Ardèche/Cévennes Easter 2009
From ICCC
People
- Tim “Grow a pair” Burne
- Rob “Breakout practice” Tuley
- Adam “The Fish” Holland
- Tom “Submarine” Haywood
Trip Report
Abusing Mark (and Nina's) hospitality - Weds 8th Apr
Everyone convenes at Marks house at various points throughout the evening. Mark’s not actually due to come on the trip, but he lives ‘near’ the airport and has a track record of having his generosity abused (sorry Nina).
Flight out, and the Glueyre - 9th Apr
Waking up at some ungodly hour (probably about 4am), we attempt to sneak out of the house without waking either Mark or Nina. Tim decides to take his kit out to the car in two batches, leaving the door on the latch. Rob and Adam exit before Tim reenters, closing the door behind them. Tim has to wake Mark to get back in. Mark doesn’t wake up, Nina does. Oops (sorry Nina).
Extended navigational muppetry means we set off in a north-westerly direction to get to Gatwick (which is south east) putting an extra 20 miles onto the journey. Nonetheless we arrive in plenty of time and sit down for a filthy (Maccy D’s) breakfast (or two, you fat b@$tards), before hopping on the plane and getting out of there. Engineering work at Lyon airport means we are faced with a long walk/carry up stairs/lifts/escalators then back down them to get to the hirecar bus stop. Two hours later we are rammed into our “compact” hire car with four boats strapped onto the roof. First stop is the bakery, then the Rivière d’Ay. Unfortuantely there’s not enough water so we continue on to the Glueyre, the classic low-water run in the area. Here we meet another English group and spend an enjoyable few hours plopping off falls and negotiating technical rapids.
Once off the river, attempts to find an open supermarket fail miserably, and we end up in an awesome little restaurant in Aubenas, where the waiter serves us mighty big pizzas and lightly mocks Tim’s rusty French. From here we head to the gite (read mansion) where the other English group are staying and make the most of their hospitality – cheers guys!
Shopping and the Haute Tarn - Fri 10th Apr
We rise early in an attempt to stick to our vague plans and we all pile in the car to head to the Haute Tarn. Ten minutes into the journey we spot an open supermarket and (considering it’s good Friday and assuming all supermarkets will be closed for the remainder of our trip), we stop off and load up on 5 days worth of food. Many shenanigans ensue upon trying to get it all into the already packed out car, but with bags on knees and Tom and Adam barely visible on the back seat, we chug steadily back onto the road.
Reaching Pont Montvert sometime after midday, we check the level and it’s good to go. Rock on! Change, lunch and shuttle all go smoothly and on we get. This river is classed as one of the hardest in France in the older guidebooks and the crux of the entire run is “Gouffre de Meules” (literal google-translation = Pit of the grinding stones), given a grade 6 rating. Knowing that this is the first major rapid, we proceed carefully until we recognise it (Tim and Rob had paddled this section before). Tim paddles a short section of the lead-in and breaks out in the last eddy. Rob follows, but foolishly neglects to break out. The last Tim sees of Rob is some frantic high bracing before he disappears out of sight. Tom and Adam are oblivious to the epic and sit around at the top of the rapid waiting for a signal. Fortunately Rob managed to survive (though not really style) the rapid, racking up two rolls, an extended period of high bracing and running the must make-boof backwards. Everyone else portages the meat, putting in halfway down the rapid for the relatively easy slide to the bottom.
La Trompette is up next where Rob makes up for his previous folly by managing to catch the breakout at the top then being the first to man-up and run it (intentionally). After this the falls continue to come thick and fast before a particularly tasty looking river-wide (about 7m wide) pourover. It is easier to boof on the left but the stopper looks heinous, being backed up by a rock wall, whilst on the right it looks harder to boof, but the stopper looks weaker. Adam mans-up to take the left line, which is where we set up safety. He gets the boof, but is kicked back into the right of the fall by the towback. Right where we don’t have any safety. Hmmmm.. An admirable thrashing later and after some impressive downtime, Adam pops out, but his boat (complete with new camera) remains in there for a good five minutes pulling ends until Rob live-baits it out). The camera survives. Hurrah for pelicases! Tim follows with the river right line and gets away with it!
Also of note is another bout of muppetry on Robs behalf, where he follows Tom and Adam down a slide into a munchy hole, but fails to achieve adequate boofage. Following a few circuits of feeder eddy-->hole-->beating he bails, bringing the trip swim counter to two swims in as many rivers.
Reaching the takeout about 6 hours after setting off, we polish off cold beers we’d left in the river, and set-up camp.
Haute Ardèche - Sat 11th Apr
Sometime in the night it began to rain. Rob in his new tent was smug, Tim and Tom got moist, Adam got drenched. Given the weather we opted not to do the Dourbie as planned (it's apparently like the Tarn in difficulty but double the length, and the levels were going to be rising fast) and went to scout out some other “higher water” runs recommended in the shiny new guide. The few “higher water” runs we looked at all appeared to be comically low, so we drove back northwards. Eventually getting to the haute Ardèche sometime in the afternoon (again) we kitted up in the drizzle and left Rob to run the shuttle.
The haute Ardèche was a cracking run, if a little blocked by trees. Adam racked up his second swim of the trip following a brief altercation with one of the aforementioned trees on a section best described as grade 2. How embarrassing. As a result of the unrelenting gradient and many sweet (and some less so) falls, we made slow progress (<1km an hour) and by 6pm had only got just over half-way to the famous “Walabie” rapid (which Rob oh-so-nearly ran on his face in lower water on a trip in 2006). The water being much higher this time, no-one was feeling keen and with the road so close by at this point, a decision was made to bail out and call it a day, with two friendly eccentric fishermen giving us a lift back to the car.
Upgrading to a local municipal campsite (at Barnas) rather than wild camping proved to be a good idea as we managed to cook in the shelter of someones nearby garage (complete with sign saying 'not for use by campers' - but noone was in), followed by a retreat to a nearby bar for beer, overpriced pool and some camera drying action.
Fontaulière and re-attempt at the Ardèche - Sun 12th Apr
A brief abatement in the incessant drizzle in the morning saw us awake to dry-ish tents. Scouring the guides for more nearby high water runs we selected a few and opted to leave our tents where they were (both having not paid for the night’s camping and the fact we were going to try to stay locally). Half-way up the drive up the Lignon we noticed a distinct lack of water in the river, so went for plan B, the upper Fontaulière. Driving up the 3km run from what we thought was the takeout, took the best part of half an hour. However we unloaded and Tim ran the shuttle down the riverside road. Lucky he chose the riverside road rather than the main road, as en route to our identified takeout he noticed the actual takeout, saving us paddling an unnecessary 6km of choss. Phew.
Another cracking river, not least for Tom’s boat, which was now going for it like a sieve. The highlight of the run came about half way down in the form of a large Etive-valley-like slide. Think the first drop of the Allt a Chaorainn on steroids... with a bend halfway down... and all the current piling into a wall. Tasty. Rob went up first and made it look easy. Tom followed and landed upsidedown, getting forced into the wall before he managed to roll. Trip swimcount = 4. Undeterred, Adam followed, almost exactly replicating Tom’s line. Make that 5. Weighing up the 1 in 3 odds of a successful descent, Tim strapped on a pair, manned up and landed upright. Following an extended surf on the cushion wave he made it to the eddy unscathed. Hero :-)
Having the large part of an afternoon of daylight left, we opted to head back to the haute Ardèche and finish off what we’d started the day before. Upon arriving at Walabie (the big twisting rapid we all wussed out of last time) Rob and Tom decided that they didn’t want to put on afterall, and offered to run shuttes/cameras. Despite initial reservations to running this section with just two people, Tim and Adam flipped the proverbial bird to the BCU mantra “less than three there should never be” and with the immortal line “lets just grow a pair”, got changed and headed for the river. Tim, continuing the new “grow a pair” mantra decided to put in above Walabie and giv’ ‘er. Three curling pillow waves created by 90° bends in quick succession led to a steep 8m fall. It was the third of these bends that got Rob last time, but low levels meant he'd had time to roll up on the lip before dropping the fall. Unfortunately for Tim, when he capsized in the same place he rapidly realised that rolling before freefall wasn’t going to happen, so ditched his blades, covered his face and took it like a man. Handrolling at the bottom didn’t happen, but Adam was on hand with a convenient Eskimo rescue and paddle retrieval service.
The rest of the section was uneventful though contained some combo-rapids/falls which had us grinning. We met the same fishermen as had given us a lift the day before, who informed us of a nasty-ass-fall (probably not a literal translation) somewhere downstream. Heeding their words (which mirrored the guidebook) we took out in plenty of time and made an easy portage down a rapidly flowing irrigation channel. Convenient. Not finding anywhere to put back in after the portage (a steep sided gorge), we threw our boats into the river and followed them in – a nice 8m jump – swimming another 80m till the gorge opened out and we could get back in.
Lower Bourges and fly home - Mon 13th Apr
Our last day we are flipping between the idea of Upper (gnarr gnarr) Bourges, or the lower (many big, but relatively easy drops) Bourges. Following time calculations, we opt for the lower and enjoy a few hours of hucking drops in the beautiful sunshine. The first we’d seen in three days. Once again, the same friendly fishermen came to the rescue with the shuttle, saving us a 7km walk. Legends. Wish all fishermen back home were like this!
Highlights of the river include not being entirely sure which of the drops the guidebook mentioned was the shallow one, resulting in us all going for a few massive boofs to avoid the risk of breaking legs as mentioned in the guide. Unfortunately for Adam he got pushed into a cliff wall after the biggest of the drops (the 10m high Gouffre d’Enfer – translation: Pit of Hell), racking up his fourth swim of the trip. He later states that he’s disappointed that he didn’t swim on the Glueyre on day 1 to complete his submersive aquatical tour of Ardèchois watercourses.
A relaxed kit drying session, followed by more faff trying to navigate the under-construction St Exupéry airport and we were on our way back to Blighty for tea and medals.
Arriving at Gatwick shattered at 11pm we all go our separate ways... Tom has the easy option of a lift home with his Dad, Tim sets off on a 7 hour drive back to the lakes in time for work on Tuesday, Rob picks up a hire car to nip to stores and exchange his broken boat before his trip to Greece, and Adam spends the night sitting amongst a pile of kit at Gatwick, awating Rob’s return, before catching a morning flight to Athens (lucky gits).
Top trip guys, cheers!
Media
Photos Other groups photos on facebook: No.1, No.2
