Nepal - roadtripping and playing on the rivers in Himalayan paradise

The journey back to Kathmandu though only 60 miles or so took about five hours.  We ran into traffic in the city, which is a mixture of multiple different trucks, busses, three wheeled taxis, motorcycles, tractors, bicycles and the rare private car.

 

The view the boats had traveling through Nepal, best seats in the house!

Beautiful Nepali countryside

Once back in KTM on my birthday I thought it would be a party, unfortunately I was too tired to do anything.   I attribute it to the 30^th bday.  I made a few phone calls, ate some dinner and went to bed after packing for the next adventure that would be for an indefinite amount of time.  I love trips like this where all you bring is what you can take down the river in your kayak including river gear, street clothes, sleeping bag and pad and food.  We left early in the morning for the Trisuli River.  Before coming to Nepal my friend Monica told me not to worry about the Trisuli River, its only class III and mellow class III at that.  When we arrived, we found a swollen river, the trash circled around in the eddy in a swirling mass all toward a big whirlpool and an eddyline about 2 feet tall.  I was guessing the CFS at somewhere around 100,000 cfs thought it could have easily been much more.  We played our way down the river and I paddled waves bigger than I have ever seen.  These rapids on the river that I was told to skip made Hermit on the Grand look like nothing.  It was awesome!  So much fun!  Overall the difficulty was class IV or so but the features were amazing, most impressive the whirlpools, boils and eddylines – oh and the waves that could swallow a bus.  We ate lunch at the luxurious Royal Beach Camp, an amazing riverside camp with enormous beach, tents and cabins on the riverside, as well as a restaurant and palapa bar.

 Royal Beach Camp beach

  another view of the Royal Beach Camp beach

The Trisuli is where Subash got his start.  He would walk down the hill 45 minutes from where he lived on his parent’s farm on the hillside to play in the river.  As kids they would swim in the river during more manageable flows and when he was 14 he got started kayaking.  He soon fell in love with the activity that changed his view of the river he could see dominating the valley below his home and he came daily after school.  Because of the low elevation of the area the river is runnable year round, low water means clear blue water and world class play features, monsoon means a massive river hundreds of thousands of cfs.  He assured me that the flow we paddled it at was nowhere near as high as he had seen it, telling me that in the summer when there is no work they often do full moon floats of the big raging torrent.  He also told me that when he was a kid there was a flood that was huge, I don’t remember the flow in cumecs but it worked out to be just a few cfs shy of a million cfs by estimations.   We had fun on the Trisuli, it was relatively chill but HUGE and beautiful and the river has a lot of history in Nepal.

Every year on the Trisuli a kayak competition is held that was for years sponsored by the British company Peak UK.  The competition was a mixture of slalom, freestyle and boatercross and it sounded like an awesome party with live music every night, bonfires on the beaches along the river and everything else you could imagine comes along with a proper boating festival.  Three years in a row Subash’s boss, Maila Grunig, the owner of GRG won the competition and a new boat from Riot who was one of the competition sponsors.  This past year, after training hard on the freestyle in a 10 year old Prijon boat and training hard every day when other people were off having fun, Subash won the freestyle, and took 4^th in the slalom and 6^th in the boatercross (or maybe the other way around) and took 1^st place overall at the event.  He won the ability to say that he was the Freestyle Champion of Nepal; he also received an award that was Rider of the Year.  

We stayed the night on the banks of the Trisuli River after doing the upper and middle sections, repeating the more exciting middle again the next morning.  The takeout is at the confluence with the Myrsyandi River, probably one of the most famous in all of Nepal for its miles of continuous class IV/IV+ boulder gardens in a sparsely populated agricultural valley with breathtaking views of Annapurna.  If you talk to people anywhere in the world and ask them what your favorite river is, there is a good chance that the Myrsyandi will be on top of the list.  Unfortunately there have recently been a few dams constructed on the river obstructing what was once a five day run.   Either way the ultra high flows only allowed us to paddle the rarely done lower canyon that is gorgeous, very steep and quite committing despite its “roadside” nature – the road is about 500 vertical feet up out of the canyon from the river but super fun!  At this point this was the biggest we whitewater we had seen but was all read and run class IV/IV+ with steep rapids, huge, massive breaking waves, some scary whirlpools and eddylines and a constriction wave set that came together in an amazing display of way too much water trying to fit through the narrow canyon.  It would build and converge in the blink of an eye as the waves ricocheted off the canyon walls and came together, exploding in the middle of the river forming a wave that was 30 or 40 feet tall one second and a gaping maw the next.  I’ve never seen a river feature like it.   The run was 7 miles or so but it only took us 40 minutes and before we knew it we were drinking beers at the same takeout we had been at only just over an hour before, looking for a bus to Pokhara.  

Unloading some cerveza and trying to hold on tight

Another awesome shuttle ride

Mystical morning yoga beach

Oh boy, that thing is huge!

Lower Myrsyandi canyon, its big in there!

god of something at the Trusuli/lower Myrsyandi takeout

The local grub...

take out beers before loading the bus to Pokhara

The bus ride to Pokhara was another classic example of the local Nepali transit system.  The drive is 90 km to the idyllic but quickly growing lakeside town with views of the Annapurna Range 7000 meters above.  In the states that’s a quick hour drive on a road of similar conditions but here we were lucky enough to find a local bus.  The bus stopped about every 12 feet to pick up someone or drop another off, everyone including schoolkids – yep we were on the school bus as well.  At one point the bus stopped on the side of the road and they told us to get off, they informed us that they decided that though they had agreed they were going to go to Pokhara originally, they would turn around now, business was that good.  We switched to another bus of similar style that was jam packed with locals all looking at me like I just came off Mars.  It was a really fun ride actually, despite the terrible seat and we arrived in Pokhara just before dark after somewhere between 6-7 hours.  Yep, that’s an average of about 15km per hour….that’s about 8 miles an hour. 

This is a highway legal vehicle, very utilitarian and awesome but one of the reasons the Kathmandu air is so nasty and why it takes so long to get everywhere

We arrived in Pokhara and immediately felt at home.  I was in a $4/night comfortable hotel room next to where Subash’s friends own a rafting company and we went straight to the local restaurant where all the Nepali river guides hang out for a Dal Baht and some much deserved beers.  We hung out with a few of his friends who have been guiding rivers around the country for 15 years or something, we talked about everything from boating, politics, the geomorphology of the Himalaya and the beers flowed freely.  We drank some Roxy, the local Nepali wine and some vodka and Sprites, which is apparently a local favorite.  By the time we decided to get out of the restaurant, or rather we were encouraged to leave because they wanted to go to sleep it was after 11 but after the drinks we were all excited and wanted to make more new friends and I wanted to practice my newly learned Nepali.  We attempted to go to the bar but were turned away everywhere, apparently the night life shuts down at 11pm and everyone goes to bed.   I was sure we would try again before we left Pokhara, so without anywhere to continue our night we dejectedly went home and to bed. 

The next day was mellow, we slept in and went to the Upper Seti mid-morning.  This river was much smaller and though still really high made me feel like home.  It was much more like a creek or small river, the river a beautiful blue glacial milk flowing off Annapurna not far away.  The rapids were mostly class IV/IV+ with the occasional rapid that was depatedly a bit harder.  It was a hoot, ripping down the mountain so fast we hardly had time to stop and appreciate the incredible beauty.  At one point, Subash was leading in a playboat, got stopped in a hole and decided to do some violent cartwheels, I boofed over him and the next few sticky ledge holes stopping 50 yards or so downstream to watch him claw his way out of each hole only to get stuck in the next because he didn’t have enough speed in his trusty Bliss Stick Rad that he made look really fun on the big water, playing freely doing all kinds of downstream play moves.  This craft clearly wasn’t the best craft for the high water Upper Seti, though the Nepali freestyle champion made it work.  I found out soon afterward that this river was home to some waterfalls I'd seen in pictures, this recently discovered gorge is not far upstream, offering some amazing creeking that I was assured was WAAAY to high for this time of year.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpJeQjmhKwc  The video is Josh Nielson, from NZ I believe.

Upper Seti River valley

One of the many Seti river gorges

dance party at the Seti takeout

After the Seti we had a mellow evening in Pokhara, ate some Daal Baht with our hands and prepared for a trip the following morning on the Kali Gandaki.   The Kali Gandaki is a very well known rafting run that,l like the Myrsyandi, has recently been shortened by a large hydropower project.  The trip is still amazing, a three day wilderness trip through an amazing jungle canyon with huge rapids, beautiful beaches and monkeys swinging from the trees.  This was to be the first Kali Gandaki trip of the year because the water is still questionably high for rafting and a big night of rain could leave the group stranded in the middle of the canyon, clinging to the canyon walls hoping the water doesn’t wash everyone away.  The company that we were tagging along with, Swissa, caters specifically to Israeli tourists and if any of you have traveled internationally in Asia or South America, you know that these tend to come in packs.  Swissa found it hard to turn away 20 paying clients despite the fact that trips aren’t usually run for another few weeks so they sent a kayaker to do a scouting mission of the river before the trip.  He found a great flow on his reconnaissance mission to the river and so it was a go.  I was excited to have a chill trip on the river, take it slow, have someone else cook food and hang out a bit.  We met at the boathouse at 630 to load everything for a close to 40 person, 3 night trip on top of a chartered 1970s schoolbus.  It was a fun dynamic, two guides, a gear boat captain, the lead safety kayaker, and the head chef that barked orders at the seven other young aspiring safety kayakers, seven extra paddlers, and video guy who were also the ones brought along to do all the dirty work unloading and loading rafts, setting up camp, and prep cooking.  Subash helped and I tried to get in whenever I could but at this point everyone was wondering why some random white guys was at their boat house getting in the way, not eating warm, fresh pastries and coffee with all the paying clients.  It was an impressive load once it was all roped down (no straps involved whatsoever) and by 8am we were trying to get the always late Israelis on the bus so we could head to the river. 

A three to four ride through the beautiful Nepali countryside, up over a big ridge and down along the Modi Khola (an awesome class IV/V run that was questionably too high) led us to the river where we unloaded everything, blew up the boats three 16’ expedition NRS rafts with a single barrel pump, carried everything down to the river and geared up while the clients sat in the shade and ate tuna salad, yelling “Lama Kacha” as their key phrase every 2.2 seconds. 

Getting ready at the putin, were packing boats, the crew eating something with Tuna in it

 ”Lama Kacha” (pronounced lama caca) means “why like this” and is their  favorite phrase in the Hebrew language, used at least 10 times as much as any other phrase.  I started gaining my rapport with the guides when we stopped for Daal Baht on the way to the river, the guide pit stop and I sat down with them to eat, digging in with my hands, then buying them cigarettes afterward.  At the river, I blew up rafts for an hour or so with their single barrel pump and laid out helmets and PFD and carried gear to the river.  They were starting to warm up to me.  The Israelis were confused, wondering if I an employee or a paying client.  I did a good job of avoiding the question, knowing that if I answered the truth – “really I’m neither, I’m just here to get a free rafting trip with your hard earned and saved money,” they wouldn’t warm up to me too much.   After an eternity, we were on the water.  We rafted through some awesome ocean sized waves and about a mile in got to the two biggest rapids of the run, exciting nearly class V big water rapids with terrible consequence that the rafters lined.  Camp was shortly afterward, about three miles into the run.  It was a beautiful beach in the jungle, a spring came off the wall providing fresh water for cooking and washing off the gritty river water and we got to hang out and enjoy the rest of the day on the riverside paradise.  It was awesome to see how the Nepalis set up camp, cooked, and did everything involved in multi day rafting trip with very few of the “necessities we have in the states.”  They dig a hole for the groover in the sand, use rope for everything, make their own tents and shelters from locally sourced materials, make their own oars from trees in the jungle, make their own drybags from old rafts, make their own tables and dish strainers (starting to see a trend here?).  There was even a helmet that I persuaded the trip leader not to use that had been cracked and stitched back together with about 40 wire stitches.

Camp 1, see the homemade oars, homemade shelter (spelled saltar in Nepali English), and gorgeous beach

The rafts, pulled well up out of the water

The second day was a legitimate day on the river and it was awesome!  We slept soundly, well as well as can be asked, I was sandwiched between 12 or 15 Nepalis all sleeping under one long tarp.  We were happy it didn’t rain, the river was big but very manageable and we floated for the majority of the day through big fun waves, avoiding massive ledge holes every so often and enjoying waterfalls coming in from all directions, springs coming out of the walls and a dramatic jungle canyon.  I understood why this was considered a classic.  Kali Gandaki it is said means something like black river and it surely lived up to its name, heavy, dark, sediment laden water but apparently during the majority of the rafting season, the water is clear blue and warm – which sounds like it would only add to the appeal.  We had some fun carnage, one of the rafts flipped in a big wave hole that they intentionally gutted and the 10 safety kayakers fought for a chance to help out the rafters, it was great. 

cool confluence shot, every major confluence is a holy site where they have temples, shrines and if you're lucky you may even get buried there

waterfalls are pretty, imagine living there?  

storm building but no one is paying attention, too much fun!

Camp was amazing again, we arrived to a stream flowing through camp into a clear, warm pond of water and after setting up camp we all cleaned off in the lake.  I realized that it was actually a part of the river, we were on an island and the creek a small part of the river.  We all hung out while the Nepalis cooked and warmly greeted some local villagers that brought a basket full of beer, spirits, cigarettes, Roxy (homemade wine) and chocolate.  The guides quickly bought all the cigarettes, we got a few beers and all the Roxy.  Shortly after the villagers arrived, it started to sprinkle.  The guides, a few of the helpers and the custies sat under the tarps, singing traditional Nepali songs, playing on the drums and drinking the Roxy while some of the crew cooked.  It kept coming, they cooked in the rain and by the time the food was coming it was pouring.  Dinner came, a few more sips of wine and I laid back under the tarp, fat and happy, fast asleep.  Sometime in the middle of the night, in mid dream, I could hear the gear boat captain yelling frantically.  I shot up and ran to the river to find that it was a raging torrent.  We had pulled the rafts about 30 feet from the river but they were floating and not too far from making their way down to the takeout without us.  I was lucky, very, very, very lucky.  I had pulled my kayak up about 25 feet from the river, laid my gear all out to dry and didn’t think about it again.  It hadn’t rained hard in days, I was ready to hang out and it didn’t even occur to me to pull my kayak up the hill to safe ground.  Someone had woke up a few hours earlier to pee and say my kayak dangerously close to the river, they threw my gear my boat and drug it up the hill.  When I got there, the place where I’d left it was well underwater and the kayak was again not far from the river.  I must have been lucky that day, or my karma was good for making such good friends with everyone, or something but I didn’t lose my kayak, paddle, helmet, pfd, skirt, drysuit, first aid kit and wrap kit inside a watershed, or my spare paddle - my only loss was my third pair of socks since arriving in Nepal – I just couldn’t keep track of these things.   I helped the guides hoist the rafts way further up onto our island and went back to bed, feeling an incredible sense of relief. 

gifts from the villagers

 

Waiting for the groover is the same in Nepal, except this is just a hole in the ground, you can pee, poo and throw your tp in there. You can also see here that were on an island, the main flow headed to the left and the side channel to the right where the clear pond was the day before.

Rainy camp

Obligatory group shot, missing all the hard workers

The next morning we woke up and it was still raining.  Other than the midnight trip to the river I hadn’t moved in 12 hours or so but the river had come up substantially.  My guess was that the flow had tripled, it was probably somewhere around 35,000 from the 10,000 cfs when we started.  Everyone got up slowly and I kept thinking about how lucky I was, I could have lost everything.  I also thought about how we were lucky we weren’t upstream of the stout day of whitewater we had done yesterday, in the much more gorged in canyon.  I talked to another guide that morning and he said two times in 12 years, they have had to hike everyone and everything back to the putin from camp one because of rain in the night.  That would involve hiking everyone and everything about three miles through the thick jungle on a steep trail then, because the camp and trail are on river right and highway on river left, blowing up the boats again and trying to ferry across the swollen beast before going back home.  I was thankful that didn’t happen to us.  We had a slow morning but left camp and floated a quick hour or so through an amazing canyon to the takeout.  Apparently before the dam, this was the best part of the canyon, wilderness, very steep canyon but mostly flat.  One guy told me in the 12 years he has been running it they had seen jaguar near the river multiple times.  It was rad but the takeout came too quickly.  The takeout is an interesting sight, they were building a road up the canyon and the evidence was very apparent, we had a few somewhat close calls with rockfall but only those straying too close to that side of the river.  Actually the rocks were at least a hundred yards away but they careened down the steep canyon wall and plunged in the river with fury, making a very dramatic sound.   The takeout was immediately upstream of the dam which was letting everything through at the high flow and it looked terrifying.  The takeout was a bit of work, walking up a road about 400 yards with waterfalling side creeks that smelled curiously like poo.  I did a few trips but on the last trip was ushered away, they assured me that I should go hang out with the guides, the porters would carry the heavy stuff.   We loaded a jeep to take the gear up higher where we loaded the bus and had an uneventful ride back to Pokhara through the amazingly gorgeous Nepali countryside, beautiful river valleys, dramatic mountains and rice paddies everywhere with the occasional village along the way on a great road.  Too soon the trip was over and we were back in Pokhara. 

The wave in this picture was a 10 foot ledge hole yesterday when we got to camp

Jon the Spaniard and the rafters, you can see a big scar from the road construction on the left

 Cool confluence shot

 Nepali guardrail

 the guardrail view looking back up the road, dont get too close, its a long ways down

 porter carrying the 16' NRS Expedition raft with the full power of his head and daal baht of course.  This raft weights somewhere in the range of 190 lbs

riding up from the takeout to the bus with the boys on the back of the jeep

The dam that changed the river and the valley forever

The next day we ran a new run that had just been found, right outside of town, the Fursi Kola.  It was a warm, clear, spring fed stream that was in a beautiful little canyon with waterfalls cascading in and a few great little rapids and canyons.  Because of the spring fed nature, it only runs during the monsoon when aquafirs are fully charged and not flowing when most boaters are in town.  While getting ready, we saw a few of the folks from the rafting trip and convinced them to duckie with us.  We had two Nepalis, one American (me), one Spaniard, one Israeli and one Chilean.  After the big, muddy frothing river, it was awesome to boat in nothing more than a long sleeve shirt and spend plenty of time intentionally upside down, enjoying the clean water.  This was the last time I wore my drysuit on the trip.  It felt wonderful.

The Fursi Kola

locals on the river, water buffalo.  they look kinda scary but they are docile and you get used to them, they walk the streets like people. 

shameless product plug for the Karnali, this boat is perfect for Nepal. I guess its probably not a coincidence that Pyranha named it after one of the most famous rivers in the country...

Entry to Nepal

So, after our crews started to disperse from Ladakh, I was wondering what to do or where to go to make the most of my paddling adventure in the great Himalaya.  I knew that it would be next to impossible to find a crew in India, anywhere, so I decided to find a flight to Nepal and see what I could get into in the great paddling mecca.  Monica Gokey, who I'd been travling with was getting me super stoked on it so after looking at some tickets, I bought the international round trip for about $160.  The decision was a little off the cuff but I was excited to explore somewhere new, somewhere with the biggest mountains in the world, somewhere that paddlers have been traveling for a long time and say it may be the best.  There were still a few catches, I didn't have a crew and August is still monsoon season.

I arrived in legendary Kathmandu after quick flight from Delhi, happy I’d decided to shell out the few extra dollars to avoid a 2 day bus journey each way and made myself to the Holy Lodge in Tamel, the tourist district in the country’s capital.  As soon as I arrived I emailed GRG and Paddle Nepal, the two most popular whitewater companies in the country that specifically cater to kayaking. Within an hour I received a response from GRG that there was a trip of kayakers heading out the next morning to the Bhote Kosi and I was welcome to join as long as I covered my costs. Stoked! Within a few hours of arriving I had a plan.  I ventured out into the city to eat and try to do some laundry and was accosted by the locals to buy CDs, tea, counterfeit gear, art, hashish, food, take a riskshaw ride, get in their taxi, hashish, or anything else you could imagine.  Kathmandu is a necessary evil of Nepal, you have to come here to travel to Nepal but in my opinion, you leave as soon as possible.  The city is an urban planning mess, the pollution is terrible and they prey on tourists like its their job, because well frankly it is their job.  I was offered anything under the sun about every five steps along the road and quickly trips outside of the Holy Lodge, which is well known as a kayaker meeting point in KTM, were determined and infrequent.  I rested up and packed my gear and got ready for the journey. 

I met my crew early the next morning and soon we were on an overcrowded but very cheap public bus to the Bhote Kosi.  The legendary Bhote Kosi on my first day in Nepal!  Well, the water was still really high so we ended up paddling a section that during November at about 20% of our flow rated class III+, it was super fun.  Huge waves, holes everywhere, beautiful scenery, warm water and a few exciting rapids.  

  

Self portrait at the putin for my first paddling in Nepal.  The smile is genuine.

Not a very good pic but as we neared the end of the run the rain came, with fury. 

Playing volleyball in the pool at Sukute Beach. 

We took out at a riverside resort called Sukute Beach, which is an awesome spot that is visited mostly by Nepalis.  We took off our wet layers and saddled up to the bar to celebrate a fun day on the water. Also, today being the 27^th of August meant that it was my last day of my 20s – we should have a little party.  The Nepali’s were all on vacation and excited to party with us, drink Gorkha beer named after their famous warriors, play games and dance to trashy old American pop songs.  It was a great night and fun place to spend a big night.  

As we sat there and drank and tried to communicate with the Nepalis the rain continued to rage, the riverside resort was a lake and a river and soon the Bhote Kosi had easily doubled in flow if not tripled.  I’d guess that within three hours of getting off the river the flow came up from 8-10k cfs to somewhere around 25-30k.

The morning brought with it a fairly intense but well deserved headache – definitely worse than the hangovers 29 year olds get but also bluebird skies and flows that didnt look overly scary. We ate a quick breakfast and loaded into a jeep to head up what is revered as one of the most beautiful valleys in Nepal, the Balephi Kola.  The Balephi is a tributary of the Bhote Kosi, the confluence not far from Sukute so we could paddle right back to camp. 

The rains had produced some good landslides and getting to the river was a bit of an adventure but soon enough we were at the putin and the flow looked good.  I didn’t know anything about the run but it looked like boulder garden class IV at a respectable but not too high flow.  What else could I ask for on my Bday!

Birthday booya beers after the Bhote Kosi and Balephi Kola - yes I brought it all the way from CO.

The crew, Sedhu, me, Subash and Spalding at the putin

Balephi Kola

Scouting one of the harder ones.  Cant see much from here but the rocks are too slippery to walk on!

Stoked somewhere on the lower part of the run.

The Balephi was a super fun run. The run that I found out is normally class III was again solid class IV with a few rapids that were definitely a little tougher.  Spalding, the other guy who we were paddling with, was a little jetlagged, tired and hungover and at the very end of the Balephi, about 100 yards above the confluence with the Bhote he got a little worked in a hole and swam.  We got him and his boat out quick –he and Sudhu took a jeep back to Sukute while Subash and I paddled.  We must have been overly stoked on the run or something because it took us about an hour to confirm that we had passed our takeout. We found the next town, waited for a ride and drank a cold one in the shade.  The bus ride was joyous; we rode on top with our boats as the bus chugged slowly up the hill and drank beers.  What a wonderful birthday!

Hanging out with some locals at the takeout

boats on bus

more birthday beers

the end of the Rainbows...

We made our way back to Sukute, gathered our stuff and talked about future plans.  Conveniently Subash didn’t have any work until September 15^th and we both wanted to paddle so we made plans on the bus ride back to Kathmandu to meet up the next morning and continue the adventure, at the time I had no idea how lucky I was to paddle with this kid.