 Home
Nepal
Boating
Links
Work
Pics
Old Rope PCs
Small
print
|
|
12. Rivers
Read "WW
Nepal" but apply a fairly hefty salt quotient and
remember that the it’s a lot of years out of date
now. You can buy copies, new and second-hand, in
Kathmandu. The NEW EDITION should be out in summer
1999, if Pete manages to stay in the UK long enough to
finish the job!!
12.1 Trisuli
a.k.a. "Tossuli". This
is likely to be your first river, as it’s so close
to Kathmandu and you can paddle the best section down to
Fischling and get back to Kathmandu in one day. In
the monsoon it is quite good fun, however once the water
level starts to drop it becomes easier, and late in the
season is almost a float trip. If you do a 2-day
trip with a raft-group, you generally camp at a
pre-erected site with a bar… not exactly
"wilderness" paddling. Beware of buses falling
onto you from the road above.
12.2 Sun Kosi
BIG volume fun early in the season, a
bit dull after early November - try and do it before the
end of the monsoon if you want a good blast. The
low-budget companies run this over 5 or 6 days, not the 9
or 10 days taken by UD et al. The busride back to
Kathmandu from the takeout can take 20 hours, sleeping on
the roof isn’t too bad a plan.
12.3 Kali Gandaki
Kali’s river of death and
destruction. Which is precisely what happened to a
Brit rafter in 1996 when she did the front crawl down Big
Brother, a fairly pointy rapid about 5 minutes after the
put-in. Early in the season this is good fun but is
gets DULL as the water level drops off, although the
potential for playboating rock-moves becomes
correspondingly greater. There is now a dam which
has shortened the trip from 5 to 3 days, with a grade 6
road from the egress point (awesome view from the bus
roof though). Beware of floating objects with
vultures sitting on them, they tend to be dead dudes. If
you get out of your boat for a piss at a confluence with
a trib, you could well find that the bank is a bit
greasy. It’s not animal fat, and that pile of
ashes isn’t necessarily where the locals had a beach
barbeque the night before.
12.4 Tamur
Not as good as the book says but the
last day through the gorge is amazing. You can do
this as a tag-on to a Sun Kosi trip, get a bus from the
end of the Sun Kosi at Chatra to the Tamur bridge at
xxxx, stay there overnight (there are dhaba-houses there)
and paddle just the gorge section back down to Chatra the
following day. In high water it would be hard (yes,
it is hard). We first did it at Christmas
and it was still pretty full-on even in low water.
If you do the full trip, the walk in to Dhoban is a lot
longer than Peter Knowles’ map suggests…
12.5 Lower Karnali
Mixed feelings about this one.
As an "experience" it is a top trip, especially
if you stay in Bardia (section 14.2) afterwards. As
far as the WW paddling goes, the day in the canyon is
great, really big, powerful rapids. However…
The bus journey to the put-in is a bit of a bitch
(although it’s now possible to get a bus to within 2
hours carry, cutting out the 2-day trek in), the paddle
out at the bottom is 2 days of flat,
get-me-off-this-lake-NOW boredom.
The Upper
Karnali is an "expedition" trip, although you
can arrange porters to carry a few extra days above the
normal rafting put-in, for some top paddling. The
whole "Humla Karnali" expedition usually
requires a flight in to the put-in.
12.6 Modi Khola
Great stuff. In September it is
hard, with big river-wide pourovers and all sorts of
nastiness, but as the level drops it is easier. We
did the section from Birethanti (Niapul is the bus
drop-off point - for access higher up you will need a
permit, but the river is steeper and more fun) to the
Kali Gandaki confluence over two days, staying in Dimwau
(accommodation available, no need to carry food or bivvie
stuff in the boats). A dam is under construction.
12.7 Bhote Kosi
Good fun, close to Kathmandu, do it
with a raft group (you might even get paid). A
possible (and better) alternative warm-up river, instead
of the Trishuli.
next
|
|
1. Disclaimer 2. Guidebooks
3.
Flying with your kayak
4.
Arrival
5.
Staying in Kathmandu
6.
Hey, friend, youwanna changemoney?
7.
Food & drink
8.
Health
9.
Bureaucracy
10.
Post, Phone & email
11.
Getting "work" boating
12.
Some Rivers
13.
Getting around
14.
Stuff to do when you’re not on the river
15.
Things you will need…
16.
Photography
17.
Psst! Hashhash? marijuana?
|
