth it ? I’ll tell you next year.

Many thanks to everyone on the trip for all pulling together to make it one of the best paddling trips I’ve been involved in. A special thanks to Sean, Sid and Kev for all the driving and organising.

by Jezz Whatmore, July 1999