THE PYRENEES TRIP

THE GRADE 2+ TOUR

2002

Garf, Katie, Laura, Thom, Lee, Gareth, Nic

THE RIVERS

Friday 3^rd May

“By the way guys, the ferry is at 9.45”

Got picked up by Lee in the pouring rain, endured a traffic jam, got to Dover and got of Ferry.  And that’s it really!  (Garf)

Saturday 4^th May - Gave d’Aspe (D)

Calais to Pau in 10 hours! A good effort by Team Audi although we did ruin it a bit with the usual gas faff.  Spent the time waiting for the van receeing the Gave d’Aspe (section D).  It rained a lot too. (Garf)

Had a good journey down, pretty simple.  Spent ages looking for the get on for section D of Gave d’Aspe as the book says 1^st roundabout – really second! Good supermarket E’leclerc near campsite.  Finally ran section D when the van arrived, 4km of grade 2 and 3 took about an hour. (Lee)

Sunday 5^th May - Gave d’Aspe (B)/(D)

Drove up to section B, it looked fairy low especially the upper bit, so we got on at the Dam about halfway down.  Section was pretty good only grade 2/3 though Lee.

Thought section B looked crap so I ran the ferry and read up on my Pyrenean history instead.  Paddled section D again which was significantly lower than yesterday.  Played “throw the frisbee through the window” in the evening.  Nic won despite being Ginger. (Garf)

Monday 6^th May - Rio Gallego (B)

Oloran to hacas, stayed.  Drove through encampment of Spanish soldiers, scaring us crapless.  Drove to shut campsite and graveyard, ended up in campsite with Dutch people, but excellent stone hut to cook and play anal game of cards, which I lost. (Nic)

Daytime – lots of Eagles and Vultures, great scenery, amazing Wild West Rock out crops.  River long with 2 or 3 interesting sections, Gareth gets pinned I got thrown in stopper.  (Nic)

Section was good although fairly uneventful with the exception of Gareth Lee’s nasty pin.  Make sure you run the rapid (as soon as you see the big Cliff River left) river right or left NOT central. (Lee)

Spent a long time in faffing in Jaca – do not go to the tourist office if you are in a hurray!  Drove for ages today (Had snowball fight on the France/Spain border though) but got on river eventually.  Nice paddle amongst many failed bridges. (Garf).

Tuesday 6^th May - Rio Ara (C)

No one would let me buy washing powder!  Rained constantly.  Wet and dull.  Stayed in chalet 90 Euros.  Ara 3.5 hours amazing mountains.  (Nic)

Took us bloody ages to paddle 2.5km.  We binned it at Tola Weir, which we found from the river at 7pm.  The river was technical at this low level (80 on gauge).  There were two grade 5 rapids, which we portaged, the first a rocky rapid which was pushing into a wall and the second a large stopper which may be punchable on right.  There was another notable drop with 4 channels and a syphon.  Me, Nic and Gareth ran the 2^nd of these and Thom the worst with a variety of success (4).  (Lee)

PS stayed in chalets half way up the section, £55 for 7 of us.  (Lee)

Nic wanted to buy washing powder!!!! (Gareth)

Tricky river! Got on very late (4.30) which didn’t help.  Smashed my hand up on one pinball rapid.  Enjoyed one particular rapid (especially when Katie showed it went everywhere backwards).

Wednesday 7^th Rio Ara (C)/ Rio Noguera Pallaresa (D)

We got up early and me Katie, Nic and Gareth finished yesterday’s section.  This turned out to be really good getting on at the weir in Torla (take the track down by the campsite sign) which read very slightly lower than yesterday (just under 80 on the gauge).  The drop round the corner from the weir was hardest (solid 4), which we ran left.  There followed 2km of excellent pool drop rapids with a 3km paddle out (grade 2 ish.  (Lee)

Then drove to Noguera Pallirsa and did the last 6km which was good fun.  (Lee)

Camped at excellent (empty) campsite between get off and sort.  (Lee)

Drove from Torla to sort today and passed an amazing gorge section (followed it for several km).  Worth doing if levels allow.  (Garf)

The campsite was great although Nic hated the showers – they varied from red hot to ice cold seemingly at random.  We cooked in the washing up room which was spotless!  Still playing the James Bond game….. (Garf)

Thursday 9^th May - Rio Noguera Pallaresa (D)

Today was an excellent day.  We ran the remaining 29K (out of 35) of the Noguera Pallaresa as two sections, stopping in sort for lunch.   The whole thing was storming down.  The best bit was about 1km after the put in, where there was a 3km section of bouncy 3-4.  Camped upstream of sort, not as good as the previous night down the road.  (Lee)

Good river, crap campsite & excellent restaurant.  Got to sit in a few new boats too – the wavesport siren seems really good if a bit “girly”.  (Garf)

Friday 10^th May – Rio Segre (A)

“Day of Drama on Canalized Rover”

Scenery? Didn’t have a chance to look.

Guide book 2/3/4 with a 5 my arse!

The devil had a hand on this one!

·        2 x grade 5 sections – portaged

·        1 x hole in Laura’s kendo

·        1 x hole in Katie’s kendo

·        1 x leaking topo from yesterday

·        1 x wet Laura (swim) – bruised

·        1 x wet Gareth (swim) – bruised

·        1 x great rescue by Lee

·        1 x lost “method”

·        1 x found “method” on rock at last shit hole

·        1 x spanked Nic (no swim) – but traumatized

·        1 x scared Garf (but doesn’t admit it)

·        1 x lost throw line

·        1 x fisherman “you’re mad” (in French)

·        1 x great throw (line) from Garf

·        0 x Boring river

(Nic)

As per all good trips, today’s was trip epic day.  Having inspected half of the gorge with the dam on from the road (100ft up!), we all (except Thom) decided to get on.  The run was uneventful down to the dam, juts after the 1^st Road Bridge.  We paddled round this river right past the huge rock and broke back in below the dam, which is where all hell broke loose.  The Grade 4 we had looked at earlier turned out to be fast, big volume continuos 4⁺.  Laura swam after a few big rapids, and had a long nasty swim through 4 or 5 big rapids before I managed to get her out.  Nic was getting a trashing in a big pour over at this point!! Garfs group managed this with no major epics.  We inspected the next bit and discovered 2 huge grade 5 rapids, the first of which goes down the center, the second one needed to be run down the left!!!  We portaged and got on below and found 2km of more grade 4+ rapids.  Gareth Lee swan and the remainder chased his method air!! We finally found it pinned, just after the end (!) road bridge above the final rapid.  We rescued the boat and ran the rapid center to right.  Finally paddled the remaining few km of grade 3 out.

(Lee)

Pretty much everything has been said already except that I thought it looked bloody hard from the inspection.  And it was.  I don’t think I’ll forget the break-in from behind that big rock in a hurray.

(Garf)

Had horrible swim today.  Swam down lots of massive rapids, which seemed fairly continuos.  I felt like I had been “swimming” (more like been thrown about and dragged down) for ages.  I have never been so glad to see Lee in all my life!

(Laura)

Saturday 11^th May – Le Salat (D)

Paddled the lower section of the salad bowl, (I mean the Salat basin!) as an easy warm down.  However, we are now sure the snow is melting as the levels were high.  The section proved to be an entertaining continuous 11km of grade 3, which took an hour and a quarter to run.  The section B & C looked really good for future, as did some of the others in the area.

(Lee)

Cracking section today although I was very worried for Laura’s mental state of health – she didn’t seem in the right frame of mind for the first 9km of this river after her trashing yesterday.  Tried the “method” and found that it leaked like a sieve (dodgy drainplug).  Seemed quite fun though.

(Garf)