RIGHT TO RHÔNE

The 2011 farewell tour rolled over the English Channel for summer's visit to the French Alps.

With dubious river levels  forecast we first headed for the Rhône Alps and Bourg St Maurice with it's guaranteed releases on the Isère river. After setting up camp we hit the lovely old town and enjoyed our first taste of French cuisine of the week... Pizza!

 

 

Menu looking good

The following morning we arrived at the Isère and were suitably impressed by the put in:

400m of Class IV gradient on the International Slalom site, fast and grabby,  immediately followed by 500m of Class III National Slalom site; a stiff introduction.

Good to go, we unloaded and ran a quick shuttle but to our surprise this was the same moment they had decided to turn off the release leaving us high and dry!

Fortunately this was only a two hour shut down and gave a chance for some throw line practise, sun worshipping and a laid back lunch.

Much needed practise

So when it came to eventually getting on we were perhaps a little too keen and hadn't inspected the top course carefully enough;  one by one we launched and into the first drop... a no warning diagonal... quelle surprise!  Everybody made the last gasp line down the centre slot and r/h eddy but the next 100 metres passed very quickly with Dolby ™ surround sound and an  HD visual experience both above and below the waves.

Phwoar!

Eat it

So onto the river proper, where we added paragliding/paddler German Georg to the group. The  Isère really was worth the visit, 9k of class III followed by 9k of class IV with some notable rapids, big long wavetrains and even a lovely gorge towards the end.

Isère Gorge

Not knowing when the taps were being turned off we blasted down at break-neck speed completing 20k in just two hours.  So much fun that we went back the following day with Georg and repeated the run.  Once again at high speed before making the 4 hour scenic drive over the mountains through Italy and our next seven day camp in Hautes Alps.

 Italia bound

 

   Bellisima!

Rivers paddled: Isère International Slalom Site,  Isère National Slalom site,   Isère to Gothard and Centron.


To be continued......