Google GRG Adventure Kayaking, Rafting, Kayaking and Canyoning Adventures in Nepal: November 2012

Monday 26 November 2012

The Karnali Expedition: A World Class Journey

Blog post by Capo Rettig, Director of the World Class Kayak Academy who are currently spending 3 months paddling in Nepal with Maila Gurung and GRG's Adventure Kayaking.

Months ago World Class made the decision to keep with tradition, to not settle for the second best in our pursuit of educational purity, to seek out and explore the world’s remaining wild places, to research logistics and judge risk, to put in place an ambitious plan, but one that was well within the skill level of our organization. In short we decided that no Nepal semester would be complete without the Karnali, that the heart of Nepal was the Karnali, that without touching this heart our trip would be haunted by the beat and rhythm of Nepal’s main organ that would mock us no matter where we went or what we did. The morning of October 27 we put this plan into action.

Day 1


Ziggy wakes up looks around and says, “Where are we at?” It’s 6:45 in the morning and nobody answers him. We have been driving for about 16 hours and have entered the Karnali Zone, the largest district in Nepal at roughly 5,000 square miles and the country’s most un-inhabited and remote region. We stop at a small village, the first we have seen for some time, and rub the sleep out of our eyes. Joints creak to life. Weariness gets lifted from bodies and floats away with each successive movement. We eat chickpea curry, hardboiled eggs, fried bread, and black tea with milk. We are four more hours from the put-in.

As we near the river the road becomes steeper and steeper. After cresting a ridge, we look down at a ribbon of blue-green water. This is our first glimpse of the Karnali. Moments later the bus lurches to the side; our first flat tire. We walk for a while as the tire is repaired and examine the snakes, frogs, and unidentifiable bugs that are smashed on the road, crouching low to get a better look to at the florescent colors and black blood of the road kill.

We follow the switchbacks in the road for several more hours until we get to the put-in, a sloping beach of white sand that we drive right onto. The small village greets us as if they had been expecting our arrival. Kayaks, rafts, and gear gets pulled off the bus and rigged for the first time.
It is a short paddle down to our camp on river-right and spirits are high as we take our first strokes on the Himalaya’s most notorious river.

Day 2

We awake to tea and coffee as we watch the sun rise over the rocks of the canyon wall, which stretches slowly towards us. We are getting our systems in place, beginning the rhythm for the trip. A substantial amount of dew makes everything quite wet and today will be the first of many mornings where the team pulls tents and sleeping bags out to dry in the sun. Luckily the days are hot. Maila, our Nepalese coach for the semester and owner of GRG kayaking, the company helping us organize this trip, is pacing the sand near the river. He points out paw tracks. “Tigers?” I ask, knowing that this is a notorious zone for these endangered kings of the forest. “Maybe a small one,” says Maila.

We rig up and hit the river, which starts out with fun warm-up rapids. Towards the afternoon we come up on our first big rapid and we get out and scout from river right. Everyone has good lines and it is the first time we get to feel the real power of the waves and holes that will become so familiar by the time the trip is over.

Day 3

The Karnali is the longest river in Nepal, stretching from its source, the glaciers of Mt. Mapchachungo, which feeds into Lake Mansarovar located on the Tibetan Plateau, to Brahmaghat in India. Here it confluences with the Sarda River, eventually becoming a tributary to the Ganges.

On day three we awake to a crowd of children who have come out of the hills to watch us go about our morning. We conduct classes under watchful and curious eyes, eyes that have not had much opportunity for learning. In 1971 the Karnali basin had a literacy rate of 7.5%. While significant change has taken place, that percentage today is somewhere around 50%. I wonder what these locals think about us, with our books and notepads, sipping coffee and discussing apartheid South Africa and graphs in Algebra.

Day three has some of the most consistent whitewater on the entire run and the smiles are permanently drawn on all of our faces. We break up the action by stopping in a small village for tea and suddenly become transformed to what life was like 100 years ago.

Day 4

Today we get to some of the biggest rapids on the section. Around the corner we encounter Gods House a notorious rapid with a big hole in the middle that is best to avoid…. by anyone’s standards. This is a big test for our team and we spend a while scouting it and discussing the lines, safety, and best angles for video. We run it in three pods and everyone styles it… that is accept for a pretty epic gear boat flip.
Whitewater continues on this day until camp, giving us some of the best canyons and rapids on the entire trip.

Day 5/6

We take a layover day on a beautiful beach under a rock cliff. A few of the students and staff become sick with a 24-hour stomach bug. Classes are conducted under the sun and we catch up on some sleep, laundry, and bathing in the river.

Our Nepalese guides fish with nets from the kayaks, but only manage to catch a few sardine-like specimens that soon get dissolved into the dhal bhat. The next morning we slowly make our way down river to the next camp. We pull our kayaks onto shore and begin unloading the rafts, laying dry bags and gear out onto blue tarps so they don’t become encrusted with sand. Some students begin setting up the kitchen, while others start digging a hole for the communal outhouse. Just like that we realize we have hit full-Karnali mode and all of us have think hard to remember what life was like before.

Day 7/8

We have three gear rafts and 5 Nepalese guides + Joe from the UK. They are extremely competent, hard-workers, great cooks, and big personalities. Besides Mailia our host coach for the semester there is the trip leader Gothan, Uttar, Ganesh, Santos, Sahja. They are wonderful people to share this experience with and extremely thoughtful, often times directly translating Nepali metaphors into English. One morning while discussing teamwork on the river, Maila’s advice for the group was, “it takes two hands to clap,” and to re-iterate his point claimed, “there is a reason that we fry both sides of the bread.”
These days find mellow class II-III whitewater with great camping and thick Himalayan sub-tropical jungle. On day 8 we are able to hike up a side creek to a small waterfall with a jump rock. Nestled away in the jungle foliage, it feels like a scene out of a Kipling story.

Day 9

We are beginning to feel the effects of being on a river for so long, but spirits remain extremely high. We have emerged from the deeper canyons of the river into a wider, more open environment with big beaches and hot afternoons. Villages are becoming more and more frequent and it feels like civilization is much closer. For the past 4 days we had been asking villagers for either potatoes or onions. None were to be found, an indicator of how difficult it is for these villages to grow food.
On this night we held a memorial ceremony for Peter and Max, carving their names into a pumpkin before launching it into the river. Both would have enjoyed this trip and we still don’t understand why they had to go.

Day 10

On the morning of the last full day on the water, we take our time with breakfast and packing, enjoying the pink hue of the mist over the river. On this day we are the big attraction around here and the villagers have arrived early to observe us and then see us off. We have now reached an area with a denser population and even some signs of modernization (we can hear an engine of sorts… tractor?).
Students take turns rowing the raft as we are cheered on by excited youth on both banks as we make our way down to camp. The Thule Bheri confluence adds some flow to the river and we coast on down to stop in an area with steep rock walls leading down the river. It is a spectacular spot for the last night.
The Nepalese guides go into the village and get us a goat, which they set about making curry with. This is our first fresh meat in some time and the feast they prepare is glorious: Goat curry, rice, lentils, pasta, white sauce, and fruit. Sitting around the campfire we swap stories of our favorite moments on the canyon and enjoy the stars, the people, and the night around us.

Day 11

Taking off a river after a long multi-day trip is an indescribable feeling. Those who have felt it many times should feel lucky. It is a mixture of relief, sorrow, reflection, anticipation, and usually quite anti-climatic. One minute you are operating under the systems that we call river life and the next you are crossing a street where Russian tourists in army-green safari outfits follow you with their eyes as they sip bottled water and wait for their ride to the nearby Bardia National Park. There is trash under foot. Suddenly there are cars. A policeman directs traffic with a whistle. Here there are no waves, no holes, no jungle beaches, no bend in the river.
We un-rig the rafts and carry them up a flight of concrete stairs that leads to the town. We pass under a giant sign denouncing poachers and encouraging us to protect our “friends,” depicted by colored images of a rhinoceros, tiger, Asian elephant, and of course the endangered Gangetic River dolphin, the largest freshwater mammal found on the India subcontinent.

The process of loading the boats begins and electronics are dug out from the bus. Everything gets tied onto the roof and we change into “street” clothes. Suddenly the pivotal moment occurs, which firmly, definitively, and un-gracefully pulls us out of whatever river trance we may still be in, and that sweet, delicious feeling of having escaped the frantic motion that is the outside world comes crashing down as Chase receives a bar of Wi-Fi on his cell phone. Without warning it comes: Obama has been elected, Detroit got swept in the Series, a hurricane devastated New Jersey and the Ducks won a shoot-out against a very talented USC team.
We snap a group picture and literally jump onto the bus as its moving away, avoiding some law about not stopping on the bridge while still delivering a final team photo. And just as the river grew larger and larger upon our arrival, so too did it become smaller and smaller during our departure.

After a 19-hour bus ride, students and staff made it back to Pokhara for the rest of the journey. The Nepalese guides spent another nine hours getting back to Kathmandu. This is the first time World Class has run the Karnali River

Check out more photos of this trip here

Sunday 4 November 2012

World Class Kayak Academy


Maila with Capo the director of WCA
The World Class Academy is a traveling high school that specialises in kayaking. Not only do they achieve high level of academics but their students get to travel the world and improve their kayaking as they go. For the first time in ten years, they have returned to Nepal and it is a great honor that GRG's has been asked to organise their logistics (food, lodging, transportation, kayaks and support staff).

Maila has also been welcomed as a guest kayak coach following in the footsteps of Rush Sturges, a huge honour!

They have also taken on one junior Nepali paddler to enrol in the school for the entire semester. This young guy is Surjan, a paddler who shows great promise. He has been taking their classes and paddling hard with the kids. A brilliant opportunity for him.

The school are half way through their season now and have already paddled the Trisuli, Upper Seti and are just about to take out of the Karnali. Leaving them with the Marsyandi, Bhote Kosi and to compete at the Himalayan River Fest.

Keep an eye on our facebook page for regular updates and pictures. 

Paddling on the Trisuli

WCA on the Upper Seti

All the boats ready to go