A Grade Too Far- a Tale of Alpine Pandemonium
Declan Brennan July 2000.
This is an article that I wrote for my Beford club: Viking shortly after my return from my first kayaking trip. An arrogance born of innocence shines through. I am only now beginning to realize how much I have yet to learn.
Diary
| Fri 9/6 | Rabioux Wave on the Durance |
| Sat 10/6 | Durance. St Clement to Embrum (including Rabioux Wave) |
| Sun 11/6 | Lower Gill+Lower Durance |
| Mon 12/6 | Upper Durance |
| Tue 13/6 | Onde |
| Wed 14/6 | Clareé in the Brainçon Gorge |
| Thu 15/6 | Slalom at St. Clément |
Damage
2 boats, 3 sets of paddles, 1 knee cap, 1 ego.
For those of you who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I’m a programmer, who has never really been into any form of sport. However some form of middle age crisis has caused me to get involved with kayaking recently. I got invited to go kayaking in the Alps with Brian Stanbridge and a bunch of university students who were soon to be physical education teachers. At the time of the invite, I had been kayaking about a year and I’d finally learnt to roll about two months previously. Practically the only white water I had been exposed to was the Duckmill jets (two little sluice gates) and the only river running was locally on the Ouse, which, in case you didn't know, is flat as a pancake.
Talking with other Alpine veterans, I was entranced with their tales of magical scenery and crystal clear waters. Thus it didn’t take much to talk myself into taking the trip overland through France in two cars equipped with a miscellaneous collection of boats and paddlers. We slept for a few hours overnight on the grass at a motorway service station and got to Embrum in the middle of a Friday morning. We got set up on the campsite quickly, so we could head out to the Durance that afternoon to see the famous Rabioux wave- a lure for play boaters everywhere. For somebody from flatland, it looked pretty huge. To start with we eschewed our kayaks to try the raft that we had with us. Getting some coordination among a bunch of individualistic paddlers was a bit of a challenge, but quite amusing to say the least.
When we did our first trip on Saturday on the Durance, it lived up to all my expectations. Steve taught me how to break in and out of eddies. We got a chance to do some seal launching from a very high bank. I went over a couple of times in eddies, but my roll didn’t let me down. Unfortunately Simon went swimming, when he capsized near a large rock. His paddles were lost, so he left the river. When we found his kayak, Steve took it under tow through some pretty impressive rapids. Things climaxed back at the Rabioux wave, which was even more fun in a kayak.
On the third day, we got a chance to paddle the lower Gill. By now it had been raining pretty well continuously for two days, so the rivers were beginning to fill up. Steve and Brian were familiar with the Gill, but had never seen it like this. One section involved a forward scout and a lot of soul searching before four of us decided to try it. It involved a huge stopper, a strainer and a sharp turn between two rocks in a strong current. Brian reckoned it was approaching a grade 4. I negotiated the more serious obstacles, but got too close to the right hand rock on the way out and so got a chance to practice my roll again. Further down stream, Simon went for a swim and his boat broached between two rocks in a strong current. It looked irretrievable, but when it almost trapped a raft, Steve realised that he had to try for safety reasons. Eventually with the help of a throw rope and a lot of brute strength, we got the boat back. We followed through onto the Durance and when we encountered the Rabioux wave again, it seemed a bit easier. Perhaps I was learning, but more likely it was beginning to become a bit washed out, because of all the rain fall. Breaking out quickly after the wave, so you could go back for another go, took a bit of getting used to in the strong current.
On Monday we took a short trip on the upper Durance. However it was still raining and by now the water was beginning to lose it’s crystal clarity and was heading more towards a chocolate consistency. Thursday dawned without rain breaking on the roof of my tent. At last a gorgeous alpine morning. However when we popped down to look at the Durance, it was in full flood. It was the colour of bisto gravy and made an impressive sight with full sized trees heading down stream, tumbling in the current. All the eddies were washed out, leaving nowhere to park a boat. Large amounts of junk were getting trapped on the bridges making for some very nasty strainers. This didn’t deter the more fanatical kayakers, but we decided on discretion. We found out later from the newspapers that the Gill, which we were on yesterday, had now broken it’s banks. It didn’t just take out trees. It also vented its spleen on the roads and bridges in its worst flooding for forty years.
So we spent the rest of the holiday in the pub, right? Not on your nelly! We hadn’t come all this way, just for some dodgy French lager. Steve reckoned that we should try some smaller rivers, which hopefully wouldn’t be affected so badly by the flooding and so off we went to the Onde. This turned out to be a long stretch of more or less continuous Grade 3+ with a very nasty start. This river was packed with rocks and all the rain had built up the water pressure impressively. Steve warned us that coming out of our boats was not an option, unless we wanted to get bounced all the way to the bottom. Needless to say, spending ten or fifteen minutes being stone washed like a pair of wrangler jeans was not a very enticing proposition. However by now many people in our group had swam, but not me. I had always managed to roll and was now feeling quietly cocky. Some of the group decided to spectate and two decided to start after the first nasty bit. I decided to start at the beginning just behind Steve, who told me to stick to his line as closely as possible. Brian got ready with a throw rope just after the nasty bit.
Steve pulled out and headed off quickly in the current. I had problems getting my boat off the rocks and into the water and so ended up further behind him than I wanted to be. In my haste to catch up, I cut diagonally across the river instead of going across sharply and then staying right as he had. I went through what I thought was just a little stopper and all of a sudden I was over. There wasn’t enough water to roll, so I was struggling with my paddle trying to right myself in a very strong current. My paddles were ripped out of my hands and I was the right way up again, heading for an enormous stopper. I barely had time to say my favourite cuss word, before I was down again. This time I was ripped out of the kayak and tumbled at high speed, so I could hardly tell what was air and what was water.
In biblical times, it was common to stone people to death- a practice that
has thankfully fallen out of fashion in recent times. Swimming in Grade 3+ water
introduces a variation on this age old form of physical abuse. Here the rocks
are stationary and the body is thrown against them. However the effect in terms
of trauma is probably quite similar. I sped around a corner in the river where I
saw Brian’s throw rope ahead of me, tumbled again and when I came back up,
reached up desperately for the rope, only to miss it. There was no other safety
set up, so I resigned myself to getting the thrashing of my life. However a
stroke of luck washed me near to some branches. I grabbed for them, but could
only catch at twigs, which promptly broke off in my hand. This slowed me down
slightly however, so my next handful of twigs held. I slowly and carefully
manoeuvred myself onto more substantial branches. Then Brian dropped his throw
rope to me and I worked my way out. We headed down to the bottom in Brian’s car
to see how the others had fared. When they arrived, I could see from their
expressions that they had had the time of their lives, although it wasn’t
exactly easy. When I got my boat back, there was a great split in the front. My
paddles were nowhere to be found.
(After the holiday when I went back to the White Water Canoe Centre with my broken Kendo, they gave me a loan boat, while they arranged for a brand new replacement from the manufacturers. Now that's what I call after sales service!)
As you can imagine, I was less than pleased with my performance. The group was kind enough to lend me a kayak and paddles, so I could attempt to redeem my reputation the following day. We headed off to look at the Briançon Gorge. Here the river Clareé rushes through an enormous cutting right on the Italian border. With steep cliffs on both sides topped by mountain top fortresses, it makes an impressive site. However when we looked at it, we talked ourselves out of the trip, because the increased water volume funnelling between narrow gaps appeared to be rather daunting. We headed off to look for somewhere else, only to encounter some other kayakers, driving back up to the top of the Gorge, to have a second go. Steve asked them what it was like, and one chap said that it was just a nippy Grade 2. Provided you stayed in the middle, you would wash down to the bottom with no great difficulty, albeit rather fast. This persuaded us to give it a second go. Unfortunately we later discovered that this chap’s opinion was not to be trusted.
A short while later, I was lined up behind Steve at the top of the gorge with
Tim and Chalky behind me. I was in a boat that I’d never been in before with a
set of paddles that I’d never used. Moreover I’d just applied sun-block, so
these were slipping around a little in my hands. Off Steve went, with me just a
couple of boat lengths behind, determined to get the line right this time. The
water funnelled between the narrow cliffs on the way into the gorge causing
tremendous peaks and troughs a bit like a roller coaster with attitude. I began
to wonder what awaited us further downstream. Around the corner we went only to
be confronted with a bunch of rocks in the middle of the river that weren’t
supposed to be there. Steve pulls over to the left sharply and I manage to keep
behind him. After negotiating some of these rocks, Steve puts the breaks on to
keep the party from getting too spread out. I slow down behind him, turning my
boat sideways slightly. But I wasn’t as tight right as Steve. I promptly
caught a rock under the surface and I was over again. I did not even manage to
attempt a recovery this time. I was out thumbing again, so fast that water and
air were blurred together and it was very hard to time a breath. I hear somebody
shouting and through the water see the dark blue of a kayak. I reach up to grab
it, only to discover I’ve grabbed the side of Tim’s kayak, who keeled over
towards me. As soon as I realized what had happened, I let go and Tim managed to
right himself. Then he washed around a corner with the others and I was all by
myself clinging to a rock.
I clamber carefully up the side of the river. What to do? There was no
question of following the river bank down to the bottom of the gorge, because
there wasn’t one - just a lot of water funnelling between two cliffs. There
was a bit of a trail which worked its way up and away from the river. This I
followed, cursing loudly to myself, because I was furious with my performance.
Gradually I calmed down as the magnificence of my surroundings began to make an
impact. Then the trail that I was on petered out on a 2 in 1 slope to which a
few pine trees were tenuously clinging. I was in a pair of river socks standing
on a bed of pine needles holding onto two small pines as I edged closer to the
edge of the cliff. I could see a trail far below me, in fact far enough that I
could probably say a quick act of contrition before hitting the ground if I
managed to slip. It was time to rethink my route. The cliff that I was on
appeared to head off into the distance. However on the far side of the river the
cliff dropped away down into the town of Briançon. Moreover luckily there was a
bridge linking these two cliffs way above me. I turned back and scrambled up to
the top where I managed to get onto the bridge. A plaque proudly
announced that it had been built in the reign of Louise XV. I crossed the gorge
and entered a cliff top fortress, which had been used during the Second World
War. From its walls, I could see some of my group, way way below me. I thought,
incorrectly as it turned out, that Steve was playing in the river waiting for me
to make my way down to him. I tried to attract their attention, but there was
not a chance of sound travelling that far. I exited the fortress finally on a
real road and worked my way down into Briançon, where I crossed the river at
the first bridge and worked myself up the far side through a building site. By
now as you can imagine, I was regretting not wearing my river sandals.
Finally I came across the group and it turned out that they had had an even rougher time than me. Steve had had my DV camera on his helmet. Unfortunately the glue joining the inner foam to the outer helmet fractured under the weight. The weight of the camera caused the outer helmet to heal backwards and the inner foam slipped down across his eyes. I don’t know how he managed it, but he did a section of the gorge entirely blind without capsizing. He managed to rip the camera off and slam it inside his buoyancy aid. Then he readjusted his helmet, so he could see what else was going on. Tim, whom I had nearly capsized, had recovered, but he had washed around the corner backwards. He hit the rocks on the right hand side of the river and came out. He wasn’t as lucky as me and washed all the way to the bottom of the gorge with his legs getting a severe beating on the way.
Tim washed out on the right hand river bank. Steve had to ferry glide across in a tremendous current to reach him. When he reached Tim, he tried to find a way to get him out on that side of the river, but the cliff face was impassable. He then had to rig up a throw rope to get Tim back across to the other bank. I arrived after he had done all the hard work. Steve left me with Tim and went downstream to look for some of our equipment. The first aid kit had been in Tim’s boat which had washed away along with mine. However shortly after he left, Tim’s adrenaline level started to drop off and he was in extreme pain. He went white as a sheet and started to shake uncontrollably despite being dressed pretty warmly. Moreover I noticed that one of his knee caps was not where it was supposed to be. I hadn’t seen a case of shock before, but this looked like it. We needed to get him to a hospital fast. Steve came back shortly afterwards and we carried him down to the building site. I tried my extremely bad French on one of the builders, who organised a van to drive him into town. Things were slow in the hospital where he had to wait in a queue of mainly English kayakers, but eventually they syringed out all the blood and fluid, moved his knee back where it should be and Tim was able to hobble off on a set of crutches.
It’s all very well hurting yourself, but being partially responsible for somebody else’s injuries is not something that I’m very proud of. Moreover I added insult to Tim’s injury later on in the holiday when he was using a cash machine. I wasn’t paying attention and stuck my card in just as his was coming out. When the machine retained his card, I ended up being christened the "Vortex of Chaos".
Things might have taken a different turn in Briançon Gorge, but for the leadership of Steve Bates. He really is one exceptional kayaker, who can keep his head in a crisis - someone that you can rely on. The other person who really impressed me in the course of the holiday was Brian Stanbridge - a great organiser, he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything to do with kayaking, river craft and most importantly safety. Someone, who has the chutzpah to send his resignation in by email while on holidays, has my vote every time.
We finished the week on a quieter note at the St. Clément slalom course. However quieter is a matter of degree. This course probably surpassed anything available in the UK and it was great fun. As Tim was on crutches, we set him up with all the camera equipment. We got some great footage of Steve doing cartwheels in a really big stopper. Needless to say, I rolled countless times on the course. In fact once I did practically half of it upside down, when I was unlucky enough to try all my rolls while on eddy lines. I got up in the end however and didn’t swim that day.
On the evening of the last day, we popped out to the pub for a few drinks as
usual. There were only a few die-hards left, when a chap appeared with free
tickets to the local night club. Chalky and Steve were keen to have a go and
persuaded me to accompany them to help them out in "des affairs de coeur"
with the help of my dodgy French. We had a great time at the club, making the
usual lamentable attempts at podium dancing and finally decided to call it a
night about 3:30 or so, seeing as we had to be up at 7:30 for the trip back
home. On the walk back to the campsite there were just the three of us
accompanied by a kayaker from another group. This chap was limping badly,
because an Australian guide, that he was dancing with, had stomped on his foot
and he thought he had a broken toe. To top this Chalky had a spontaneous nose
bleed, so we were making jokes about the nightclub causing more injuries than
the river.
Then we caught the sound of a commotion from behind, where a group of French late teens/early twenties were walking a distance behind us. Steve asked me what was going on and from the word or two that I caught, I suggested that we keep walking briskly- to no avail. When the group caught up with us, we turned to ask them what they wanted to be confronted with twelve or so chaps wielding sticks. I felt like I’d just wandered into some late sixties gang flick. Ah b*#!x, I’ve already had two Grade 3+ thrashings this week. We asked them what they wanted. They informed us that they thought we were black and they wanted to beat one of us up. I don’t know whether the copious amounts of alcohol I had consumed had given me some Dutch courage, but I found this rather amusing. The only thing I could think of doing was to point to my hair and say in pidgin French: "What me ? You can’t want to fight me. Look at my white hair. I’m a grandfather.". I don’t know whether it was this comment, the fact that we weren’t running away screaming, or the extreme shortage of melanin finally registering with them, but things calmed down after that. We shook hands and parted company.
At least one outcome of the holiday is that I can now honestly assess my abilities. Many kayakers that I know treat a capsize with a measure of dread, so they will do their best to avoid it. However because it took me so long to learn to roll, I became almost as comfortable upside down, waiting for an Eskimo rescue as I am the right way up. Apart from making me a candidate for psychotherapy, this attitude means that I don’t try as hard as I should with my brace stokes. At the back of my mind, I feel that I can always rely on my roll, which nearly always works regardless of water grade. This attitude, while fine when the water is of sufficient depth, is not a good idea in rocky rivers, where the water is low level and high pressure. Here a good low brace is absolutely vital. I need to practice my basic stokes on short stretches of Alpine Grade 3 (English Grade 4), where a capsize only results in a short thrashing. Once I’ve sorted that out, it’s off to Peru, if I can persuade anybody to paddle with the "vortex of chaos".
Kayaking is great fun. If you want to be introduced to the sport, contact either the British Canoe Union or the Irish Canoe Union who will put you in contact with a club in your area. One good book to start with is William Nealy's Kayak Animated Manual. If you want information on the best rivers to kayak in the Alps, consider buying a copy of Peter Knowles White Water Europe, ISBN:0951941321.
Kayaking is potentially a very dangerous sport. Make sure you get proper training and never venture out on white water without the company of experienced kayakers.