kayakstan.net :: Day 28 - a hidden valley
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Although we had run the main gorge of the Song Kul, from the map there looked to be an interesting steep bit at the top immediately after it flows out from the lake. A track skirts round this top section and descends in countless switchbacks in the neighbouring valley, rejoining the river as it seems to flatten out again. Today, we would explore this 'hidden valley' through which the river descended, and like the main gorge, think this is a first descent.
The morning started rather bizarrely as the truck wouldn't start - probably because we'd run the battery flat over-using the interior lights the night before, oops. It was a mistake we paid for. Andre our driver was already exhausted from hand-cranking the engine so it was our turn to take shifts doing the job. With his rowing background, Phil H excelled at the job, but it still took over an hour to between us get the beast roaring back to life..
The river starts flat and wide, and with the low volume is very bony, and not quite knowing what was coming up, we all started to get a little frustrated. We got even more frustrated when the river steepened but remained bony and shallow, and it was only Tim's inspired name for this section - skeleton cascades - that kept us smiling.
Dave tackles part of the 'skeleton cascades'
This frustration was soon to dissolve as the river steepens and narrows, presenting us occassionally with boulder choked portages, but usually much cleaner drops than we had encountered at the start. The river starts to get properly steep at times, and every now and again we'd hit a group of drops all together one after each other, and we even came across some (unfortunately unrunnable) waterfalls.
It took us a full 8 hours to cover the 8km before the river comes back to the road, and the run ended in style with a two tier monster falls - unrunnable, which made for a suitably monster portage. Another good day on the river though, but I'll have to stop typing as my fingers ache from gripping the paddle too tightly all day long!
The second tier of the falls near the end of the run