Ice slide himalaya start ...

It's a cold but sunny morning, we 're on our way to do some wave spotting on the Meuse. It's still early so we 're stopping for some sight seeing at Les Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure. There's a great slope over there, that any extreme paddler could dream about. A slope like like the ones in the Shaun 'Schreper'-movies 'Id', sliding down on no water and breaking you're back at the bottom. So let's dream.

Let's dream because this slope never has water, it's just there in case the lake is full, but that never happens and the little water that passes, goes through tubes and turbines.
Another tricky thing, why the whole slope can't be paddled, if there would be any water ... is the 5 meter gap at the top. But hey, we're just dreaming...

Once we're there we see that it's been freezing 'cause the water that's been leeking through the barage is froozen and changed the concrete plane into one big ice slope.

Hey, why not? Why not what? Let's slide down... Euh, what !! And yeh, after a lot of argueing and checking out the thing, I was convinced to have a go.

The slide looks clean, but we have to be quick the ice is melting. The big concrete walls on all sides look pretty scary, but some ropes as secu made a quick in and out entry possible. The jump at the bottom looks cool. So except that the hole event is probably pretty illeg..., off we go.

Go, Go, ... crazy, doesn't go as fast as we expected. And just like Shaun, have a flatspin, one, no, two, hey .... stop spinning you're down ... too late, side way jumping, auchhh. Cool, cool...

Airtiiiiiime, booooffing, all the way down.
... flieeeeeess. Yeeeeehhaaaaaa.

A little railgrab would have completed the show, but hey you can't expect all in once.

Great first descent, would there only have been water :-)

Next up. Going steady, flatspinning, but got to the side where the ice is melting so stalled. Once back on the track, took some speed, kept it right and yeehaa, great jump, threw all the weight to the front, so the boat wouldn't boof the 3 meter free falling at this speed, but still hit the water pretty flat.

Another great little bandit run.

Here 's view of the whole site, found the pickie somewhere online. You see the slope and at the bottom right also the outlet of the turbines.
The several dams are build on this little river to make a big water reservoir. The water is then used in dry seasons to keep up the level in the canals around Charlerio, so ships can carry cargo.

Some links ...

Historical - http://www.ulg.ac.be/le15jour/107/S02.html
Water - http://voies-hydrauliques.wallonie.be/vn/d242.html
Site map - http://eaudouce.free.fr/photos/eh_plan.jpg