Open Canoe whitewater training in the Briançon area, France

The first week of August was the setting for a week of whitewater paddling, lifting our skills to a higher level. The setting was the slalom area in L'Argentière la Bessée. Next to the slalom area there is a grade campsite. The slalom area is a grade 3 section, even in summer at lower water levels.

Kelvin Horner was in the area as well, for a couple weeks of coaching. Fran, a kayak paddler from the UK took a course the week before we got there, and she joined us on our local river runs. A big advantage to have someone around who knows the area.

The whitewater area offered some nice features to work on technique and getting used to whitewater grade 3 paddling. Nice waves, a bit pushy water and nice eddies.

Most of the eddies were not really "get into the eddy, relax, have a beer and move on" style eddies. You have to keep moving to keep control. And of course, there were some steady comfortable eddies around as well.

One of my personal targets was to improve on my offside tilt and offside stroke work. It's mostly a mental game, often you just have to do it:

The river runs are a very nice switch to the paddling on the slalom area. Even though there are much harder runs in the area, the canoe slaom site is also harder dan quite a few sections of rivers closeby. You can do plenty of sections that are grade II - III. The low water at the time made our whitewater paddling mostly whitewater grade II paddling with only a couple rapids that were grade III.

Definetly the most impressive one was the Rabioux wave on the Durance:

 None of us ran that rapid the day we were there. The wave showed to be a bit sticky and even though a swimmer would flush out, a canoe might stay in the wave for a couple of rounds.

Calmer sections are alternated with more challenging sections on the river runs.

The sections we did run:

• lower guil
• Durance, sunshine run Rabioux - Emburn
• guironde

Our last river run, we did under guidance of Kelvin and some paddlers from his whitewater course. And as on all days, Fran joined us with her Kayak, having good fun:

The week was filled with sunshine, nice paddling on the slalom area before noon, and splendid river runs in the afternoon. The evenings were coloured with a nice cold beer and good company, no need for more. Good to remember for the next time is the fact that the campsite does offer wireless internet. The campsite itself is very paddler friendly.

Taking this all together Open-Canoe will definetly come back here for some skill training and coaching.

Thanks guys, for the nice week.

Paddle safe,

Jan