Modi Khola, Losing Porters and Spider Bites...

On Oct 20 Anton and I set off for the Modi Khola. Also on the same mission were a bunch of American guys and an English guy Matt who I knew from the Zambezi earlier in the year.

To get to the Modi you need to take a taxi or minibus for about an hour and a half. From there you unload and along with porters to carry your gear you hike all day to the 'Old Bridge.' After a night in tea house's or a hostel you hike for another hour up to the put-in at the 'New Bridge'.

After taking a separate taxi to the others Anton and I started hiking from Lumle to Langruk. After leaving our porters on the trail to meet back up later we reached Landruk at 1640m by 4pm.

-Early on in the hike looking up the valley-

-A lunch stop at Bitchuk-

-Still looking up the valley, one of the many valleys we had to descend and ascend-

-The view down the valley from Landruk-

-A sketchy looking 5 story Hotel in Landruk-

After we got to Landruk we drank tea and waited for our porters to arrive with our gear. Except they never arrived! We weren't sure why they hadn't made it but with dropping temperatures and only boardies and a t-shirt we had to wrap ourselves up with duvets and were in bed listening to our iPods by 7.15.

-View of the Annapurna range in the evening light-

In the morning we waited for a few hours wondering if the Porters were on the same trail as us, and after waiting to watch a helicopter land next to our hostel to pick up a sick dude we headed up to New Bridge at 9.30am.

-What were they trying to say?

Anyway once on our way news reached us from many hikers that a group of kayakers had already got on the water and there were two kayaks by the river. When we got right down to the river there was a message, presumably for us? Well fuck you guys too!! haha.

Anyway after a quick laugh we set out at about 11am down an incredible section of whitewater. We had to inspect virtually all the rapids from the New Bridge to the Old Bridge.

-Anton Immler heading down one of the many many awesome rapids-

-Will Clark hitting the same rapid-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Anton Immler heading down the one with a big sucky siphon on the left-

This one was memorable as it was a really tricky line and a major obstacle to avoid. I got pushed towards the siphon above the last drop but managed to spin and ferry out of it again only to loop in the bottom drop. Anton got a better line through the top but looped at the bottom and took a bunch of rock on his pads.

-Will Clark on the bottom drop of 'the rapid with a siphon in it'-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark, mid move-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark about to grind the rock and avoid the gnarly hole on the right-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Stoked after that one, that last rapid was the only one I was a bit intimidated by-
-Photo Anton Immler-

After a while we caught the American guys just before the Old Bridge and heard that they'd stayed at a different place on the other side of the river the previous night, along with our porters who we apparently worried about where we were.

-I think this is the one that kicked you out to the right a bit-
-Photo Anton Immler-

-Will Clark pulls it through another sweet rapid-
-Photo Anton Immler-

The river was truly awesome, there was just so many sweet drops one after another, we portaged one bit on the lower section where there was a big landslide and as we walked around the American group caught back up, they were having a good look so hopefully one or two of them ran it as it was a pretty cool long section of technical paddling. Other than that we ran everything the river had and by the time we carried out to the road just after the dam at 4pm we were shattered.

-Some of the local kids from the tiny village by the road where we took out-

All that was left to do was flag down a bus load the boats and ourselves on the roof and head back to Pokhara.

-The view from the roof-

It was pretty dark when we got back and pretty cold from being on the roof of the bus, and it was fairly hectic making sure a power line didn't take your head off on the approach to Pokhara. But it was a sweet mission.

Next another rest day and see if what I think is a spider bite on my leg gets better or worse. It's also my birthday tomorrow so the rest day might turn into two or three if we get drunk.

After that a couple more rivers then back to Kathmandu to pick up Anna Bruno and add another member to Team Uganda.

Happy paddling everyone.

Epic Mission on the Upper Seti. First Descent and Night Boating.

Yesterday Anton and I got up early and drove to Khadarjung on the upper Seti. From here we hike upstream for about three and a half hours on the premise that the river just got steeper and steeper so there should be some sweet whitewater in store for us. With the road to Khadarjung only being completed last year it's only recently that this upper, upper section has become easily accessable and from talking to Charlie - the owner of one of the kayak shops here, we're the first people to check it out.

-Some of the bridges were super sketchy on the hike up-

-Our porters are heroes, no way could we have done it without them-

-The view from one of the small villages on the way up-

-Just before we put in, Anton at another dodgy bridge-

-Another fully sketchy bridge just upstream of where we put in-

We hiked upstream from 9am until about 12.30. We went uphill, downhill accross the river about 4 times and through about four tiny villages - with only footpaths connecting them to the outside world. On the way we tried to get a look at as much of the river as we could. Everything looked sweet apart from one section which we couldn't see - where the river went around a big cliff and out of sight.

We wanted to carry on hiking but were aware of the time and trying to do the whole section in one day meant we couldn't check out the very upper reaches of the river.

So we put onto the water and headed down through mostly pretty cruisy grade 3 whitewater with the odd harder rapid, until we hit the canyon that we had been unable to scout on the way up.

What happened here was that the whole river went into a narrow canyon which unlike the rest of the river was mostly bedrock - which makes access on either side allmost impossible. We tried to get a look into it from above, but all we could see was that it was really steep, and pretty hard to get out of.

Well, Anton and I had to know what was in there so we went in anyway. It was definitly a case of 'must make' eddys and some pretty gnarly ferry gliding with each of us backing each other up with throwbags - there was no option to miss an eddy!!

-After ferrying accros the canyon first Will Clark inspects downstream-

-Photo Anton Immler-

After I'd had an initial look Anton joined me accross on the otherside of the canyon and we climbed our way as far down as we could go.

-Will Clark climbing down inside the Canyon-

-Photo Anton Immler-

-We reckon this was about 40 foot, but in these levels gnarly as hell-

-Photo Anton Immler-

This waterfall that we found was truely amazing especially when you consider that there are only a few runnable falls in Nepal. In this water level it was pretty full on - with big undercuts and crazy boils at the bottom, running into an unknown corkscrew drop then to another invisible horizon line - with virtually no way to get back out and no safety if it all goes tits up!!

But it will go, so we're gonna check it out when the water drops in another few weeks!!

We had a full on mission to get back out of the canyon - with even scarier ferry glides, and once out it took us an hour to trek around the side and get back into the river. As I put back on I had two leeches on me - this is the first place I've ever had leeches - they're strong buggers hey!!

Once back on we had an awesome section of good quality hard whitewater...

-Anton Immler on one of the most fun drops (I ran this one over the right)-

-Anton on the bottom half of 'the dodgy one'-

-Will Clark on the top half of 'the dodgy one' - neither me nor Anton hit the line we wanted on this one-

-Photo Anton Immler-

-Anton on a cool slot drop, it was getting pretty late in the day by now-

So we were finding amazing whitewater on this upper section - but the problem was we'd used too much time in the canyon and then walking back out and around it. So by the time we came down to Khadarjung - the normal start of the Upper Seti, it was 5pm. It gets dark here at about 6pm. And I'd say most people give themselves 2-3 hours for the section. We were both tired but all I said to Anton was 'Go hard and I'll keep up'. Anton did a solo mission in an hour the other day so I knew we stood a chance.

Anyway long story short we nearly made it in the light, but as it got progressivly more dark we were still on the river. At one point we had to run a canyon on the lower section - I guess it's graded 4 as there's a big hole at the bottom. By the time we ran it I was having to stay within 3 feet of Anton or else I couldn't see him and all I had to go on were shades of gray. Light gray = whitewater or big hole, dark gray = green water or maybe a rock, really dark gray person outline = Anton!!

Excuse my French but it was fucked up!! Haha, anyway it was pretty cool after we'd made it all the way down, it was so dark we could see the whole milky way!!

-Anton and Will minutes after taking out-

-Photo Anton Immler-

Luckily for us our Taxi driver was out looking for us and only 2 minutes after climbing off the river we were picked up and heading back to Pokhara for some food beer and sleep!

We're both hurting today so we're just chilling out and planning the next mission. We'll go back and do the upper upper Seti again soon but we'll take 2 days and I'll bring a torch!!

Go hard everyone!

Will.

Nile Special and hanging out in Nepal...

Well folks, I'm currently sat in Pokhara in Nepal, making plans to get on the river tomorrow. I met up with Anton yesterday and have had a good explore of the place today. There seems to be heaps of kayakers out here at the moment amd I've already bumped into two old friends.

I'll get some photos from here up soon but to keep you going here's a bunch of photos Emily Wall took from a coaching session at Nile Special with Love it Live it...

-Me telling Sam to behave and not to do anything stupid to hurt his knackered shoulder-

-With Sam coaching on the bank I had plenty of time to play-

-I'm wearing my new helmet from Happy 2b thanks guys!-

So Hopefully I'll be on the Setti (sp?) tomorrow for a quick warm up and then Anton has some pretty big plans for the next couple of weeks. So I'll take heaps of photos and keep you updated...

-Photos by Emily Wall-