The Alps are a great place to go paddling, but make sure you don't create problems for yourself. In France, aside from having to drive on the wrong side of the road, there are a few other legal requirements which are not enforced this side of the channel. Minibuses must have a tachograph, which should be used. You can get around this by having only nine seats, but I'm not anxious to argue the point with a gendarme. You have to carry a warning triangle, a first aid kit and spare light bulbs: especially headlights. In Germany you may also be required to carry some currency so you can pay the fine if stopped. In France too, if you do get fined you'll have some problems if you can't pay with cash or at least Eurocheques.
I don't drive especially fast. It takes me about 3.5 hours to get from Bristol to Dover, followed by about 10-12 hours to get to Briançon and about 9 hours to Bourg St. Maurice. Obviously it takes the minibus rather longer and they average about 20 hours to get down to Briançon or Guillestre from Calais and 14 hours to come back from Bourg St. Maurice. However, it's worth noting that these times are for minibuses with beer drinking idiots who need multiple supermarket stops to re-supply their beer stores and countless piss stops ensure that French beer remains in France.
The weather is likely to be good in June and early July while still providing enough water to paddle on. The French tend to go on holiday after Bastille day (July 14) so things get a bit crowded after then. Basically the earlier you go the more water you can expect, and the greater the chance of crap weather. During the same period, the weather in the Northern Alps tends to be more wet and the rivers are usually higher (as well as bigger).
The normal club trip starts by camping at Guillestre for the lower Durance and the Guil, then to Barcelonette for 2 days on the Ubaye, then to Valloise for the Gyr, Onde, Gyronde, Upper Durance and Guisane. Finally, a couple of days at Bourg St Maurice for the Isère. It is worth finding out about the conditions at Bourg however, as you don't want to turn up during world championships or such (see the Isère section for a phone number). Usually its OK. However, don't be limited by this list. There's lots of other areas to go to. Italy's Aosta valley isn't a bad idea for the Dora Baltéa. A couple of days here is easy and should provide high water paddling if the Alps in general are proving to be low.
The campsite at Valloise is a good place for some interesting walks as well as being good for kayaking as all the mountains to the west are part of the Parc National des Écrins. There are good walks to the Glacier Blanc and the Glacier Noir, and a very good walk to the Glacier du Selé and the Refuge du Selé from Ailefroide and there is also a fair bit of climbing around. Italy is also good for walking in the Parco Nationale del Gran Paradiso. In 1997 we were charged FFr 50 a night for 2 people a tent and a car, with an additional FFr 20 per extra person. Next year they'll probably be taking credit cards too so you won't have to walk to the cash machinein town.
The Guillestre campsite (see map) isn't great but we always seem to end up there. If there's a problem its "Camping Bon Accueil" Tel: 92450913 but you'll have to argue on the phone as they don't like people phoning in for campers. The other one here is "Camping Le Serre" and its phone is 92450040 and/or 92451651. This one is probably better for small parties. There is a French Canoeing association campsite up on the Durance around Guillestre which has been recommended for the club as it's big and noise won't be such a problem but I've yet to try it out.
At Bourg St. Maurice we tend to go to the Centre de l'Eau Vive and camp at the slalom site campsite. This is fairly reasonable although the hot showers are only on at certain times. At least you're close to the water here though.
Take lots and lots of tea bags, as they're practically impossible to get in France and you might as well take a fair bit of coffee, and pickle is another hard to come by commodity. For museli, we found 26 people over 2 weeks did away with 30 bags. So, there you are. Otherwise, food is much better obtained whilst in France. Only take enough lunch or snack stuff to get you to the hypermarkets. Margarine will just melt, and cheddar cheese goes oily and yucky in the heat. If you're leaving during the night, then do a supermarché stop when you're in France, and don't buy even snack stuff in England.
We also recommend that you don't buy tinned carrots. However, if you are so unfortunate as to have been lumbered with a load of these items we do have a number of interesting and educational methods for dealing with the offending articles -- mostly involving the use of large quantities of petrol.
The main purpose of this guide is to provide a current and easy to produce canoeing guide for the club. As such almost all the rivers in here have been paddled by me since 1989, and in plastic boats! In fact, most have been paddled as recently as 1996. There are a small number of sections which I have not paddled and this should be obvious from the text. Obviously things change from year to year and you need to keep aware when paddling. If something has changed -- a new barrage, or a landslip etc. -- then don't sit around whinging, write it down and tell me about it later, and it'll be correct in the next guide through the miracle of modern word processing!
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 and various other places. If you're interested in any bits then get in touch.
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 longit 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 it's all hearsay, while {92} means that someone I trust to be accurate gave me the information and I actually believe them (mad though it seems).
The maps have been copied from French 1:100 000 maps and scannedinto the computer. The style owes much to Joseph Haas as I like hismaps for their clarity. He has a nice guide for this region withlovely photos and which also covers lots of the smaller rivers.
If you have any comments, complaints, or if you do a river that's not in here, please tell me about it! I would love to hear about any problems or changes or other yarns. You can reach me through the internet or through the BUCC at B.U.C.C., University of Bristol Students Union, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol, UK. If you do find something badly wrong do tell me!
This guide is (still) available for free. If you contact me before your trip I will attempt to send you one of the latest versions before you go and you can photocopy as many copies as you need. Alternatively you can download the most recent copies from my web site at http://www.zsplat.freeserve.co.uk/canoe/index.html. The files there are in web format for reading on the computer, and as Postscript files. The postscript versions need to be copied to a postscript printer. If you can't get access to one then write and ask me for a hard-copy. There are more intructions on the web page.
Every other guide has one of these, so why should this one be any different. These should give you a fair idea of what can be expected on a section of river, and are not just here for me to show what hard rivers I've paddled (or have not - in most cases!). Here are what I think each grade means, plus an example of each - just my opinion!
The Durance area is mostly metamorphosed limestone with some very nice granite at Ailefroide and a load of conglomerate at Guillestre. There are a lot of crags. A good guide for the Briançon and Valloise area is the "Grimper dans le Haut Val Durance. Tome I" This doesn't go as far as L'Argentière or Guillestre because these are handily in "Tome II". The nearest crags to Valloise are at Les Vignettes and at Aillefroide. The latter is very good, with 3 crags facing in different directions and all on nice fine granite. There are some near Pelvoux Les Cloix but it looks crap. The areas covered in the volume I are Valle di Susa, Clarée and Montgenévre, around Briançon, Guisane valley and Valloise valley. Volume II covers L'Argentière, La Roche de Rame, Fressinières, Queyras, Guillestre and Embrun.
I haven't bought anything for the Ubaye or Isère regions, but there will be a lot to do here as well. Another thing to try on your days off kayaking is via ferrata. This is basically aid climbing or hiking up cliffs with ladders. You need a helmet, harness, two long slings and a pair of locking karabiners. A rope and climbing boots may be useful though are not essential. We found one at Les Vigneux, the village by the Gyronde portage. You can follow the signs to the via ferrata car park. There are two routes here: a 200m facile that takes about 3 hours; and a 250m sportif that takes a further half an hour. We feel that the facile route is roughly equivalent to a V. Diff. There are also routes in the Biasse valley near Fressinières and probably others scattered over the entire Alps.
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