Chez Toi chalet caterers on the white water in the Dranse with Frogs
Chez Toi chalet caterers from Morzine went white water rafting on the river Dranse yesterday with Frogs Rafting. What a fantastic day out!
We headed to the Frogs rafting HQ in La Forclaz (a 30 minute drive from Morzine) for 1pm to start our adventure. We couldn’t have picked a more perfect afternoon to be on the river with temperatures soaring towards 40℃! Natalie and Jeremy were there to greet us (and Scout the dog) and get us kitted out with wetsuits, boots, helmets and life jackets. It was all very quick and before we knew it we were heading back down the hill in their van to pick up the raft and then to the drop off point for our warm up.
Jeremy is the qualified raft guide so once the raft was in the river we all jumped in and he gave us a 10 minute safety briefing and instructions on how to paddle. Nat became paparazzi at this point and followed us down the river in the van with her camera.
Once we set off everyone followed Jeremy’s instructions and we really got into a great rhythm with the paddling. After a couple of rapids we stopped at the side of the river where we all had the chance to jump off a huge rock into the river below. Most of the group had a go and I’m pleased to say that all of team Chez Toi jumped off, twice! After the second jump we got to float down the next rapid on our backs which was great fun.
After that we carried on down river to continue our warm up and met Nat with the van a few kilometers further on where we all jumped in again and the white water raft was strapped onto the trailer. We were then driven back up river. We had all chosen to take part in the ‘Pro trip’ which is a little harder than the other ‘Classic trip’ so the next section was the biggest rapid on that part of the Dranse. We were given another safety briefing by Jeremy once all back in the boat. Then it was time to take on the rapid, Jeremy had instructed us that once we hit the white water he would shout ‘SAFETY’ and we all had to sit in the middle of the raft. We just about managed and no-one fell out but you can see from the picture below that it was pretty exciting and half of the boat was almost under water!!
The raft half submerged in the white water on the Dranse near Morzine!
When we had just about recovered from that rapid it was time for another jump. This time 7 meters off a pointed rock. Team Chez Toi once again all went for it and Chef Stu did it twice! After that things became much more gentle and Jeremy made the rest of the trip really fun for us. He gave a couple of us a chance to be in his position steering the raft and shouting instructions to the paddlers. He also tipped us all out of the boat and gave us a couple of chances to swim in the river. We once again met Nat at the end of the trip and then were driven bag to the Frogs rafting white water base. There we peeled ourselves back out of the wetsuits and dried off in the baking sunshine! We bought a CD with all the photos on for 10€ and were on our way at around 4.30pm.
It was a great way to spend the afternoon, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to go again!