Contents

• Introduction
• About this Guide
• Grading Rubbish
• Other Guides in this Series
• About the Author
• The rivers:
  • Asco
  • Cassaluna
  • Cruzzini
  • Fango
  • Fium Orbo - Defile du Strette
  • Fium Orbo - Upper
  • Fiume Grosso
  • Golo - Lower Gorge
  • Golo - Upper
  • Gravona
  • Liamone
  • Restonica
  • Rizzanese
  • Taravo - Upper
  • Tavignano - Lower
  • Travo
  • Vecchio - Middle
  • Vecchio - Lower

Paddling in Corsica

Why?

Why do we do any of this? You know how it goes, you were sitting around in the pub in Wales one night yarning away, when some bright spark says "I dunno about the Alps again, how about somewhere else?" Then some other drunken sot says something along the lines of, "I heard Corsica was supposed to be pretty good." Later, once the hangovers lay off mugging your brain, you hopefully forgot all about it. If you didn't, then I guess that's why you're looking at this booklet! If you end up on Corsica, just remember why you went, and whose idea it was in the pub. You can probably still kill him now!

Corsica is the place to go for continuous hard paddling. When the guide books say a river is grade V they mean the whole river runs at that grade! We have found that for a grade V Corsican river you can expect to take at least 1 hour per kilometre. I know the Germans do it faster, we met one guy coming off the Vecchio after a 5 hour epic, and he said it only took him and hour or so. But then, we also wondered where his mates were. It took a while to gather he'd done it on his own! Says a lot really. This time also assumes that you inspect pretty much everything from the boat, and make your mind up quickly. No standing around trying to work up the bottle to run a drop. You must paddle or portage fast, unless you fancy a nice paddle in the dark! In which case, don't forget your Petzl.

When?

How?

	 Graphic House,
	2 Sumatra Road,
	 London NW6 1PU

	Tel:071-431-4560
	Fax: 071-431-5456

The Livorno crossing is 4 hours, and Livorno is about 6 hours from Briançon. However, the French ferries are a lot more expensive, and it probably is actually worth the extra driving. Also, as the Livorno ferry leaves on Monday afternoon, we drove down to the French Alps on Friday night and Saturday. Spent Saturday night in Valloise campsite (which is shut, but what the hell) and did some skiing and Sèrre Chevalier on Sunday, leaving for Livorno on Sunday night. The days break makes a big difference in the journey and skiing usually provides lots of wipe outs for everyone to yarn about too!

As for getting back, on the 1993 trip, we converted from the return to Livorno on Saturday morning from Bastia, to a ferry to Genoa on the Friday for not much cash. This it think is a better option than a return trip to Livorno, as you get to skip out a large chunk of Italy whilst only adding two hours sitting on a ferry, and also you get to do you supermarket shopping in France on the Saturday, instead of carting all your goodies up from Corsica. I think this will be worth another go.

Where?

Camping

Upon Arrival

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About this Guide

The guide has grown a bit so I had to split it into areas. I now have French Alps, Corsica, Austrian Alps and minor notes for Italy, Chile and British Columbia, and maybe Norway if Dickie ever gives me his notes.

Each river has a header telling you, after the name of the section, how long the described section is, what the general grade is, how long it took us to paddle it and which year I last paddled it. The year is partly for my own sake, and partly because I was asked to indicate clearly when the information on that river was last updated. {92} means I paddled it in 1992. {} means I never paddled it at all, and its all hearsay. {92} is used to mean that someone I trust and know well paddled it in 1992 and I consider the info to be accurate.

The maps have been copied from 1:100 000 maps and scanned into the computer. The style owes much to Joseph Haas as I like his maps for their clarity. In fact, for Corsica I'd recommend getting hold of a copy of his guide anyway. Its excellent.

If you have any comments, complaints, or if you do a river that's not in here, please tell me about it! Either through the BUCC at B.U.C.C., University of Bristol Students Union, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol, UK. Or through the internet - in which case refer to my contacts page

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Grading

Grade I EASY

Regular flow, regular waves, little swirls, easy obstacles.
You should not leave the car.
e.g.: River Avon at Saltford

Grade II MEDIUM

Quicker water, easy obstacles, obvious routes
You should only leave the car to laugh at the nobbos.
e.g.: Symonds Yat on the Wye

Grade III DIFFICULT

Swift current, short stretches of difficult rapids. Route may be obscure.
You should be paddling a comfortable boat, so you can snooze.
e.g.: The Dart, Middle Trisanna

Grade IV VERY DIFFICULT

Long stretches of unbroken rapid, very fast or heavy water. Previous inspection likely. Very difficult route through the rapid. You should take some spare underwear, just in case. e.g.: Llangollen Town Falls, Spean Gorge, Sanna

Grade V SEVERE

The worst waves, whirlpools and rapids. Narrow routes, very high or obstructed drops, difficult to get in or out. Take spare underpants in your BDH. Tie the BDH to you so it's still with you when your boats smashed. e.g.: Easn Dubh (Orchy), Triple Step (Guil), Falls of See (Trisanna)

Grade VI EXTREME

Impassable most of the time according to water level. Very hazardous rapids, badly obstructed drops. Put your clean kacks on and go to the tea shop. e.g.: Swallow Falls, Gyronde Portage, Slot (Guil), Ardez Gorge

Grade VII VERY EXTREME

Very high and obstructed drops, often close together, frequently shallow plunge pools. Serious danger to life. The tea shop was closed and someone stole your kacks. e.g.: Conwy Falls, Llanberis Falls, Upper Restonica

The Rivers

Asco 12km Grade IV(V) {}

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Cassaluna {90}

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Upper Golo 8km Grade V (VI) 5.5 hr {90}

NOTE: The Scala di Santa Regina gorge was dry and the lake at the top looked about 25 foot low. We nearly didn't go any higher.

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Middle Golo 12km Grade II-III {93}

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Lower Golo Gorge 11km Grade III+ {93}

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Restonica up to 10km grade V+ (VI-VII) {90}

We later did the section above, from the next bridge upriver down to the get-in above. This wasn't quite as much fun as there were slightly more rocks to water than the lower section, but it was still very continuous with the same impressive gradient. More water here might have been nice, but too much...eek! There were no protages but one medium sized weir had some spikes and concrete in it so we seal launched on the right down a rock slab. This stretch of 2km took us 2½ hours.

All in all, a very interesting river, which can fortunatly be looke at extensively from the road. The gorge before Corte is supposed to go OK, but it looks a bit evil from the road. Possibly it could be more accurately scouted from the other side where a path goes up quite a long way from the campsite there. The map here is a bigger scale than I really want, I'll get there later!

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Lower Tavignano 18km Grade IV- (IV+) 2½hr {93}

In 1993 the guage was 235cm. No worries and only one inspection.

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Upper Fium Orbo5km Grade V (VI) 5hr {93}

We managed to do this in a day from Corte and found the drive over the col only took an hour. In 93 the guage was 160cm which was a good levelfor eveything, except the 'Rocket' which was washing out of the pool too fast and thus the protection was going to be a pain to set up.

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Fium Orbo - Defile du Strette 4km Grade V 3-4hrs {93}

Ha! Did this at 158cm, a superb level! There are 2, maybe 3 portages and at this level it took us 3-4 hours. A great paddle, marred by the fact that some bastard broke into the car which was at the bottom by the bridge. I don't know what you can do about this. We met an Italian who had covered one of his windows with tape and plastic bags to make it look as if he'd been broken into already! I guess it might help?

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Travo {90}

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Upper Taravo 9km Grade V (VI) 4- 5hrs {92}

Some way down the river is the gorge section. This can be run as two sections. The first warrants a look from the bank at the last drop which can't be inspected from the bottom of the gorge, and can't be portaged once in the gorge. Run it left to right to avoid the heavily undercut wall after the drop (a good 2m!)

The second gorge section can also be run but again deserves a look from the bank before you enter the gorge. The only way out if you don't like it is up the framework holding the gauge in place! The first drop in here looks to have an interesting siphon, but you can chicken shoot it entirely by sliding down the rock shelf on the far right. Get out below the bridge.

There's a good bivi spot by this get out.

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Rizzanese 7km Grade V(VI) 8 hours?? {}

You get in at the D20 road bridge near Zoza where there's a gauge to inform you just how bad it's going to be. Good levels are between 60cm and 95cm. You can also warm up on the 1.5 km just above up to an unrunnable fall. There's an HEP works to portage somewhere early though! The river starts off IV and soon increases to V with a couple of portages, first carry left, then carry right.. A wide sloping 6m ledge marks the start of the hard stuff. 100m below are two falls to check, 3m and 10m, on the left? The 10m fall has a rock in the bottom on the left and so is usually shot extreme right. I have heard that this quite often produces injuries though, and you might want to treat the drop with special care.

The rest of the river is quite hard with two bad drops, one of which kills people (6m drop into a boily pool), chicken shoot to the right. From near this drop its possible to hop out onto a footpath near the N194, but, time and energy permitting, you can go on a bit for 8 km of grade III to wind down and get out at the D69 road bridge below Arbellara, or the Genoese bridge 2-3 km further down.

There's a campsite near this bridge.

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Gravona 12km Grade IV (V) 3½hr {93}

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Cruzzini - Lower Gorge 6.5 km Grade IV (V) 2.5hr {90}

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Liamone 10 km Grade V (VI) 5hr {93}

A large volume river with big stoppers and holes and heavy boulder fields. At 1m its less fun, more of a rocky, technical grade IV (V). Watch out for one dodgy drop a fair ways down. A good percentage of the river goes under a big boulder. It can be run safely on the left but the lead in drop has some rocks in the landing. A fairly open river until the main gorge section. This begins with a definite portage and then a bloody difficult walk high along the river right side. Rejoin the river with a seal launch from an obvious platform (lower the boats down). Alternatively we were advised to cross the river after the first fall and portage on the left bank to another seal launch. Getting up is a bit of a climb but much easier than the other side and from this bank inspection of the gorge is possible. We saw the gorge run, and it didn't seem as difficult as it appeared (at least in a Gattino), but it is run blind - one of those situations where you would hardly be surprised to come over the lip of the first fall and see your chums stacked up below you. A bit after there's an interesting 2m natural weir which may entice you to a superb stuffing!

The car shuttle takes around 80 minutes (65 min if you have some maniac drivers with you), walking out of the river can take over 2 hours without a boat. Definitely a river to tick, "It's big, bouldery, exciting, and horny."

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Fiume Grosso and Upper Liamone 8.5km Grade V (VI) 8hr {90}

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Fango 3hr {90}

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Middle Vecchio 7.5km Grade V (VI) 5-6hr {93}

One of the classics. We ran this when the gauge at the bridge to Nochetta read 1.55cm. The recommended level is 160, above 180cm and below 140cm the river is probably risky. The river goes far from the road and walking out is more a case of walking along the river. The access point is at Pont Vecchio, a large railway bridge with the N195 passing under it (about 30 min from Corte). There is a steep walk down to the river from the bend near a lay-by south of the bridge. Much of the time you pick your way among large (Corsican) boulders, it's a classic (the classic) drop pool river. We did 4 portages and the trip still took a very long time. We also manage dto watch people doing most of our portages! The second time I did this we seem to have swapped a portage somewhere, still ending up with 4. Look out for pinning between rocks if paddling at low water levels (e.g. 140). The first serious portage appears as soon as you can see a broken footbridge above the river about a kilometre from the start. Portage on the left. There's a good bivi spot near the get out, up on the right bank.

Lower Vecchio 7km Grade III

We got in at the Nocheta bridge, the get-out for the Middle section where the gauge was 158cm. A fun bimble without too much scrapy bits. We got out at the bridge over the Tavignano. You could perhaps get out at an earlier bridge at the Vecchio-Tavignano confluence.

Other Guides in this Series

• The Austrian Alps, last updated 1993
• French Alps, last updated 1994