Question:
I seem to remember every rapid that made an impression on me, and I usually remember put-ins and take-outs as well. Could be something from my survival-days, when it paid to remember such details.
There was a time when I could remember how to get someplace remote after only being driven there once… No I can’t even remember where I put my car keys. Good to have you back, Wilko. Great trip report(s). -Eric 
— Eric Princen Micro Analysis & Design http://www.maad.com/~eprincen
Response:
I seem to remember every rapid that made an impression on me, and I usually remember put-ins and take-outs as well. Could be something from my survival-days, when it paid to remember such details. There was a time when I could remember how to get someplace remote after only being driven there once… No I can’t even remember where I put my car keys.
Hey Eric, I know some Dutchman who went to Germany. He forgot where he parked his car every time he got somewhere, so he wrote down the name of the street he parked it at. He wasn’t too good at German, so when he couldn’t find the car later on, he asked some police-officer in bad German. Of course the policeman asked him for the name of the street, so the guy gave him the piece of paper where he had written the name "Einbahnstrasse" (one way street) down… Good to have you back, Wilko. Great trip report(s).
Thanks, nice to know who I’m replying to! 
— Sociology Student at the Tilburg University, The Netherlands Whitewater Kayaker AD&D Dungeon Master Secretary of the Eindhoven Canoe Club "De Genneper Molen" No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. Charles Colton
Response:
Wilko van den Bergh wrote rather a lot: Wilko, it’s a book! Nice to have you back; well I trust. Your fingers have gotta be pretty sore after writing this (5 part) trip report. I’m looking forward to a good primer for the area and trust you’ve left nothing for me to add next month My job and paddling commitments will perevent me form reading this till later in the day/week, but I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for the report, in anticipation. It’s raining Jez — "What happened while I was talking to the fish?"
Response:
Wilko van den Bergh wrote rather a lot: Wilko, it’s a book!
Naahh, I leave that for my memoires! Nice to have you back; well I trust. Your fingers have gotta be pretty sore after writing this (5 part) trip report.
Did spread it over a couple of days… and part six has just arrived on the group, it’s the last part though. I didn’t get any complaints about the size (yet), and I thought it might be nice to explain the area a little to the international audience. I guess that many British and other European paddlers have been there by now. I’m looking forward to a good primer for the area and trust you’ve left nothing for me to add next month
You still have the Ubaye, Cerveyrette, Claree, Rabioux and a host of other rivers and stretches of river that I didn’t get to paddle this week! Considering us going there in a month or so: I had planned on doing harder stuff next month, but we will probably be able to sqeeze in a day on a stretch of river together! Did you check out what river you liked yet? Of course we could meet off the water as well… but that is only a second-best option IMO. My job and paddling commitments will perevent me form reading this till later in the day/week, but I’m looking forward to it.
Life is a bitch Thanks for the report, in anticipation.
You’re welcome! It’s raining
On this side of the North Sea as wel, but we had planned to do some paddling in the surf this weekend… Besides that the Ardennes are still off limits 
— Sociology Student at the Tilburg University, The Netherlands Whitewater Kayaker AD&D Dungeon Master Secretary of the Eindhoven Canoe Club "De Genneper Molen" No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. Charles Colton
Response:
writes Wilko van den Bergh wrote rather a lot: Wilko, it’s a book! I don’t understand how you manage to remember all the detail to be able to write an article this long.
I seem to have a pretty good memory… some of my friends have learned that the hard way: One of them said that the only thing you could wake him up for, was sate (chop-sticks?) from his local Chinese restaurant. A year later I rang him out of his bed in the middle of the night, with the (hot) chop-sticks, and we had a great meal and good laugh about it. I would only manage to remember maybe one or two rapids… But I would still be able to talk about them for hours, I suppose!
I seem to remember every rapid that made an impression on me, and I usually remember put-ins and take-outs as well. Could be something from my survival-days, when it paid to remember such details. Of course talking about things is another great way of keeping the memory alive! — Sociology Student at the Tilburg University, The Netherlands Whitewater Kayaker AD&D Dungeon Master Secretary of the Eindhoven Canoe Club "De Genneper Molen" No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. Charles Colton
Response:
Did you check out what river you liked yet? Of course we could meet off the water as well… but that is only a second-best option IMO.
Unfortunately I’ll not be in control of what we paddle and when, but could make some strong suggestions. However, we have a small Alps group training trip in two weeks and I’ll see if I can get some commitments to what we’ll paddle and when. If there’s anything solid I’ll let you know. It’s raining On this side of the North Sea as wel, but we had planned to do some paddling in the surf this weekend…
We went all the way to the sea on Saturday and the boat stayed on the roof I knew there was little surf expected but there are bigger waves in my coffee. You may get some small waves on North facing breaks this w/e… (http://www.fnoc.navy.mil/wam/gifs/glbl_swht_096.gif) I wish you better luck than I had. Jez — "What happened while I was talking to the fish?"
Response:
Roel had got hurt when he flipped, and he didn’t want to paddle this day. Gerrit wanted a day off, and Cornelis and I wanted to paddle… but we only had one vehicle. We decided to ask Bart-Jan, the StipYaks instructor, if we could join them for the day. Bart-Jan was a bit reluctant, as he had planned to teach on a small lake near the Durance. Finally he advised us to paddle the Gyronde, continue on the Durance untill we would join him on the slalom course. We would then paddle on the Durance for a couple of kilometers with the entire group. Afterwards he would shuttle us back to our car. The Gyronde is a steep river, it starts as the rivers Onde and Gyr, that get together to form the Gyronde (aren’t those French people original when it comes to naming their rivers? ). The gradient of the stretch that we paddled, from the difficult rapid near the town of Vigneaux untill the Durance is 165 foot per mile for the first stretch and 110 foot per mile for the later stretch. Near the bridge of Vigneaux is a difficult 800 metre (half a mile) long rapid that was long rated unnavigable. Nowadays it is a class VI for the first 150 meters, and class V after that. We portaged the class VI stuff, and got in underneath it. We had scouted it two days before, and I had paddled this stretch last year, so we went down. Cornelis took a couple of pictures of me and I took over the camera when I had paddled down the first drops. This is a continuous series of drops, that is steep, fast flowing and with many very boney eddies that are difficult to catch. The occasional hole makes it all the more interesting. Because of all the boulders it’s difficult to scout very far ahead, there are a couple of drops where you fall down on river left, but where you need to catch the next drop on river right. An exhilarating ride! Cornelis did okay, even though he made some small mistakes, it was clear that he had learned a lot in the past days: I reminded him of his statement a couple of days ago, that he didn’t think he was going to paddle this rapid this holiday! We went down the Gyronde, the rest was relatively easy WW, class II/III, save the dam that is close to L’Argentieres. It has some large boulders under the 1,5 to 2 metre high straight drop, but to the left (looking downstream) it has a very strong hole, which gets very sticky at high waterlevels. We got out and scouted. Cornelis portaged, and I paddled the drop a little to the right of the middle, with no problems. A short distance later we encountered what seemed like an eddy at first, but what turned out to be the Durance river, a relatively small stream compared to the Gyronde at this location. We quickly paddled down to the slalom course, (which is about 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the confluence with the Gyronde) where we could see the StipYaks group walking on the bank. We had come there just in time for them to paddle it down for the first time. I tried to get as many gates as I could, but I still missed a few, mostly because there were several different routes over the river, and I hadn’t scouted in advance. We got out at the end of the course and went to greet the StipYaks group. They were setting up to shuttle, while the rest would have lunch. In the meanwhile we paddled down the course once more, planning to play a little in the holes and waves of the course. Cornelis and I got down, and he messed up my line by bumping into me halfway down the first eddy. I ended up a couple of eddies down, and in turn I ran into him when he got down. I tried to surf in a hole, but I was quickly flushed out and I got in an eddy a little lower. As I was watching Cornelis try to surf, I was suddenly upside-down! I set up, tried to roll, but I noticed that I was in between mushrooms and the current, and I couldn’t roll up. The next moment the boat turned into the current and I was quickly swept downstream, still upside down… I set up once more, but to no avail. Before I could set up for the fourth time, I was banged into a large boulder, which knocked all the air out of my lungs and made me loose my grip on my paddle with I barely managed to keep in one hand. I was pinned on the rock, and the current made it impossible for me to roll up. I pushed myself away from the rock, in an attempt to get off the rock. It worked! Now time became critical: I fell down another drop, just as I set up again. I got my head above water, and inhaled quickly, only to get a lot of water in my mouth: I had been submerged very quickly again. I was upside down for almost a hundred metres now, and finally I noticed the water was calming down… I rolled up! I was coughing pretty bad, but I managed to get into an eddy and quickly got my helmet off, that was one claustrofobic experience! I almost had payed dearly for my lack of concentration on this class I-II stream… but I didn’t have to swim, fortunately. I paddled down the rest of the course, just in time to see the shuttle drivers return. They got ready to get back on the water, and we stood by to watch. The instructor, Bart-Jan, took two of them down on this run, and about halfway down, the first one flipped and swam. The other StipYaks guys on the bank threw him a rope, and hauled him in, but in the mean time the second one had flipped as well! I could see Bart-Jan struggle with the first kayak, and noticed him getting to the second swimmer way to late to get him in an eddy near the slalom course. Cornelis was trying to get the throw line from the dumb guy who was still looking downstream like he had just seen a ghost, but the guy wouldn’t let go of the line. So I ran down to my boat, pulled out my bag and ran as fast as I could to setup and throw the line. I hauled him in just before he would have been flushed down, and the next eddy was about a hundred metres downstream, and on the other side of the river. Imagine my surprise as I had him on shore, that one of the other dumbo’s said to me: "That was a bad throw, because he didn’t get the bag but you threw the line over his head!", "Now he couldn’t get his hand in the grip on the bag!". I had made a very precise throw with the line exactly over him, and I sure as H… hadn’t intended on him grabbing the bag: that would have meant that he would have unwinded the entire 25 metres (80 feet) before the line would have gone taut! We watched the next batch come down, and another one swam. His buddies got him out okay. Bart-Jan asked us to paddle at the rear, to take care of swimmers. We soon got our first opportunity, but these guys were obvious beginners, and stubborn as well: I got one almost into an eddy, when I noticed that he was able to stand up, but because he kept swimming _and_ holding onto his boat, he was being pulled back out into the current by his boat. I told him to let go, so I could push the boat back in without pushing it on top of him, but he didn’t react. When I told him a second time, he said that the water was great (????), but he was still being dragged away! I pushed the boat and him into the eddy, without trying to avoid crushing him… A similar situation later on resulted in the same reaction, and it turned out Bart-Jan had ordered them to hang onto their paddle and boat no matter what! Great idea from the point of view of a single instructor, but I wasn’t too glad about these guys following it to the letter. We went down to paddle to La Roche de Rame, a small town a couple of kilometres downstream from the slalom course, in the meanwhile picking up a swimmer every couple of hundred metres. These guys were getting tired, that was obvious! Therefore I was very surprised to hear Bart-Jan tell them that we would paddle down the Onde, a class III/IV creek with a steep gradient. Bart-Jan strapped all of our kayaks (seven of them) on top of his vintage Renault shuttle vehicle, while standing down on the bonnet. The windscreen was cracked, the left mirror was smashed into a lot of tiny mirrors, the doors wouldn’t close properly any more and we all got in… I choose to sit in the back, but I found out that the rear-door wasn’t closed so I quickly yanked it close, before we would get onto the main road. We drove back to the slalom course, and picked up the second vehicle. I heard one of the locals ask Bart-Jan if he was "only" carrying seven boats today, that must have been one sight, with even more boats on the roof! We quickly drove to Vigneaux, to pick up Cornelis’s car, all the while Bart-Jan was telling funny anecdotes about close calls etc. Cornelis and I got in his car, and we all drove to the campsite near the Onde. Cornelis and I guessed that we would have to do at least ten rescue attempts. It would turn out to be twelve… When we got in, I could see that the river was having a lot more water than last summer, so this would complicate things a bit more. Normally the stretch below the campsite is III to III+. This was 17.00h, with the sun shining for hours on the glacier, it was 25 degrees C, and the snow was still lying below 1500 metres at some places. The first swim took place only shortly after we had taken off. Bart-Jan could rescue the swimmer, but from then on things got bad rather quickly. We had to help several times, mostly when more than one of them decided to visit the fish at the same time, also we had a couple of pins, where we had to get the paddlers afloat again. Because Bart-Jan had to paddle after the swimmers, and he wanted to keep the group as close together as he could, everyone raced downstream as fast as possible, with all the more risk for pins and foul-ups. I didn’t have too much of an eye for the beauty of the landscape, because of all the carnage. When the bridge, where we had planned to take out the boats, came into view, we had the biggest mess: three swimmers at the same time, one boat we got quickly in an eddy. Another one … read more »
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