The Verdon Gorge, France July '07.
Well folks... Was fortunate to be able to do a run on the
spectacular Verdon Gorge in South East France... Here's the craic..
The Verdon was really super.
The details.
Tue 17th Jul '7
Bed at 1am & up at 5am
Got kit and all sorted and at 6.30 headed on down to Deb's house, for 7.00.
Left Deb's at 7.30 and headed for the Verdon area... Normally a 3 hour drive but
unfortunately due to the Tour de France we didn't arrive till around 1pm.
There was supposed to be 5 lads from the UK, Deb & myself to meet with another
group from the Ubaye area at the take out for the Verdon Gorge by the lake.
Unfortunately the lads from the UK were unable to make it so it was just Deb and
myself... coola bula..
We arrived at the meeting point around 3 hours late and the other group were
still there waiting for us... cool as a breeze these lads.. 1, Stan was their
Guide 2, Mehdi a dead on bloke who is big into VTT (downhill biking) and
Christian the cool dude from Belgium.
Headed up to the put on some 30km back upstream. When I arrived I was gobsmacked,
the Chateau Quieras is nothing compared to this place in terms of it's size etc.
It's over 400mtr from the rim to the river and 30km long, that is to say the
gorge itself is 30km
long. The river is maybe 20mtr wide and squeezes down to .5mtr and nothing in
some places.
We got ready to get on and I had to ask Deb if she was sure I would be ok for
this... "Yeah Sure Super Cool Rat Da Da!!!"
So for a second opinion I asked Stan the other guide... Oui Lets Go!! So,off we
went... a 15 minute portage from the car park to the river... and then the "GO"
button was pressed...
The put on was grade 3- and immediately then into a few G4- shoots and drops...
Unfortunately the pics below are mainly of the flat sections showing the scenic
aspects of the gorge together with some of the underground sections.
The main river itself is grade 3 however every so often if steps up to G4
similar in places to Guardian Angel Gorge.
The place itself was amazing... steep sheer stone walls rising to the sky, this
really is a beautiful place and worth a trip just to see the sights... and no
better way to see it all than by kayak.
Some of the obstacles needed to be portaged because of impassable boulder chokes
and log jams.
After 1.5 hrs we arrived at a shingle beach where we stopped for some eats, then
a portage and then into a G4 rapid. There were several siphons and Mehdi
took a swim straight into one of them, he was sucked down and under, he was
gone, and all joking and all aside he was in real trouble if Deb and his friend
Stan hadn't been so quick to jump out of their yaks and reach into the hole and
pull him out.... Phew.. This might
sound like I'm being dramatic, but I'm not...
On we went, some more good yakin. The views were outstanding, I found that I'd
feel that it was simply fantastic then I would look ahead and it gets even
better... it really is an outstanding place.
On down the river we went, Mehdi and Christian took several more swims, some in
difficult places.
At one small drop 1.5mtr Deb & Stan went down then Mehdi & Christian and both of
them were caught in the stopper, I looked down and all I could see was the two
tails of an orange Diesel being churned about in the stopper, I could also see a
paddle and one of
the lads being flogged. I thought at first that his boat had split in two but it
hadn't there were actually two boats and two blokes in the stopper getting
flogged... I paddled over and took a look, there was a nice boof onto cushion
wave on the left and that was
that spot on, no bother.
We arrived at the cave, there were three entrances, left was sived out, right
was the same and center was a narrow shoot followed by a back curling wave and
then on into an eddy... relatively easy although I must say, it was a weird
place... the cave itself was maybe 80mtr long and then back out. Christian
portaged.
Then the second one was much longer maybe 200mtr, very narrow canyon type
paddling with reaction waves off the walls but not too much pressure and several
eddies, poor Christian swam again in here. Then inside the cave there is a
complete blockage, you have
to climb out onto rocks inside the cave climb onto the rocks approx 1.5 mtr
high, balance on the top of the rocks and relaunch down the other side... then
more narrow canyon walls inside the cave until we came to a tall obstruction
maybe 5/6mtr.. climb out onto piles
of driftwood and up onto the top of the blockage then across onto some sloping
rock where you either had to throw your boat & paddle ahead of you into a big
pool and then jump in after them, grab them and swim to a rock to get back in.
Christian jumped in, I sea launched slide down a slab then drop into a pool,
thanks to Mehdi for holding my boat in a difficult place... Deb jumped and swam,
Mehdi sea launched and Stan sea launched.
We came to another series of narrow shoots. Narrow entries usually bouncing off
boulders and dropping into pools... really super stuff.
On down to another blockage at a syphon... Stan lead on down, Deb led Mehdi &
Christian to an early portage on river right and I went on down to Stan, got out
in a small eddy just above the syphon... it was really quite easy G3. Then climb
out and
onto a huge rock maybe 4mtr dia... launched off the top and down the other
side...thanks to Stan for holding the boat... then a short paddle and the same
again... The last few rapids were mainly simple G3 /4- with plenty of time to
make moves from eddy to eddy... more small narrow passages and eventually out of
the gorge into a lake for a 4km flat water paddle.
Total time in the gorge was 7Min's short of 7 hours.
It was too late to drive back to Debs so we drove, and drove and drove and then
we drove some more in the dark on narrow mountain roads to Stan's house (fair
play to Deb, it was tough driving) where
Mehdi prepared some pasta and nice eats... slept on a futon with two black cats
and Deb slept on a pull out bed... I had been on the go for 23 hours
continuously and was banjacksed.
Up around 8.30 had some brekkie and left around 10... back in Deb's around 12ish
and then back to my apt... Aideen, Luke & Orla went off to the pool I said I
would follow... lay down knackered and fell asleep till around 4.30... I think I
will sleep well tonight.
Thanks to Deb & Stan, and to Mehdi & Christian for a really outstanding trip.
The trip was fantastic, it wasn't just the water, the canyon itself was
truly amazing. Deb and the lads were great to be with. Stan made his house
ours... these were really nice people and I enjoyed every minute of their
company...
Till the next big adventure...
P (AKA TG)
Click on the pics below to enlarge....
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