My first multi-day – day 1

I was excited about the prospect of the Kali Gandaki. A 60km long river with fairly continuous class 3 and 4 rapids, and only a small amount of flat paddling to get to the take-out at the end. Wow! As a UK kayaker used to 6 or 7km sections at best, this seemed like a dream.

We had stayed overnight in a town called Beni. The lodging had been basic but functional, and the family running it cooked a fantastic vegetable chow-mein which cost us 100 nepalese rupees each (~£0.70). Bargain! We’d packed the bare minimum of equipment into cylindrical dry-bags which we could squeeze into the back of our kayaks, as this would be my first ‘multi-day’ trip. The commercial raft-supported trips do a shorter section of river over 2.5 days (2 nights on the river). Our intention was to do it with only a single night stay, but we figured we’d be significantly faster than them down the river, despite the extra weight in our boats.

We each packed:

• Sleeping Bag
• Inflatable Roll-Mat
• Base-layer thermals for kayaking
• Dry clothes
• Warm Jacket
• A high-calorie dehydrated meal
• Cereal Bars & Bananas (breakfast / lunch & snacks)
• A small pot & spork to eat with

Rich and I carried tarps to sleep under, Mel carried a cooking pot, and Becky and I carried sets of ‘split paddles’ which act as a spare should someone lose theirs down the river.

We set off from Beni early (on the water at 7:30am), conscious of the additional distance we’d need to cover compared to the commercial trips. We knew that the confluence of the Modi Khola which we had paddled the day before would tell us when we had reached the 23km mark, and that we wanted to cover over half the distance on day 1, as we had to leave time for the ~3 hour drive back to Pokhara on day 2. Becky and Mel (having done it before) were fairly sure they’d recognise a rapid called ‘Morning Glory’ which the raft trips camp above (hence the name), and that we should find a camp spot somewhere below that.

The river started with a bang. The wave-train rapid we had seen from the bridge in town was much bigger than it had appeared from above (a mistake I have made before and will doubtless make again), the section from Beni to where the rafts put on has much more class 3+/4 than the rest of the river, and Becky again did a superb job going first and picking clean lines between the rocks and ‘holes’ (a river feature where water recirculates that can be quite unpleasant and sometimes dangerous for kayakers to find themselves stuck in). It was incredibly fun, and we made great progress downstream, with only the odd ‘upside-down moment’ within the team, swiftly rectified by some snappy rolls.

One particular rapid sticks in my mind, after seeing Becky disappear round a right hand bend, I did my best to follow and had to paddle very strongly to avoid dropping into a rock and the hole behind it sideways. A wake-up call that things could go very wrong with only a momentary lapse in concentration.

We arrived without incident at the largest rapid on the river. ‘Big Brother’ (class 4+) had a wave-train lead-in with some tricky sideways (lateral) waves to negotiate, followed by a hole which broke into a wave in the centre (pretty critical to be in the right place here I thought), and a long V-shaped ramp of fast-flowing water passing a huge rock on the left which was badly undercut. Getting trapped there was certainly possible, and we had to be pretty confident in our ability to avoid it to consider running the rapid. Walking around the side is always an option, and it wouldn’t have been any shame to make this choice.

After careful consideration, I chose to run the rapid, and wow it was fast. Compared to UK rivers, the volume of water in the Kali Gandaki is huge and all of that water was being channelled into the lead-in to Big Brother. Dropping into the waves at the top I was amazed at the speed that everything was happening. It seemed like milliseconds later as I shot out of the V at the bottom on the left hand side, still upright, still alive and whooping and buzzing from the adrenalin. Yes! What an incredible feeling.

We continued, more fun whitewater, more river miles under our collective belts, but no sign of ‘Morning Glory’. Everyone was pretty tired by 2pm, and by 2:30pm (7 hours on the water by this point), we found a beach and set up camp. Day 1 complete but unsure of how far to go the next day! Better get some sleep!