More news from Wendy just in:
Wendy:
The Lower Karnali- this river, in the wild west of nepal runs between 200- 400 cumics - the tryweyrn is 10 ! When we ran it - it was medium flow -
so quite big water - the holes were the size of houses and the wave trains like nothing else i have seen!
We put our boats on the bus and took a flight to western nepal, 4 hr bus ride - on the roof of course !,numerous road blocks - bribe paid to the maoists - who provide receipts; 2 hours walk through stunning bush with porters aged 7 - 70 yrs - and there was the karnali !
The team was 2 rafts with punters, 2 gear rafts and rob hind - kayaking - trip leader, andy - in charge of me, paul ( in a play boat!) and mark - all kayaking.
The little trigger was just perfect ! as was the weather- short arm cag every day!
Day one - put in just below - lahore khola, good fun bouncy class 3 rapids, and one cl 4 at the end of the day - the cl 4 scared me ... rolled right at the top - but all fine and actually ran the majority of the rapid on the right line ! The watching rafters said they were impressed with my rolling practice!
Every night we camped,the rafters in tents, me, andy, mark and paul - under a tarp tided to paddles - on mindbowingly beautiful white sandy beaches, misty foothills of the himalayas ....
Day 2 - the water gets bigger, i was encourged by the day before and enjoyed this day without always being terrified! Jailhouse Rock was the only cl4 so not too crazy a day.
Day 3 - this was the big paddling day - a quick warm up and there were 3 ,class 4 rapids before lunch - gods house - unbelievably enormous hole - i took a safer line - around the hole - the adrenaline rush was enormous and it was only 10am - "Juicer" quickly followed - this was my favourite as i had to run it without following anyone - ran it really well but by the end was exhausted. Not to worry - just another cl 4 around the corner - i was starting to loose it a bit by now - halfway down this 'flip and strip' rapid i got told to pull my head in and get on with it and that it wasnt really that difficult - so i did and made it to lunch in one piece.
After a rest in the shade - back into it another cl 4!- i took a rather long roll on a rather large wave train - but hung in there and didn't swim -
when we finally got off the water i was unbelievably chuffed - no swims and no portages - on the karnali -
Day 4 and 5 were paddling down generally fast flowing but cl 2 water with the occasionaly cl 3 to get my sunglasses wet ! - this gave me a chance to really appreciate the scenery - paddly fields , villages, children running down to the water shouting hello, dug out tree trunks - made into canoes was the local transport, gorges and awesome rock formations , huge flocks of birds
and just down stream fROm the take out we saw a basking crocadile!!!
This river trip is definately the hardest water i have ever paddled and the most amazing scenery i have ever paddled in. The combination of a huge white water paddle - with a chill couple of days on the water to wind down made it very special and i highly recommend it !!
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