River Reports - Jammu & Kashmir/ BARTSO /Suru Valley
 

Peter Knowles / Mark / Nima Jora / Shalabh Gahlaut

In September 2005 Mark, Nima & Shalabh followed the old man of the mountains Mr Peter Knowles to explore the rivers of eastern Ladakh. The Suru is along the drive to the raft section of the Zanskar via Kargil. The ferocity of the Suru River has deterred paddlers from spending much time exploring the valley which has numerous side tributaries, and the Bartso was exactly that, a gem waiting to be discovered.

The Bartso flows into the Suru at Sankoo and there is a very scenic road going some 20 kilometers up the valley. We jumped onto the river at the end of the road close to Bartu and immediately found some fun Class III with a few harder rapids including one devious undercut above Sisur, we jumped out at the first road bridge and made a road portage of a 3-4 kilometer section to put back at Patu Village. The sections we drove around is very obvious from the road, a very runnable continuous Class IV’ish section with a large 20 foot waterfall right under the village of Sishar (something of the kind!).

After Patu there was surprise Class IV drop after which the river flowed quick and continuous but the rapids were mostly Class II. We paddled down across the confluence and pulled out at the first bridge on the Suru.

It’s a great little one day creeky paddle on the way to the Zanskar or a cool way to begin a 3 day trip down the lower Suru. Highly recommended, also because of the beauty of the Suru Valley and the excellent cheap accommodation at Sankoo in the J&K tourism rest house (150 Rs, DBL ROOMS).