Last Descent of the Marsyandi and other stories
I’m just back from a whirlwind tour of Nepal in which we paddled many of the classic Himalayan runs and possibly one of the last descents of the Marsyandi river.
After leaving Kathmandu we started off on the Upper Bhote Kosi as a warm up before heading to do one of the last complete descents of the legendary Marsyandi river, two days of perfect Himalayan whitewater.
The dam looks to be almost 100% complete, and so the middle section will probably be gone within the year. A terrible shame.We spent a day in Paudi hanging out with a local farmer’s family which was a pretty cool experience.
After heading to Pokhara we met our buddy Babu and paddled the Seti. Babu has been paragliding less than a year, and is just back from a ten day solo paragliding mission around the Khumbu glacier ie Everest, which is probably akin to soloing the class 5 Murchison Falls section of the White Nile with less than a years kayaking experience. He wanted us to go paragliding with him. We declined.
We then took a 24 hour bus ride to the wild west of Nepal and the incredible Karnali river, one of the worlds most spectacular and beautiful.
Rosie and I spent four amazing days on the Karnali, far from civilisation with leopards, eagles and monkeys abundant.
We also paddled some awesome whitewater given that we were just two people in heavy boats a long way from the nearest road. At the end of the trip, we paddled into Bardia National Park which is famous for, among other things, its tigers. I stayed very close to the middle of the river. Rosie, whose grandfather was a tiger hunter, seemed much less concerned. Nevertheless, I was relieved when we reached the Tigertops tented camp where we spent the next day on elephant safari.
After an epic journey back to Pokhara, we met Siberian boater Vasiili Porsev and hiked up to the Madi Khola, which we completed in less than three hours from high up due to a very real fear of missing our flight home.
Vasiili is a strong boater who has been pushing hard on the rivers of Siberia, and invited us to come visit. Hopefully we can take him up on that offer in the future. I slept soundly on the roof of a nightbus back to Kathmandu by strapping myself onto the roof rack, and we just made our flight back to London. Arriving home I met some friends in Dublin, turned the big 30, and jumped on a flight to Marrakech for a mission in the Atlas mountains.
Photos by Rosie Cripps and Rob Coffey
