Set Your Watch By The Wind…It’s That Reliable!
Set on the Lac de Serre Poncon a lake in the heart of the Hautes Alpes in South Eastern France. This location has some of the most reliable wind we’ve ever seen, you can almost set your watch by it.
No Joke This Place Has The Most Consistent Wind Pattern We’ve Ever Seen!
The mornings are flat calm…perfect for wakeboarding, which is of course perfect for improving your kitesurfing board skills in a controlled environment. Then at 10:30 the wind enters. It builds up all morning so that by the time you’ve finished wakeboarding, had a coffee and a croissant in the lake side cafe, it’s time to pump up and head out into a perfect force 4/5. Unlike most camps which limit your time on the water, we’ll be there until the sun goes down or you simply don’t have the energy!
FLAT WATER
Combine this with the fact that we’re on a lake so we’ve got flat water and remember we said we imagined you hadn’t heard of this place…well guess what, no one else has either, so the waters almost empty!
EXTREME SPORTS PARADISE
All this makes this the perfect pale to run an intensive kitesurfing camp, but it gets even better. Embrun is one of the extreme sports capitols of the world and the truly magical thing about this place is the freedom we have in terms of other activities. While you have the option to wakeboard every morning we find for many people every other morning is enough. So if you fancy a bit of white water rafting one of the morning’s when you’re not wakeboarding, no problems. The Durance river which feeds the lake is rated grade 3 and the Guil in the next valley is a grade 4/5. Climbing, downhill mountain biking, quad biking, sailing, ringo’s and of course the best of French cuisine are all within easy reach and believe me we’ll be taking full advantage of the facilities…we’d love you to join us! Alternative activities are done in the mornings so as to not interrupt your kitesurfing!
BBQ’s AT 2000m
During the camp we will be having 2 BBQ’s at one of our spots on the mountainside, set at 2000m and looking down onto the lake below, this is a location that has to be seen to be believed. Drinking a few beers (or non beers if you prefer!) and soaking up the real outdoors, sleeping out under the stars around a crackling fire, a truly breathtaking experience..
NIGHTLIFE
Embrun is not big on night life, but to be honest you’re likely to be too tired to want to party too much. Most evenings consist of a few beers around the campsite or halfway up a mountain around a wild fire before we camp out under the stars. That said in high season there is plenty going on here with live music to be found almost every night and there’s always a fair or market of some sort happening in one of the local villages.
ACCOMMODATION
Accommodation is in tents on a campsite nestled right on the Lac de Serre Poncon. While we do try to make the stay as comfortable as possible please remember we are camping and would ask you to come with a muck in team attitude, so if you’re occasionally asked to help with the washing up please don’t run a mile! Several nights we will camp out under the stars, again we cannot command the bugs and Mosquitos to leave you alone, so if you cannot live without a hair dryer or the thought of sleeping in a sleeping bag on the side of the mountain fills you with dread this maybe isn’t the experience for you.
GETTING HERE
You can fly into Marseille, Grenoble or Turin. From Marseille and Grenoble there are direct trains to Embrun (the town next to the lake). From Turin you will need to hire a car.
As this area is primarily a ski resort you will find that you can get some real deals on flights in the summer as it’s officially their off season
Leave Your Hairdryer At Home
This is a camp and that means we expect a certain level of team work and mucking in. If you don’t work well in teams or can’t live without a hairdryer (boys and girls!), this probably isn’t the holiday for you.
We have thoroughly researched the wind throughout the year and run the camp during the periods with the highest likelihood of good kitesurfing conditions, however if there is no wind (and it’s never guaranteed) there are plenty of alternate activities i.e. white water rafting, kayaking, quad bikes, wakeboarding, downhill mountain biking, climbing, trekking.
