The Ardechoise Easter 2001

From ICCC

People

• Rob 'hapless probe test dummy' Tuley
• Jon 'bathtub boy' Lovell
• Glyn 'where's the camera?' Richards
• Jules 'ridiculous' Davies
• James 'munch me' Pratt

Trip Report

Due to John's divine planning abilities from his elevated control office in Imperial, we managed to squeeze (and I do mean squeeze) five boats and one car all the way to the sunny Ardeche in S. France.

Rob narrates;

John's Day - Friday, 23rd March

Having left from the stores on the Thursday evening, with five boats and John, James and myself (we'd cleverly forced Jules and Glyn to fly out) the whole of Friday turned into a transport day. Arriving from the overnight ferry at 6 a.m., we spent the next 12 hours driving the length and breadth of France, collecting a variety of odd looks on the way due to the load on the roof rack being almost as large as the car… Arriving at John's plush little cottage in the early evening, James and I found cooking aprons and became a gay domestic couple cooking dinner under candle light (the house had no electricity), while Jon when to pick the other two up from Nimes airport.

A Walk - Saturday, 24th March

Having seen the flooding in NW France the day before, we decided there'd be loads of water and put in on the Upper Chasserzac. This was when we first began to discover the bizarre French custom not only of putting dams across the river, but piping the water down alongside the river to the turbine output. Having put in just below the dam, we had a little paddle/walk down the output, during which time a weird alien from outer space descended and cunningly stole my helmet. Bastard. By the time we got to the output we were nearly down, but there were a few tasty drops before we discovered the Chasserzac play wave. Famous enough to get into the playak.com listings, the wave was nice and clean, even if our attempts didn't quite match up to the French bad boys style Another BBQ and salad for dinner later (yes, we ate like kings), we prepared to finish the 5l bidon of wine it was going to be a tough night.

Lines of Madness from Jules - Sunday, 25th March

We decided on the Upper Ardeche, as we'd driven down the river on the way, and there looked to be loads of water. Driving up and dribbling at the sight of the river, us water-starved paddlers got in just above a lovely drop on an Ardeche tributary, the Fontiliere. Scouting the drop showed a nice left line, with gnarly death down the middle or right. In my role as hapless probe, I showed the way with James close behind. Jules, our old man from Sales, hadn't paddled before the trip for 10 years, but resolutely decided (apparently) that our line was too easy. Edging to the right, he crashed through a huge exploding wave thingy, pinballed off a couple of rocks, and came out upside down along a stopper, laying down an admirable new line. Glyn confessed to being in two minds about which line to take, but in the end, to my relief, Jules' work remained unique. The rest of the run was perfect, with only one little portage needed round a tree, and with strange noises emanating from the engine and suspension of the car, we headed homeward.

Playtime - Monday, 26th March

The day was dedicated to attempting flat spins and swims on the Chasserzac play wave. Having bumped cross-country style down a few dodgy little tracks, we arrived to find the wave merely half the size of the day before, but on a par with the strange water levels roundabouts, by the time we had taken the grotesquely large load off the car, the wave had doubled in size. A picnic in the sun, and a beautiful clean wave, what more can you really ask for? Alright, I know what you're going to say, but paddling gurus should have no need for half naked waif-like nymphs emerging from the waves. Various amount of success was had on the wave itself, with Jon showing that his boat is a bitch to roll and taking a few hefty swims, Glyn chasing his elusive 'ender' (no-one had the heart to tell him it was actually too shallow), and James putting us all to shame and spinning on a six-pence. Jules and I? Lying in the sun chain-smoking, of course. We scouted a few rivers for the days ahead once we'd tired of pissing around, and made it back just in time to a nearly empty restaurant in Barjac.

Back to Work - Tuesday, 27th March

We'd decided on our travels the day before that the river L'Eyrieux looked tres tasty, and this was our mission for the day. We got in after the usual car/bike shuttle just above a dam with a nice 'kayak shoot' down the middle, and cruised down what was one of the best runs of the week. Loads of water, a range of drops, and beautiful sunshine made for an ideal day. Thankfully Jules was controlling his urges to go down rapids backwards/not paddling/upside- down and so the larger drops presented no real problems and all was fine and dandy.

What exactly does this 'infran' mean, then? - Wednesday, 28th March

We decided the night before over BBQ and wine that the R. Tarn, according to our sketchy guidebook (but, of course in French translation courtesy of James) 'widely recognised as one of the two most technical and challenging WW runs in France' was a challenge too tempting to refuse. The harder upper part of the river had too little water in it to paddle, but, with audible sighs of relief, we decided on a stretch further down that had enough water and didn't look too bad. Jon opted for the photo taking, and so we jumped straight on the river. We spent the next couple of hours on a beautiful run through a mini-gorge before meeting up with John, who'd walked up from the get-out.

Warning us of two nasty bits in the river below, we jumped out to have a look. The first, although technically difficult, wasn't too serious and everyone came down fine. The second was a little harder. With most of the water being pushed into a rather large rock after a far from easy run-in, the line was just left of middle. The rock was inclined downstream, so not terminal, but it wouldn't be nice to hit it. After a cheeky probe demo run with no real problems, James was the next to come down, and although looking right on line, got washed sideways and pinned on the rock. The boat slide slowly off, but the effort of a roll was too much, and James took the prize of first kayak swim of the week. Jules was next, and to my horror again attempted a radical new line. Upside-down before he even reached the rock, he rolled into an eddy, before just catching and pinning on the outside of the rock. After sliding off he made the roll on a third and last attempt. He hadn't swum, but had gashed and bruised his hand in the attempt, and after it swelled to an impressive mini-football shape, he had to concede an end to his weeks paddling. I managed to persuade Glyn it would be wise to walk round this one, and Jon filled in for Jules as we paddled the last few hundred metres to the car.Careful examination and translation of the French guidebook later showed that this final drop had been classed as 'infran' or 'unrunnable' until a few years ago, when it had dropped a grade to class VI, which made both Jules and James feel a whole lot better.

Technical Beauty - Thursday, 29th March

With Jules now our official shuttle-bunny, we shot up to the Beame Gorge. Although very difficult to scout, and with very few get-ins, we found what looked to be a lovely stretch. Our most technical river so far, with not a huge amount of water weaving down through huge boulder fields at the bottom of a gorge, the run was beautiful. I got my comeuppance for the event-free run of the day before by having to scrappily battle out of a stopper using anything I could lay my hands on, and the run we expected to take an hour or so, ended up, as Jules grumpily commented, taking more like 2 or 3 hours.

Chilling out - Friday and Saturday 30/31st March

Beginning to chill down and prepare for the epic journey home, we spent both these days on the Ardeche. On the Friday we reran the upper Ardeche, with Jon this time taking his courage in his hands and running the top drop on the Fontliere, and on Saturday we had a chilled day doing the old PGL run from Peach Orchard to Pont D'Arc, and playing on a surprisingly good wave at the bottom.

Car crashes into tree - Sunday, 1st April

Don't be fooled by the cunning April's fool in the title, the journey back across France went without hitch (apart from the fact that it was a Sunday, so all the Tabacs were closed, so my plan for buying cheap cigarettes to take home was scuppered). We arrived exhausted back in college at 8 o'clock on the Monday morning, just in time for John to go into work the man's plainly mad.

Epilogue

Joking apart, we had a fantastic time, and plans are already being hatched for a rerun next year. Many thanks have to go especially to John, who apart from organising the whole thing and offering the use of both his house and car, spent hours of valuable work time drawling the internet for guidebooks to the area (reliable ones don't seem to exist). Thanks also to the rest of the dream team Glyn, James and Jules for high moral in the face of danger, and comic cock-ups