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Thursday, 30 July 2009
Alps Trip 2009 (1. South France)
This is post 1 of 3 in a series on my Alps Trip. See Posts 2 (l'Alpe d'Huez) and 3 (Austria).
They say that you can learn more from two weeks in the Alps than you can kayaking a whole year in the UK. I can vouch for that after 3,298.7 miles, 8 countries, 13 rivers, 5 mountain bike trails, 2 rafting trips and half a day at Fontainebleau.
Miles and I set off from Sheffield at about 1pm on the Monday (after quickly setting up our new website Adventure-Psychology.co.uk which we got stuck on the side of the van before we left), headed South for Dover, stopping off at a guy called Ted Piper’s house in Henley-on-Thames for a cup of tea and a chat. You know how they say everyone knows everyone in the world through 6 people? Well there’s a theory within the UK kayaking community that everyone in kayaking knows Ted Piper through 1 person. There’s a thread on UKRGB forums that proves it. By the way, Ted Piper got really ill (viral meningitis) while kayaking in Northern Norway earlier this year and had to be flown home immediately – without his car – so if anyone fancies driving it back to the UK for him before the roads close for Winter, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
Anyway, we got to Dover in perfect time for our 10pm crossing and were at Dunkirque (cheaper than Dover-Calais) by midnight (now 11pm in France time, woah – time travel!) and on the aforementioned Ted Piper’s advice, planned to avoid the toll roads through France. This just happened to pass through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. By about 6pm (with practically no sleep) we were at our destination – Bourg Saint Maurice in the South of France, near the Italian boarder. We met up with the others who had been there a few days already: Mark, Sara, John & Nicola, all of whom have been boating all around Europe (and some in Nepal) many times before. Miles has only boated in New Zealand and the UK and I have never boated abroad!
The next day we did our first Alpine river, which was continuous class three/four whitewater. The biggest and hardest I’ve ever paddled! We went down a gorge to a place you can only get to by kayak (or raft) which was an interesting experience. The next few days we did some medium-hard stuff. In the UK if we want to go kayaking we need high water levels, and for that to happen you need a lot of rain and horrible weather, whereas in the Alps you need lots of sun and heat to cause the glaciers to melt and pour down the mountains into the rivers! This also means that the water is clean and pure! It’s brilliant! UK rivers are horrible and full of guk, making them a murky brown colour.
It was immediately noticeable that the standard class of river was much higher and more consistent than in the UK. Rivers are graded from one to six: one being still flat water; two is moving water with few or no obstructions; three involves slight manoeuvring to avoid complications; four is potentially dangerous water with complicated flow which can require inspection; five requires inspection and mistakes will lead to severe danger and potential injury; and six is usually unpaddleable where a mistake would certainly lead to severe danger, serious injury and possibly death. It is possible for danger to occur on any class of water (even one – such as simply drowning) and kayaking is certainly a dangerous activity at any level and precautions must be taken to prevent danger, and where danger occurs, safety and rescue must be put into effect. It was apparent that Alpine rivers were very fast flowing due to a higher gradient in the mountains and gorges and that the class of water was consistent throughout. So in the UK, a class four river would most likely be two/three for the majority with a few odd features at class four, whereas in the Alps it seemed that the gradings were accurate for the whole river, so a class four might actually be 3+/4 throughout, pushing on 4+.
One of the rivers we did towards the end of our first week, the Guisane, started off with a very scary class four rapid section which we thoroughly inspected and almost decided to portage (walk round and get on after it) but Miles & John ran it fine and we went for it. It actually tipped me over towards the end and I went down the final wave upside-down but managed to roll back up fine. The river continued to push my limits and was very continuous in its pace and difficulty, which proved to be a bit much for me, especially on what seemed to be an off day for me. I got tipped awkwardly and failed to roll back up and saw my boat get washed away downstream while I swam to the side and got out. The boat luckily got pinned on a rock not far away, so we analysed the situation and got Miles positioned downstream of it and we threw rocks at it to try and free it from being pinned against the rock, which after a few good throws, worked! Unfortunately with the speed of the water Miles was unable to stop it and it ended up drifting further. I climbed to the road side and ran along to catch it up – after a good few minutes’ jogging I spotted the green boat against the clear water – it had got pinned on another rock so I got myself down to the side of the water and waited for the others, in their boats, to catch up and get it free for me. John managed, after a few attempts, to hook a line onto the grab handle and we set up a pulley system (with an actual pulley – something I’ve never seen in kayak rescue! Brilliant!) to release the boat and reel it in, which worked fine.
Just before the end of the river I went down a rapid at a slightly bad angle and got stuck in a hole (note: holes are nasty bits of backwashing water caused by water pouring over a rock – if you get stuck in they’re hard to get out of whether you’re in a boat or swimming, and should be avoided at all costs!), flipped over a couple of times (that’s what they do – they just flip your boat over repeatedly – it’s like being in a washing mashine!) before popping my spraydeck and getting out – fortunately I didn’t get stuck in it after that and managed to swim to the side with my boat but my paddles got thrown to the other side and got swept away. I saw Miles catch up with them and throw them onto the side. I later found that they’d hit the side and fallen back into the water. He’d tried a second time but they’d disappeared from view when they dropped. Hmm.
In rescue situations there’s an order of priority: first comes yourself; second comes other people; third comes boats; fourth comes paddles and other smaller equipment. I’d got myself out, there was no-one else in danger, I’d got my boat out, then I started looking for my paddles (at this point I was still under the presumption that they were on the side where Miles had thrown them) and when I started asking the others I began to realise they were probably floating off down the river. Hmm.
I climbed up the side onto the road and dragged my boat up with a rope then ran down the road, peering over the edge to the water to look for my paddles. I ran a fair distance without seeing anything that resembled paddles. Luckily this was where the river smoothed out and became a lake so the water was pretty much still which meant they would probably be floating here. They weren’t. I looked all around, even saw what I’m almost certain was the re-used coke bottle, half full of water, I had loose in the back of my boat – it was floating in the lake, not moving, so I guessed my paddles should be somewhere nearby. They weren’t. Hmm.
It got to the point where I’d almost started mourning for them. I wasn’t prepared to accept that they were gone (sorry, did I mention they were brand new – I bought them for this trip – not cheap at £130 although you can pay a lot more for paddles), but after a good search and people starting to hint that they would be stuck under a rock somewhere and that I’d never find them, I’d just about given up. I’d lost them. Brand new £130 paddles – my first decent set! And they’d lasted less than a week! I was gutted. Mark started telling me about when he lost a set in Nepal and how annoying it is, but these things happen. Thinking about that was the peak of my mourning – but I thought I’d better just check one more time. I couldn’t see anything (but the coke bottle) in the lake part so I walked back up with John to where Miles had thrown them where they had first gone out of sight – checking by the rocks on both sides. Nothing. It was annoying that they were completely black – if the blades were bright coloured I may have been able to spot them better. I reached the point as far upstream as they could have been, stopped, turned around and began to pace back with my head hung in misery. John offered comforting words to try and soften the pain of my loss, which caused a pang which was tantamount to the aforementioned peak of my mourning. John dipped his hand into a nearby pool behind a big rock – and he pulled out my set of paddles – like they were being withdrawn from a Mary Poppins-esque handbag of Alpine water. I was surprised to see them, but didn’t let out any emotion. I just stared at them in his hand. They were back! I hadn’t lost them at all! This was fantastic. I was relieved! But for some reason this situation called for some sort of humour – I can’t remember exactly what my confused brain conjured up at the time but I seem to remember it being something along the lines “They’re not mine, but they’re sort of similar. They’ll do.” – I thanked and congratulated John and we headed back up to where the others were stood. Phew!
Labels: Alps, Alps Trip 2009, Featured, Kayaking, Travels
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 16:48 
