Pyrenees Easter 2006

over easter this year 8 of us went out to the spanish pyrenees, the other members of the team included the Fairweather brothers of kayakstan fame, Giles (randy fandango to all you that read UKRGB), Lee, Mick, Phil and Rach (the one that swam on the glaslin gorge). the plan was to go looking for gnarly rivers, but arived in Jaca to find dry river beds. on the friday we paddled the Gallego, a bouncy 2/3 with one 4 and an excellent slip ramp and one great hole (oh how i was regretting bringing a creek boat).

that night we drove south to find the Ara which is supposed to be a great stretch of river. the next morning we paddled the lower ara, a stretch of river Reading uni and the guide book described as good solid grade 4. what we found was a great grade 3/4 river but nothing overly difficult. after running this river we went to scout of the upper section, a km long solid grade 5 with nasty syphens and even naster holes. just as we had decided we would do it, 2 local policemen turned up with guns demanding to see our permits for the river (and we thought river baliffs where bad) apparently you need a permit to run rivers in that provence of spain and without it you are breaking the law (properly breaking it, not just trespassing).

the next day after being unable to find how to buy permits we had a 3 hour drive across the mountins to find the Noguera Palleresa, stopping of at sort for a quick look at where the 2001 (i think) freestyle champs took place. the dam had not been released so we were all very unimpressed with the wave. fanally getting on the river at 5.30 (baring in mind that ur only aloud to paddle until 6) we blasted down the river, well we tried but had to keep inspecting stuff as we couldnt see over horizon lines around rocks and stuff. eventually as it started getting dark we decided to climb out of the gorge and come back to finsh it off the next day, which we did.

final thoughts

the rivers where good but not as gnarly as we had hoped. the upper Ara was too high to run when we were there but it would be great to run. loads of long slides and great drops. well worth me going back next year just for that.

the Noguera Palleresa was excellent, good continueous 4, think glaslin gorge at fairly high levels,with a few grade 5s thrown in for good measure.

the only real problem was that all the rivers are so far away from each other which makes running more than one river a day hard, especially when you dont know the rivers. one tip would be to get permits before you go.

ill try and get some pics up at some 'oint when i get some sent to me.

J

The Upper Yangzi (Tiger Leaping) Gorge

Before anyone gets to excited, no, I most definatly didn't paddle this stretch of water.

The Yangzi, the third longest river in the world begins on Tibet/China border and initally flows through Yunnan province, South West China. After the Great Bend the river runs through Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest gorge in the world. From the river to the top of the gorge is 3,900M, put another way, over two miles straight up!

I did a three day trek through the upper trail and then into the actual gorge itself. I'm not really one for treking and all this outdoors shit but I made an exception for this.

The trek is fairly tough but looking down into the river was quite somthing. Some of the paths are very narrow and the drops into the river are massive.

This stretch has never been kayaked in it's entirety and it never will be kayaked. Although, rather scarily, I saw it in very very low water and with the exception of two rapids which are the most definate portage you've ever seen, the rest of it looked like it would run at a big grade five. It has been 'run' by Chinese team in a capsule raft (you know, the kind of thing people go over Niagra falls in). They made it to the end but suffered ten fatalites, that somewhat takes the shine off a 'first descent'.

Anyway, enough of the blabbering, pictures are what you're hear for.

Looking through the gorge from the bottom.

The rapid just below Tiger Leaping Stone. Note the guy for scale, bear in mind he's a good ten meters above the water and this is super-low water! I stood pretty close to this rapid and it's frankly terrifying. I'm not sure you could call it a stopper as such, it'd just tear you apart. That said, what you can't see in the picture is that hard river right the river hits a big rock, forms a massive cussin wave, which, if you were the worlds top boater and you had a serious death wish might run. The only problem is that you'd probably get slammed into the rock with enough force to kill you and even if that didn't happen you'd pass with feet of the 'stopper'. Anything going in there isn't coming out alive.

The rest arn't mine but are pictures taken of the two big rapids in normal water. Again, note the people for scale. Spoof for the first run?

Actually, Ricky, how'd you grade that? Probably a big grade four right?

Scroll further down to see the rest of the rivers and compare the scale, scary.