The Verdon Gorge: Exploring the Grand Canyon of Europe

Somewhere on the shuttle

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of my first trip to the French Alps, and it’s still one of my favourite places to go boating. As well as hitting all the classic runs, this year I wanted to do something a little different. Enter the Verdon... its quite a distance from any other Alpine rivers so doesn't often feature in trips to the French Alps; plus its controlled by a hydro release which limits the number of days it’s actually possible to paddle. However the South Alps guide promises a mini expedition in one of the most spectacular gorges in Europe, it’s not wrong.

Thursday morning saw us crawl out of our tents after a late night, we called the tourist info centre who confirmed a hydro release for the Friday, it was time to make this happen! Ralph Mark and I packed up camp said out goodbyes to IC and set off on our driving mission, taking it turns to read the guidebook on the way.

We made reasonable time across the lavender fields of Haute Provence arriving at the take out just before 7pm. Being three people and two cars we were able to leave one car at the take out before heading to a campsite in La Palud, thus avoiding morning faff with the shuttle.

Photographing the guidebook turned out to be a good move!

At camp we continued reading our way through the guide, and sorting out what gear we would need to carry in boats (including head torches in case of a paddle out in the dark). In the end we took photos of the guidebook in case we needed to consult it during the run, (we did!). the phrase “well we’ll just have to inspect the rapid when we get there and make a decision” was repeated many times over the course of the evening

At the campsite we met a group of Czech paddlers, also planning a descent the following day, they assured us they had done it before. (Quote: “ah you have the Knowles book , he say 8 hours we will finish in 5”). Somewhat reassured by their confidence and the knowledge there would be another group on the river if anything went horrendously wrong we adjusted our up time to a slightly more reasonable 7am.

After an uneasy sleep (I thought it might be a little hypocritical to tell our fellow campers off for keeping us awake), Friday morning came around, our options were either to put in at river level upstream and paddle 5km of the grade 3 pre-canyon or a steep and arduous 30 min walk in. Needless to say we chose the extra 5km.

Floaty floaty precanyon

After many nervous wees we set off, the pre canyon section offering a taster of what was to come. Some technical eddy practice on the initial section lead to surprise yelp and a roll, from me. Embarrassing. and not an ideal way to start the day. Still we reached the start of the gorge proper at Point Sublime, took some token photos and were underway. As the walls closed in we started spotting siphons, the Verdon is a limestone gorge and hence littered with them. It’s the danger of siphons rather than the difficulty of the rapids that makes the gorge so intimidating.  Trying not to recall all the stories about fatalities on the section we paddled on.

 

Start of the canyon proper

An iron bridge indicated our approach to the first named rapid and the hardest on the run L’estelle. It required a tight move around a boulder just above another big siphony boulder. I decided to portage (sweaty work wearing a drysuit in the blinding sunshine). Ralph and Mark ran the rapid to the delight on the tourists on the bridge, and with just a cheeky roll from Mark and we were off away from the masses again. Plenty of blind corners followed some hiding flat water some hiding tricksy drops.

Ralph on L'Estelle

The gorge walls closed in further but the river was deceptively calm, I took the lead for a little bit, after all what could possibly go wrong on the flat...  A couple of corners later the river appeared to disappear into a cave,  I hit an eddy fast. We’d arrived at the infamous Styx rapid.

Styx: Me keeping far Away from river right cave wall

On any other river this rapid would be barely worth a mention, however since you paddle the rapid into a cave and at the back of the cave is a monster siphon it might rate as one of the scariest rapids I’ve run! We took our time setting safety (and cameras), fortunately all were successful in running the rapid.

Mark goes for the meat

 We scooted out of the cave and carried on around more blind corners and more siphon (If it sounds like I’m repeating myself here it because blind corners and siphons were something of a theme for the day). The next rapid of note we arrived as was Chaos de l’limbut... or was it? The river seem to disappear under a boulder choke.

After some discussion about whether this was the mandatory portage or if we really were supposed to paddle into a massive boudler choke through a tiny crack in the cliff, we decided to have lunch and and check the guidebook photos.

We peeled off our drysuits and tucked into the brie and baguette we’d stashed in Ralphs boat. It was a well deserved break, we were prepared for it to be cold in the canyon, actually it was about a million degrees and I curled up on the river bank for a little nap.  During lunch we fired up the camera and picked out the guidebook pages we’d snapped, confirming we were indeed at Caos l’limbut. Also we had an unexpected surprise: we’d just passed the halfway point!

 

L'limbut yep we paddled into that crack in the wall, (blinding sunshine + dark cave = crappy photo)

Just as we were about to set off the Czech’s turned up, in typical fashion I managed to made a complete hash of rapid and went worringly close to one of the big boulder siphons. Luckily I stayed upright and slipped into the underground boulder choke section.  Once inside the boulder choke (yes you are actually meant to end up in there) the river calms down and gives you space to look up at the massive lumps of rock and bits of tree above you. At the end of the choke we did need to climb up through the rocks and seal launch back into the river. I was a bit nervous about being first but far better than being last. With no-one to hold him on the rock Mark had to hurl his boat down and then jump in after it!

 

Mark in a Cave

After this we kept up a good pace partly to keep ahead of the Czech’s and party because we (ok me) were getting a bit tired, so I don’t have any more pics of the gorge. The mandatory portages downstream we fairly ardous, heaving my boat over boulders in the blaring heat is not the most fun. Several blind bends later I was sitting in an eddy waiting for a signal, Mark made a portage sign, sigh. Then he ferried over to the other side of the river, a new sign. It does go, it’s just very tight. After ‘the incident’ on the Gyronde  a few days earlier I thought I’d really rather get out and look. Mark was right it did go, but only just, and I was out of beans. Ralph lined up and ran the rapid with typical annoying ease, it looked effortless. Marks line, well lets just say it made me glad I’d decided to portage.

A little further the river calmed and widened, we realised that rapid must have L’Oublie (the forgotten) and the final rapid of the gorge. We’d made it! Now it was just a 6 km flat section to ice creams and the take out. We stopped on a gravel bed to clamber out of drysuits and finish the paddle in the sunshine just in swimmers, lovely. Our Czech friends reappeared and helped up take some victory photos.

 

Victory photo!

With energies picked up we commenced the flat paddle out. Pretty soon we were seeing tourists everywhere in peadalos and sit-on-tops. I’m sure we must have looked as strange to them as them to us. After such an intense experience in the gorge it was very strange to finish the paddle surrounded by people out for a relaxing day on the lake, (something something... you don’t know man, you weren’t there!)

 

The paddle out as seen from the shuttle flat but pretty

After a fruitless search for icecream at the take out we headed back to the campsite for much needed shower, before a night out on the town in La Palud. (very reminiscent of a night out in Barcolonette some years previous, Rory you were missed!). We wandered slowly back to the campsite under a full moon pretty satisfied after an epic day on the water.

All in all the Verdon is a fantastic trip, not the hardest whitewater ever, but both mentally and physically taxing, it’s not to be underestimated.  Many thanks to Mark and Ralph for putting up with me and gererally being excellent, I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did!

 

the Mega Siphon in The Styx