20-07-2010
Biaisse, Frankrijk
When arriving at the campsite, Roberto informed us about his epic a few days before on the Biaisse at a good water level.Although levels were dropping very quickly now, this immediately sparkled hopes of still finding enough water to finally have a go at this alpine classic. Plans were made to do some hiking exploration in the Biaisse valley and team up with some other crew members for a late afternoon run.
Driving up in the valley, it became clear that there was enough water for the lower part of the Biaisse but the upper part below Dormillouse looked quite boney. We had a nice hike around the Biaisse headwaters and then started to wait for the other guys to show up and wait?
Turned out that Mr. Wim had forgotten to take along his mobile, substantially delaying part of the communication on levels, meeting points etc?, yep, it is a tough job to be President?.
Finally, old thrusthy Birdy and Voenkel showed up at around 5pm. In view of the lowish water level and limited time left for paddling, we decided to put in just below les Viollins about 2/3 down the standard section. Viewing glimpses of lots of white water through the trees during the drive up and given the steep gradient of the road that followed the river, we were a little apprehensive about our options to finish the run before 6pm, official closing time of the rivers in France. The fishermen that were dressing up at the same time probably thought the same but in the end were very kind and sport.
The river turned out to be a real blast, about 2km of steep eddy hopping where a lot of neck stretching allowed to just read and run nearly everything (or maybe we were just lucky?). Although the entire river was one big adrenaline shot, one outstanding rapid was a steep S-curve that Birdy probed with muchos coyones. Finally, we had most hassle with the only rapid that I inspected beforehand, a combination of a complicated chicken line and typically unclear beta saw Birdy crashing in some rocks and myself doing some rock hugging with the back of my boat hanging over a vicious looking 1.5m drop.
The last 300m, the river tapered off and we took out above the final Freyssineire cataract at 5:50pm.
Smiles all around and the clear intention to be back to run the entire river (the harder stuff is probably higher up but this is an excellent alternative for a quick late evening blast). Unfortunately, no pics, everything went too fast?
