Delhi and beyond...

The team of 6 arrived in dribs a drabs over the course of three days, so the earlier arrivals had chance to check out Delhi…Things are different here!

Once the team had assembled in Delhi, we loaded our 12 seater van and headed off with 2 drivers who spoke not a single word of English. We emerged from the smog of the flatlands of Northern India in Rishikesh where the foothills poke out from the clouds of smoke and dust. We dropped off one driver and picked up a young Indian raft guide and beginner kayaker, Laxman, who is acting as our cook, logistics technician, translator, etc…OK we have a servant for the trip too!

The Himalayas had been ravaged by heavy rains, which caused many large landslides to damage the fragile roads, so progress was bumpy and slow. We headed towards the Yamuna River, which was running at about double it’s normal flow for this time of year. Driving up the valley, the river gets steeper and steeper, and passes through many gorges. We picked a good looking class 3-4 section of River about 7km’s long and jumped on the river.

We put on at the site of a severely damaged half constructed run of river hydro scheme, feeling lucky to have the chance to paddle this creek before it’s diverted. The air was cool, the water clear (you could see the faeces floating), and it felt good to be on the river. We drove further up the valley, until the water looked too steep and chossy to paddle. This would be our put in for the next day’s fun! We camped at a grassy clearing, which we decided was going to be our take-out for the next day.

The locals, via Laxman, told us that no-body had paddled this very upper section of the Yamuna, which is always a nice bonus! The whitewater was pleasantly challenging and continuous, with short gorges and boulder choke rapids stacked up for 8km. A few of the team were a bit shaky on the water, but no major dramas were had by any.

We arrived at our takeout (and camp spot), which is at the confluence of the Yamuna and a creek called the Hanuman Ganga, named after the Monkey God, who’s temple is at the confluence.

We’d been alerted to the potential run-ability of this creek by Laxman, and after a short scouting mission, we shouldered our boats and headed up to the Hydro-electric power station about 1.5km above the Yamuna confluence. The super classy whitewater was enjoyed by all, and the locals got a good show too. Two 1^st D’s in a day! Can’t be bad for day 2 of the trip…

Well, it seems that the locals didn’t like the show and we were essentially kicked out of the valley, before we had got the chance to paddle the classic sections of the Yamuna. We drove down the valley feeling a bit cheated, but the Tons Valley just to the West also has much whitewater.

We arrived in the Tons Valley, to find that the road had been cut off by a large landslide a few weeks ago. This didn’t prevent us from finding some excellent whitewater. The Supin and the Rupin Rivers combine to form the Tons River. We were a little limited in our choice of river sections due to landslides, and the only section of the Supin that we had available was a 10 km long, extremely deep gorge that we didn’t know anything about and could not see from the road. We have reasonable 1:200,000 maps of the area so we all we really knew, was the elevation loss and the distance of the trip…250ft and mile.

With few other options for kayaking Toby commented, “This seems like the best way to get some kayaking in. And if we end up having one hell of an adventure…well that’s what we came here for isn’t it?”

With this mindset we packed for a light overnighter and headed down through never ending rice and dahl paddy fields in the blazing heat, until we finally got to the river. We paddled for about 200m and started a long, gruelling portage around a massive landslide that had produced some horrible looking water.

It felt like we may have made a mistake, but quickly the whitewater improved. The trip ended up being an absolute classic, with big, burly water and sweet lines through the whole gorge!!! We made it to our arranged rendezvous with our van with an hour or two of daylight left, and big smiles on our faces.

Our takeout was at the confluence of the Supin and Rupin, and since Lexman grew up here and his brother still lives in the small village at the confluence we decided to camp in a rice paddy next to the river that belonged to a friend of his.

The next morning, we checked on the state of our legs and decided to hike up (yes, this road too, was destroyed by landslides!) the Rupin for as far as we could and paddle back down to the confluence.

The Rupin is a beautifully green river (still probably toxic), with stacked steep boulder field rapids, making for some amazingly enjoyable paddling. We emptied the local shop of all their packaged nuts and bujha, scoffed some butter cookies, and reflected on the convenience of the corner store at home. After a moderately energising lunch stop we carried on down the Tons river, which was a big, bouncy joyride!

Flowing at an estimated 120m3, we were all loving the big water feel of the class 4 boat-scouting. Predictably, our take-out became our camp spot, and also the next day’s put in! I love boating in India!