WHITEWATER AND WATER SPORTS DESTINATIONS

Saint-Clément sur Durance water sports centre

Saint-Clément sur Durance whitewater slalom course is the second longest in Hautes-Alpes after the one at L’Argentière-La Bessée. It’s the perfect place to get to grips with kayaking, rafting, riverboarding and hot dogging (paddling an inflatable kayak) on the Durance. Two hundred metres long with a 2-metre drop (making it a 1% gradient), the course boasts three different waves depending on the water level. It also features a permanent 30-gate slalom.

L’Argentière-La Bessée gears up for the 2024 Olympic Games

Selected as an Olympics Preparation Centre for the kayaking hopefuls, the water sports course here is reaping the benefits of years of hard work that began in the 1990s following the closure of the Pechiney industrial site (the location of a factory making aluminium sheeting). After hosting numerous national and international kayaking and rafting competitions – the European Canoe Slalom Championships in 2006, the French Slalom Championships in 2015, 2017 and 2020, and the 2011 Canoe Slalom World Cup – L’Argentière-La Bessée has now set its sights on the 2024 Olympics by becoming a ‘Terre de Jeux 2024’ official Games Preparation Centre. No surprise when this whitewater course is one of the most prestigious in Europe.
L’Argentière-La Bessée slalom course in a nutshell:
Length: 400 m
Drop: 4 metres, equivalent to a 1% gradient
Variable streamflow of 15 to 80 m3
50 permanent slalom gates   

La Vague du Rabioux (Châteauroux-les-Alpes)

Hautes-Alpes’ legendary stretch of the River Durance between Saint-Clément and Embrun, near the village of Châteauroux-les-Alpes, is named after the big waves encountered here (‘vague’ means wave in French). La Vague du Rabioux is a stretch of rapids that has been a draw for stunt kayakers and thrill-seekers since the 1970s. It’s highly prized by not only freestyle kayakers but also rafting and riverboarding fanatics.

Lac de Serre-Ponçon

Serre-Ponçon is Hautes-Alpes’ record-breaking artificial lake. Created in the late 1950s, the lake covers some 2,800 hectares and has a 92-kilometre shoreline on the border between the départements of Hautes-Alpes and Alpes de Haute-Provence. Lac de Serre-Ponçon is the biggest artificial lake in France and the second-biggest in Europe. The compacted-earth dam here holds back 1.2 billion cubic metres of water, the equivalent of 600,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Serre-Ponçon is a major economic and tourism hub in Hautes-Alpes and its sea-and-mountains character and exceptional air-current and weather conditions make it the ultimate safe destination for a vast range of water sports: angling, windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing, paddleboarding, sea kayaking, boat trips, swimming, paragliding and more...
Over the summer season, this ‘seaside in the mountains’ destination attracts between 500,000 and 600,000 tourists. The lake also boasts 14 beaches with facilities, eight of which offer such high-quality bathing water that they qualify for Blue Flag status. There are also 1,100 boat moorings available around the lake’s 91km shoreline.