Pyrenees 2010
From ICCC
People
- Ally "river chocolate king" Cott
- Chad "my poor car" Sankey
- Joe "strapped on a pair" Freeman
- Mark "unsuccessful probe" Wardle
- Rachel "marooned" Fox
- Ralph "my car CAN go as fast as Chad's" Evins
- Rory "super mega rabbit" Fyffe
- Theo "anti shoe" Petre
17th: The Drive Down
Both vehicles made the ferry, which must be a first. Must be the advantage of taking non-speed-limited, not-ancient-old-bangers. The drive down was long and dull (~850 miles, 18 hours from London inc ferry). We arrived near Pau at around 12:30 and eventually located each other to wild-camp for the night.
18th: Gallego
We intended to run the upper section just over the border, but it was empty. We then headed to the lower section, which turned out to be ~50 miles away. Upon arrival at the put-in it all looked good - bluey-grey water in reasonable amounts. Upon arrival at the take-out when doing the shuttle it all looked very different - murky chocolate brown. It turns out the hydro halfway down had broken, as presumably had the emergency overflow, as quite a lot of water was flowing straight down the hillside. After some questioning of a couple of local boaters it was decided to run it anyway. Rachel took a swim on the first grade IV rapid, followed by another on a big river-wide wave (Ralph told her she didn't need to paddle). Chad managed a swim whilst practising rolling on a flat bit. Rory felt left out and decided to lead off down a steep rapid reputed to contain a couple of siphons, leading to a swim and requiring Ralph to run the rapid in a hurry and chase off after the boat.
We decided to camp at the take-out, but headed in to the nearby town in search of beer and water. We wandered the town looking for the "kayakers bar" mentioned in the guidebook, but only found it with the help of some local gorge-walkers - from the outside it looks like someone's house. The rest of the evening was spent imbibing muchly.
19th: Lower Ara
The next day we intended to paddle the Aragon Subordan, as the levels website said it was running. After a long drive it was discovered that it wasn't, offering only a very scrapy grade II section or a very rocky and annoying-looking grade IV bit.
We proceeded to the Ara valley and all except Chad ran the lower section, supposedly grade II-III-IV (stupid guidebook) but really mostly II. We ran the 15km quite fast as it was getting late, so fast in fact that Mark refused to believe we'd reached the take-out and carried on down with Ally. We eventually located Chad, ran the shuttle, had a beer, then sent him off in search of the other two. They were located with surprisingly little faff, and we went to a campsite in Broto for the night. Rory drank lots of dirty pints.
20th: Upper Ara
We decided that since the lower was easier than expected, the upper would be the same. No. Guidebook said IV (5) and meant it. There were some nice sections early on, but then it got steadily gnarlier, with many people walking many sections. Joe strapped on a pair and ran the long section under the bridges. Rachel told Mark that there was a big pool at the bottom of the next bit* - Mark missioned off straight into the huge walled-in hole in between. Ralph, following him down, just made it, having a roll on the tow-back. He then got out of his boat and ran back up to rope Mark out of the hole. there was a big pool at the bottom though, which usefully collected all Mark's kit. We eventually reached the death weir at the half-way point, where most people got off. Theo and Mark ran the next gorge, which was apparently much nicer. We returned to the campsite in Broto for the night.
-*What actually happened was that I told Mark I seen enough to know I wanted to portage, but from what I’d seen I thought he’d be ok. Turns out I was wrong. Sorry Mark! I really wasn’t expecting you to just take my word for it.
21st: Cinca
(by Rach) Another leisurely start saw us heading over to the Cinca valley, there was some debate about whether to follow the Tom-Tom or the map. Tom-Tom won. This ended with us driving down a scenic gorged-in section (Rio Vellos) which according to the guide book is banned to paddlers, it looked a lot like Chateaux Q but half the width and twice the volume. Unfortunately a broken down tow truck blocked the road so after a dodgy 9 point turn we headed back up the valley and arrived at the Cinca put-in via a different road. It was a bit on the low side but time was getting on so we paddled anyway. It was a nice II/III float although again the guide book had graded it harder.
Theo was to be dropped off in Andorra the next morning so we continued driving in that direction. The stupid Tom-Tom took us to another dirt track; Ally opted to drive round on 20km of road while I was bullied into driving 3km of gravel switchbacks. Ally won. After some more hair-raising driving through a small village centre we found somewhere to eat and headed up a steep valley to find a camp for the night.
22nd: Lower Pallaresa
The main section on the Pallaresa was the choice for the day. We aimed to put in at Rialp and paddle the 25km down from there, according to the guidebook this was a grade II-III-IV section. As it turned out the guidebook had overgraded again and the river never really got about grade III. On returning from the shuttle Ralph found his boat had been cunningly moored on a mid-river tree by the jokers left behind. An amusing swim on the back of Joe’s boat followed. Several people decided to give up at the halfway lunch stop due to coldness and lack of enthusiasm, leaving only Rory, Ally and Chad to run the gorge section.
Having decided to find another proper campsite that night we drove around finding lots of closed sites. Eventually we found a campsite that looked equally closed, but didn’t have a car barrier and had open toilet blocks so we pitched up. Later that evening some randoms turned up who were clearly staying in rooms above the toilet block. They looked at us suspiciously but fortunately didn’t call the police or campsite owners.
23rd: Upper Pallaresa
In the morning were still unable to find the campsite owners so we guiltily left without paying. Since the guidebook had overgraded the previous day we decided to run the section from Llavorsi to Rialp which according to the guide book was IV+. A road inspection on the way up revealed nothing that looked harder than II although you can’t see it all from the road. We put on and after a kilometre or so of floating things started to pick up, the bits that had looked like grade II from the road were quite a lot bigger from the water. We paddled several long rapids consisting mostly of large wave trains. While harder than we were expecting the section didn’t really go above III+
As tomorrow was our last day of paddling we decided to get back over to the French side to put us closer to home. This meant possibly driving though Andorra, and keen to tick off another country we headed in that direction. While it wasn’t quite a Turin experience Andorra is not a place I hurry to drive in again. I don’t understand how a country with basically one road can be so confusing and congested! The guidebook only lists one river in Andorra and it is graded at hard. Undeterred we drove up the valley looking at the river which contained several death weirs. Further upstream we found a 200m section of river which looked manageable. Rory, Ally and Ralph put on and ran the section putting another tick on the map for ICCC.
Miserable weather foiled our wild camping plans and we found a French campsite with cooking shelter to spend the night.
24th: L'Oriege
The nights rain had brought up the rivers in the area, the Oriege section we intended to paddle (graded III/IV) was bank full at the intended put on. We scouted further upstream as the guidebook suggested the possibility of interest upstream. Having spent some time driving upstream and wandering around on the bank and playing fantasy lines, everyone decided they like their face in its current arrangement and we headed back to the original put in. Ralph, Joe and Mark put in a bit further up to show off for some locals/other tourists. The Oriege is fairly fast low volume and with few eddies, so that on occasion keeping line of sight could be difficult. We split into two groups of three (Chad wasn’t paddling) and set off. Mark, Joe and Ally disappeared off into the distance and got to the bottom without incident. Ralph, Rory and I started a cautious decent of the river little did we know we’re were heading toward the only epic of the trip…
We had stopped a few times to inspect rapids on the way down and again eddied to inspect another rapid consisting of two main drops. Having spent some time deliberating whether or not to run it I returned to my boat to run the rapid. Ralph was at the bottom taking photos and Rory set off ahead of me and got a good line. Somehow in attempting to get right to run the first drop I ended up upside down and swum. I got myself on to the mid river boulder that formed the first drop. I then watched my boat solo the rapid with its usual lack of finesse and observed Rory and Ralph get my boat to the bank and disappear off around the corner.
Waiting on for them to come back I surmised I was not in a good position. The drop to the left looked a lot like the breaker (of the Glaslyn gorge) and the drop to the right went under an overhanging boulder and looked somewhat rocky. Both flows met in a boily mess and downstream going into a second drop where a bobbing branch hinted at the possibility of a submerged tree. It took me about 2 minutes to work out the best way off the rock would be on a throw line, river right, and hope to hit the pico-eddy just above the lefthand drop.
Having worked this out it took another hour for Ralph and Rory to reappear, during which I considered all the possible suicide lines off my rock, wondered why they were taking so long, and tried to convince myself they weren’t dead. Happily they turned up, some issues with paddle rescuing and an irate farmer being the chief holdups. Rescue was initiated with the addition of krabing my harness to the line. Fortunately I hit the pico-eddy and collapsed in a bundle of relief on the bank.
We continued downstream without further incident to see Chad driving up the road (apparently for the third time) wondering where the hell we were. The drive home was commenced and after some navigational muppetry both cars met in a service station north of Toulouse to cook dinner.
25th: The Drive Home
Drive home was about as dull as the way out. Ralph’s car stopped north of Paris for lunch, and made it in plenty of time (despite Ralph trying to delay things by breaking the car key in half at a fuel stop). Chad’s car made the schoolboy error of stopping before Paris and then getting stuck in traffic. To make up time they sped along the peage and ended up getting stopped by the gendarme for speeding, missing the early ferry by minutes. Ferry crossing took 2.5 hours due to fog in the channel but we all got home in the end, making use of the speed camera alerts on the Sat-Nav. Overall a good time was had by all, cheers to Ralph for organising and to everyone who came along for a great trip.
Notes for future trips
Total trip cost was ~£230 each,
Although we found plenty to do, going a week or two later would probably be better for water levels.
The guide book over-grades most sections (apart from the upper Ara where it definitely didn't).
