kayakstan.net :: Day 19 - multidaying
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We driven pass most of the flat water the other multiday team had to contend with, so we thought it would take a day and half to reach the 'waterfall canyon' were we hoped to catch the others, and so it proved. The first half day from where we left the trucks brought medium volume grade 3/4, with 'dodge the pourover' being the primary objective. With us still being at quite a sizeable altitude, the evening was another chilly one, but a cosy fire fended off the cold, and we made sure we didn't get up the next morning until the sun reached into the canyon in which we slept.
The next day was the easier paddling day, with a bonus of spectacular scenery. 25km of grade 2ish water took us to 'Calm Canyon', a quite erie place unsurprisingly devoid of any interesting whitewater whatsoever. By evening we had reached the entrance to 'waterfall canyon', but there was no sign of the other team... until 20 minutes later when they turned us from behind us - that flatwater section had taken them longer than we expected, and they had in fact been chasing us for the last day and a half. Gnarly stuff was expected the next day so we got our heads down early.
The next morning we ventured into the 'waterfall canyon', noted as a raft portage (8km!) by Vladimir Gavrilov (author of 'Rivers of an Unknown Land' in which the Naryn featured). We thought it might prove navigable in smaller more manoeveable kayaks. We were wrong. The entrance rapid is easy enough, but after this it soon decends into big gnarl. Certainly possible, but by boaters with larger gonads than us, less tired and weighed down with multiday kit.
With heavy hearts, we made the decision to carry back out of the canyon, and take on the 8km portage to the trucks at the confluence of the Small Naryn just downstream of the canyon exit. The epic story of this portage is best left for another time, when my laptop battery is not about to fail, but its safe to say that our boats shall never be the same again after being towed behind a horse for a significant distance...
