For my 21st birthday we decided to kayak the
Upper Indus from Mahe Bridge as close as we could get to the
Tibetan border. By this point in the trip we were well practiced
in the art of haggling. The truck driver wanted 400rs for the
trip up the valley but Tom S was well chuffed to bargain him
down to 397rs. After an afternoon teaching the local kids to
kayak we set off next morning down the river to Hymia our intended
night stop. Arriving at around 3pm we decided to carry on, its
hard to recall who was the first to break in at Hymia but downstream
the river was excellent. The canyon walls glowed in the early
evening light as we raced down the river eager to kayak as much
as possible before we had to hitch back to Leh. We started to
become concerned when in an hour we only saw one truck pass
us, with visions of a cold night under the stars without sleeping
bags we rounder the corner to see the last big rapid and the
truck waiting to watch us go down. Once at the bottom of the
rapid we jumped out quickly to flag down the truck and race
back to Leh just in time for a curry and a beer to celebrate
my 21st, perfect.
We rose not so early next morning and finding
we were still in quite good shape after the last 6 days grueling
routine, we decided to continue down the Indus. Below Khalse
we had been told the river disappeared in to deep dark gorges
towards Pakistan, but Shalabh assured us it was all “completely
run able”. Previously this section was not open to tourists
so had never been paddled, keen for a first descent on such
a major river off we set. Joined by Nimu on the river Shalabh
and Dan provided road support and were able to scout ahead (the
river was in fact roadside and only severely gorged up in flat
section) . What followed was one of the best days kayaking of
the trip. The river started flat for the first twenty kilometres
the slowly increased in pace, the 300 or so cumecs forming some
monstrous rapids. The valley was very beautiful and we were
treated to apricots ripe on the tree as were inspected. A swim
for Nima on one of the biggest rapids saw Tim and Ben chasing
him and his boat for near on a mile, with a long time spent
on the water Nima was quite shaken when he finally reached the
bank. He decided to call it a day, we continued to Sanjak directly
into the falling sun, we arrived tired but tired but very having
after completing 60km of first decent in one long day our 8th
on the river. We had kayaked around 260 miles descending over
a mile through some of the biggest mountains on earth. Dreams
of continuing all the way to the sea were quickly crushed by
Army reminding of the presence of the Pakistan border and the
fact the river still had another 3000m through some deadly gorges.
