River of Everest.

My muscles screamed for oxygen as my lungs and heart tried desperately to feed them in the thin air, at this altitude every small movement seemed 10 times as hard as it does at lower elevations.
I needed time to relax, recover and not have to reach for the next paddle stroke, I needed time to not be drenched in ice cold water as I forced my kayak through the next hole, the holes seemed endless, my strength was fading fast if I flipped now I wasn’t sure I would have enough strength left to roll up, a swim here would be the end of me.
I need an eddy and I need one now!
My friends were below me not far downstream waiting in there boats they were my goal I must reach them, I must stop and breathe.

I hit yet another rock, this time I didn’t bounce off of it as well as the other rocks that I had found unavoidable in this pin ball machine of a rapid, my bow stopped and my kayak spun out, I went with it, completing a full 360 spin it was all I could do but I was momentarily out of control.

I hate that feeling and it made my heart quicken a beat when I thought it could beat no faster !
I focused on my goal, my salvation. I must reach that Eddy.

I had been in Tibet for 4 weeks kayaking some great white water reacquainting myself with old friends, making new ones and discovering an amazing country and culture.
We were fully acclimatized to the altitude or at least thought we were and were working well together as a team.
We felt ready, and headed to Mount Everest.

It’s a long and bumpy ride from Lhasa to Everest but perhaps one of the most spectacular journeys I have undertaken.
The road follows and passes rivers we had either run already or ones we stopped to do on the way the most notable of which was a section of the Yarlung Tsanpo, where we picked off the easiest section we could find, the river was high and huge it didn’t take us long to decide against running the massive rapids downstream of here creating some of the weirdest and largest white water I have ever seen.
Somewhere along the friendship highway, a road that would eventually take us back to Nepal, we took a left a completely random left onto a dirt road in the middle of now where with no signs, our driver said nothing but we all knew this was the true road to Everest.

At first we followed a meandering tributary of the Yarlung, at one point driving into the flood plain of the river to get around 2 large trucks stuck in the road after a head on collision, but soon the road sent us sky wards up and over a 5000 m or 16,500 foot pass that switched backed all the way up and then even more so on the way back down, eventually down to are river the Rong Bok Chu that flows from the north face of Everest.
The Rong bok river flows in a northerly direction then heads east and starts to bend south effectively doing a half circumnavigation of the mountain before it dives into the Upper Arun where the Arun river screams off the Tibetan plateau heading for Nepal.
Our first glance of the river was a little disappointing a class 2 braided mess of scrappy shallow channels but further upstream it looked like those channels had joined forces and the gradient increased creating some good looking and extremely continuous white water.

We had learned from are experiences in Tibet so far not to take what we saw in the rivers lightly because it was always harder and steeper than it looked, we called it ‘The Tibetan factor’ where at first sight class 3 somehow morphed into class 4 once on the river, with no eddy’s and very little Oxygen!
Every river we looked at we would calculate how hard we thought it looked and then add ‘The Tibetan factor’ so far it had proved a worthy formula.
Our put in on the Roug Buk was the highest we had attempted yet at 5200 m or a bit over 17’000 feet and despite spending a day in the village of Rong buk at 5000 m to acclimatize I was certainly a little daunted at the prospect of hard white water when just walking up from the river to the village had me out of breath! We would have to take it slowly and pray for eddy’s in the land of no eddy’s that is Tibet.

Rong buk village is with in sight of Mount Everest and only 12 Km down stream of Everest base camp, unfortunately on this day the Mountain was blocked by clouds we were all disappointed not to see it, but this was monsoon season, we had come here wanting the rain so the rivers would be high.
I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it ?

The following day we rode up the remainder of the dirt road to Everest base camp a 12 km ride on a horse and cart, there is an environmental project here to stop motor vehicles driving all the way to Everest base camp and it also supports the local villagers as many tourists chose to ride the carts in the thin air rather than walk.
We, like the mountaineers that also come here, needed them to help carry our equipment and kayaks, each cart was just big enough for one kayak and one person and most were just bits of ply wood and old bicycles wheels somehow managing to stay together with a few well placed nails.
If there was a river on the moon I am sure this is what it would look like, everything is gray , there is no plant life up here just gray rocks and silty gray water it’s a desolate place.
During are ride the clouds were starting to break revealing tantalizing glimpses of Mount Everest, by the time we had reached base camp we had some good views of the massive mountain, it was hard to believe we were over 5 200 m and yet the summit still seemed a world away towering above us like some giant unapproachable being, making us all feel very small and insignificant.
My respect for the mountaineers that have taken on the challenge of climbing Everest increased 10 fold when I saw it for myself, but I was here to go down not up and what lay down stream looked perhaps just as challenging.

At base camp the river is slow and shallow flowing from a massive glacier at the base of the mountain.

Downstream however it dives into a giant glacial moraine where it drops at around 400 feet per mile until the moraine backs off and the gradient eases.
Upon reaching this moraine and scouting most of the group decided that walking around it was the best option, the rapids inside the moraine were marginal at best and some were completely unrunnable one missed line or eddy meant the chances of surviving were slim, this on top of the very thin air made any attempt to paddle through the moraine very difficult and serious.
Dave Thomson and I decided to give it a go, we came up with a plan of exactly which eddy’s to catch which rapids to portage and how we would minimise the risks and try to solve the problem, things went well we worked well together we had run Devils gorge of the Susitna in Alaska together as well as other difficult runs in B.C. and Tibet we knew each other well our strengths and weaknesses.
I knew on this day Dave was on fire and would style the challenge. I just had to do the same.
The moraine went smoothly perhaps the worst part being a portage along loose scree above a class 6 rapid.
It was here in the exit of the moraine where I momentarily lost control spinning of a rock, Dave shot by me on his own path.
I had to focus, I needed that eddy my friends were in badly my strength was losing to the combination of class 5 + and the lack of oxygen.
Suddenly I was there one last move to make, come on, one last strong stroke and boom my world changed I was safe in the eddy.
My friends had made the portage and were ready to go.
“ How was it “ they asked “ it sucked” I gasped with my head down trying to suck in air, they laughed and peeled out to run the next set of rapids.
I couldn’t move, Dave had eddied out further downstream and raised his fist in the air towards me in celebration, we had done it, we made it through what appeared to be the hardest part, one of the most dangerous places I have been let alone paddled thorough and we had made it.

I looked upstream at the maelstrom of rocks and water I had just come through and smiled, it had not sucked but the guys had known that the moment they had laughed. Now I was laughing too, what a crazy thing it is we are doing here, but how good it feels.

The rest of the river on that first day down to the village was incredibly fast class 4 white water which we all ran successfully.
Lugging are kayaks back up to camp in the village was exhausting, this is what its like to climb Mount Everest I thought but I am still over 3000 m below the summit!
I looked up at the mountain, it was now a clear sky, I could see the whole thing and stared at it in disbelieve and contentment, I had wanted to see this mountain ever since I had visited the Himalayas 10 years earlier it seemed like a fitting time for the clouds to part, perhaps you can eat that cake after all.
The next day we put back on the Rong Bok and ran the rest of the good white water, experiencing good quality class 4 to 4 + white water sometimes getting squeezed through tight slot canyons but always runnable and very fun, after a long day on the water we met are driver at a road crossing below all the best white water, from here we ran 9 km of very fast class 3 and 2 in about 40 minutes to the next bridge, here the river braids and flattens into class 1 - 2 channels this is where the river bends east and eventually south where there is another short gorge before a mandatory take out above the Upper Arun gorge.
We decided to take out here and head for the unrun upper upper Bhote kosi but that’s another story.

The river from Everest proved to be one of the best experiences I have ever had both on and off the water one I know I will enjoy remembering for a long time.

Thanks to the team --- Dave Thompson, Daz Clarkson, Sammy Robinson, Tom Hughes, Darryl sergesson. And also to Chris Jones of Tibet wind horse adventure, Liquid logic and Kokatat.

There is more from Tibet -- see previous posts.