Last week, we were with some friends on the Dourbie river, a great French classical river of class IV V, located in the beautiful Cévennes area.The plan was to kayak the Dourbie from Prunaret village to St Jean de Bruel. The section is not too long (17 kms) but the river in the Valgarnide’s deep gorge never stop. This grade V/ V+ section is one of the most difficult of France. It takes one hour to kayak one kilometer, considering this fact we decided to do it in a multiday trip.
After we looked for over one hour a good take out near St Jean de Bruel, we started to kayak the river at eleven o’clock. All the team knew the first part until the “Bubble Bazar rapid” (le Bazard à bulle in French) wich is the normal take out of the gorge, but the second part has been very rarely paddling and I wonder why ! It is really beautiful…
So, after the “Bubble bazar” rapid we had been paddling during one hour then we make a base camp in the middle of the wood where the floor looked flat.
We make a fire, then we picked up some chestnuts in the wood in order to make a good Apero with some the ;-). The end of the second gorge until St Jean de Bruel is more easy, ten kilometers of class IV V in an awesome parent rock environment, still there are always some good, technical and difficult rapids.
It’s under the sun that Valentin Corote, Valentin Grolemund, Raphael Thiebault and Stephane Pion spent two days on the one of the most beautiful and technical river of the Cévennes area in the middle South of France.
If you are interested to come, you can check a usefull guidebook called “Kayak Cévennes” written the local paddler Henry Denis.
Video of this trip :
Here is one of the most beautiful and difficult Valgarnide deep gorge located in the Cévennes area.
Class IV V.
Here is some pics :
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| Dourbie multidays 2010 |
Have fun.
Stefun
