Les Cévennes



The Massif of Cévennes and its national park is situated in the mountains of the South of France in the Lozère department. During the weekend of November 11th, we made three unforgettable rivers with awesome landscapes.
In the little village of Dourbie, lost in the national Cévennes park was our meeting point with Eric, Val, Franck, Benji, Romain and Raph for our first Cévennes day.
Here we are at the source of the Dourbie river, the most mythical run in all of Cévennes, it has a rather quiet set-off but after a couple of hundred metres of warm-up the river runs into deep gorges of very different aspects and reaches up to 300 metres in depth. The rapids of grade V and VI go on forever and give us immense pleasure and intense excitement at every bend.
After the last rapids of this section (the "Bazar a Bulles"), there is long a climb and tiring walk through the chestnut woods to get back to the cars. I'd say, the walk-out is grade VI ;-).
We spend the evening at a nice local restaurant in the village Dourbie where the local guys are very hearty. Maybe, I guess that is because they usually don't see many people from outside the Cévennes at the same time ;-).
We take the road back to the Tarn valley and its sources to spend the night there. Waking up here is most beautiful, wonderful landscapes as far as the eyes can see, no noise, no electric power lines and no civilisation to spoil the scene.
Afer a good lunch, we left here on foot over this immense plain to put-in at the bridge of Tarn (the oldest bridge of Lozère) where the river has its source.



A quick photo of the group and we set off on the Tarn sources (grade V-VI). Eric and Valentin are our guides because they were the one's who discovered this part of the river for us at the beginning of the year.
The section we did has only been done by about ten paddlers, together with the Dourbie, it is one the most difficult and famous rivers of the Cévennes.
The first kilometres are grade II, an awesome landscape and all your hear is the noise of paddles in the water. Then, the river seems to disappear and all you see are a couple of tree tops….




Here the serious business starts, an impressive slope, a set of massive rapids, named 'Le Norvégien', 'La rappe a fromage' and
'La Couturière', separated by a little flat water just enough to concentrate onto the next. The river continues with 'Le Gorille', 'Les Demoiselles', 'L’épaule gauche' and 'L’omelette', when you're there you'll see that the names make sense! And for finish, one some most beautiful rapids in this section 'Les 5 Frangines'.
We all want to to do it again, but with the autumn days it geta dark quickly in the gorge and we must make back for the cars. The climb is much the same as with the Dourbie - long and tiring.
That was the Cévennes!!! It was awesome !!!!




A day later we have a go on the river 'Lot' (III-IV) for an easy ride where the kayakers can paddle without stress and to take in the landscape for a last time before heading back home.
If you come to the Cévennes you should pack the guidebook «kayak Cévennes» by Henri Denis.
It will help you on the grade II-IV river parts.



photos : Romain Guirao

Les sources du Tarn

Le haut Lot