fourbordersexpedition.com

As you may have gathered from our blog about the Lower Bashkaus – it is a pretty intense and memorable river! Sadly, our video footage never really did it justice… however, the video from the recent Sickline Team trip really captures it.

The recent selection event for next year’s British Universities Expedition has prompted me to finally sort through the 4000+ photos from our trip! I’ve now uploaded the best 200 photos to Flickr. There are some real crackers!

I hope you enjoy them. Please post comments on Flickr itself.

This is the website of the 2007 British Universities Kayak Expedition a.k.a. The Four Borders Expedition. Obviously, as the trip took place a few years ago, this website is just here for referrence and our own happy memories and is not updated.

Unfortunately a while back the site was hacked and much of the content got muddled up – so many of the blog posts are not chronological. However, I’ve done my best to restore it all to a usable condition, without wasting too much of my life on it!

I hope you enjoy following our trip retrospectively…

After the epic Argut trip the group split. Team Flatspin (Tom and Lowri) went to the Captain Hole competition while the rest of us headed for another classic Altai river, The Chulysman. We had decided to combine this run with a trib lower down called the Kurkuru, which although involved a bit of a plod would give us the chance to paddle some great waterfalls in a spectacular gorge. This trip was to be me (Sean) and Paul’s final fling with the Four Borders crew as unfortunately the real world was calling back home. Oh why did we have to graduate?!

Another epic drive ensued although this one turned into a corker as the back wheel of our truck crashed through a rickety Siberian bridge. Luckily Tank is phased by nothing and we spent two hours in the middle of the night jacking the truck up and out of its potentially disasterous situation. It is this sort of situation that highlights just how remote an area we were in and showed us just how resourcefull its population have to be. To cut a long story short, again we drove all night, and again we arrived less than fresh for a multi-day.

A short hike through pretty, wood lined meadows led us to the beginning of the Chulysman, the scarily named “Devil’s bridge.” Unfortunately the walk in had triggered a nasty stomach bug, we won’t go into details but Dave had just had it too, and Patrick had to return to the vehicle along with Paul. Now we were down to four and following a successfull descent of the Devil’s bridge we continued on through some beautifull rapids before finding a great camp spot and having an early night.

Without “grandpa Sherman” to wake us up we slept in but nonetheless had a fantastic day on beautifull grade 4/5 pool drop with some chunky rapids and  awesome ledge drops. Highlights included a perfect 5 metre must boof drop with a hungry hole leading straight into a 50 metre tight gorge, and a crazy rapid with a huge kicker unlike any of us had ever seen. Apparently the tight gorge is never run by Russian kayakers, and needless to say it did produce some comedy lines!

The truck met us that evening where we were re-united with Patrick and Paul. Suitably recovered they rejoined us on the river the following day. Late at night we were visited by some local hunters on horseback who sold us two legs of venison, self-support weight restrictions were thrown to the Siberian wind and Graham stepped up to carry the meat in his boat.

Day three began in relaxed fashion with a flat but still continuos section, the gradient increased as the day wore on and finished with roughly 2KM of solid bouldery class five, a stiff test at the end of the day. With mounting excitment of the meal ahead we gathered firewood, sorted camp and gorged on venison shishlik, one word, awesome.

If you only have a few seconds to spare just read the last paragraph!!

With the Four Boarder Expedition essentially over and the Scottish duo of ‘Salad’ and ‘Snuggels’ heading home for jobs the remaining 6 of us decided to nip over the borders to Kazakhstan to see what we could see!

We knew that the Kazak Altai would be low so we were a little dubious as to weather it would be worth are while going…..so we jumped on a train to Almaty with the plan to Paddle in Tien Shan instead!

The Charyn Gorge was are target which was only about 4 hours drive from Almaty and was a impressive 4 or 5 day paddle leaving us plenty of time to get home. The 2 days we had to wait for our boats (sent cargo) were spent registering visas and sampling the Almaty nightlife. We headed back to the train station regularly to check to see if are boats had arrived, but soon the days began to frustratingly slip by and that bar and club combo became increasing more familiar…………

We drafted in the help on a student translator to help the negotiations at the cargo dep and after a little backhander for some ‘classified’ information we learnt are boats would another 3 days!!! Would we ever kayak in Kazakhstan or see our lovely Pyranha Burns again? We decided to get out of the city and at least go and have a scout of the Charyn Gorge. It proved to be a very impressive gorge and from what we could see quite a nice paddle and there was a section we could do that would only take two days if that all we had time to do. Alas, all dreams of paddling in Kazakstan were shattered when we were told that are boats would not arrive for another 3 days when we got back. This now meant that we were in trouble getting our boats back in time for our flight home. Finding buyers in Almaty was impossible as was getting them on a passenger train back. In fact getting us back on the passenger train was proving no easy task. At least this meant that we could head up to Tien Shan and push really big rocks down the mountains (note at not point did we resort to Trekking!) On return from the hills we dashed to the train station to be delighted on actually having a visual on our boats. All we had to do was go to the customs office get a stamp and the boats were ours! However customs was a taxi ride away and it shuts at six and its half four now. Oh and the cargo dep where our boats were will be shut from tomorrow until after we were due to leave to Kazak holiday. Game on! We were devastated to get back at ten to six only to find they had already shut. Our boats would have to rot where they are! However after a suspect phone call we managed to bribe and lie are boats out the next day only to be persuaded to put then straight back on a train half way back to Novosibirsk 20 minutes later. Ummmmm.

Ben and I kept are boats back as Ben was travelling on overland to Nepal (bastard) and my boat was damaged so I deemed in worth the risk of trying to go paddling. The Chayrn was not on now but we all headed with 2 boats to check out the Chilic which was much closer. We were met at the dam by an angry little man who looked vaguely official said that we were banned form kayaking and we would defiantly die as two people recently had. We quietly got change behind the van and with the Help of Lowri and Dave, as soon as he turned his back we were off and paddled off around the corner. We were to find out later that he was absolutely fuming when he realised and said that we were both certainly going to die and that Lowri and Dave would be held fully responsible and thrown into jail. He then proceed to lock them in the dam until he called the supervisor. Eventually they were let out and able to come and collect us 20km down river.

It was fantastic to be back in the boat again especially under such exciting circumstances. The river was tanking down forming some great wave trains that disapeared around a few corners. With only 2 of us on the river we extra careful and after a stealth portage around a weir we met back up with the van and they weer all delighted to be spared a jail sentence.The journey from Almaty out of Russia was anything but easy. Five kayaks bribed and squeezed there way home- no stamps out of Kazakhstan and no customs papers back into Russia didn’t help our case at the airport where more money hungry officials at the airport tried and failed to get money out of students- students who are very good at playing dump!(some better than others)

Putting kayaks on cargo train – school boy

Good luck to Ben who is now heading overland to Nepal though Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan and
India (what a lucky little git)  – I hear you only have to be 16 to get in the Bars there Ben!!

Afor those of you with little time to spare……

In a nut shell our kayaks too about 2 weeks to arrive from Russia which meant are ambitious plan of paddling the Charyn gorge in the
Tien Shan was not possible. After much negotiations and bribes we managed to get our boats out of customs only to have to send them home again. Once this time we forced them on to a passenger train much to the amazement of the carriage guard. However all was not lost as myself and Ben kept our boats a little longer which meant we got to squeeze in a paddles on the Chilic. Luckily we did not die as the security guards at the dam assured us we would. This meant Lowri and Dave were speared a jail sentence! All in all not as much boating as we would have liked but and adventure none the less and at least we got an entry stamp!

Patrick has made this small promo clip, the full DVD will be available sometime in the future!

Apologies for the delay but we lost access to our photo for a while. We have been home now a few weeks and started our talks at the Wet West Paddle Fest last weekend. Hope every one enjoyed it. See you at the Tyne Tour.

After watching River Zoo’s DVD, Top Grade, we were inspired to go check out some impressive waterfalls on our way down the Chuyshman. We found the Kurkure trib with relative ease as a 30-meter crashing waterfall is visible from the Chuyshman. We hiked up with two boats to inspect this canyon of fun. We soon split up to find the waterfalls and it was not long before I found myself alone doing some rather sketchy climbing on the inside on the canyon wall. Every glimpse I got of this small volume creek made me want to push the traverse around the next corner. I did this until I got to a four meter boof landing straight into a six meter slide followed by heaps of drops some cleaner than others, I could climb no further……ummmm Did the Russians really paddle all this? The climb back was a lot tougher than the one there and I was relieved to meet up with the others who told me the waterfalls the Russians had run were just beneath us hidden in the gorge. We got on and did our stuff. A slide followed by two drops and then a 10 meter huck, I will let the photos tell the rest! It should be noted that a certain blond member of our team did manage to ’cod’ on the last drop and self rescue just before the 30 meter waterfall – nice one Ben.  Another exhausting but exhilarating day on the Four Borders Expedition. For anyone that fancies it, I would suggest a hike over the mountain to check out the yet unrun stretches of the gorge- climbing ropes are probaly a good idea! 

 Alpkit are fairly new players to the outdoor market but have shaken it down with quality kit at affordable prices. They have been kind enough to provide the team with sleeping bags and down jackets at an even further reduced price for those cold Siberian nights.

Check out their website at www.alpkit.com

After the excitement of finding an awesome river in Mongolia, we continued the search for more white water but with no avail, so we packed up the trucks for one last time and headed back to the border hoping that the crossing into Russia would be less eventful than the previous one. 

We said goodbye to our guide Sarol and the two drivers; Sarol was presented with a team hoody and the drivers with a bottle of vodka each…  So we were back off to Russia! The team was excited for two reasons, there is plenty of water in the Altai, but more importantly no more Mongolian cuisine which we unanimously decided aas the worst in the world!

By lunchtime we were back with Igor and Tank and heading to our next Russian river – the plan, to paddle the Karagem into the Argut into the Katun taking around 6 days.   

Geting to the river it involves driving off road over the Karagem pass, over 3000m high.  As we started the climb up the pass it became apparent that our driver and Igor were having a bit of a lovers tiff, as Tank wanted to drive through the night up and over the pass, while drinking large quantities of vodka to keep him awake! 

We decided to kayak a very small tributary into the Karagem instead of walking 4km down the path, and split up into two groups of four.  A few kilometers in we realised that we were in a rocky, tree infested ditch that required many portages and my group decided that we should take the path which lead us over a hill directly to the Karagem. 

 We reached the river and paddled down to confluence of the creek/ditch but found no sign of the others.  Presuming that they were still ahead of us we continued down the Karagem.  By the entrance of the gorge we realised that the river was pretty high and started to doubt whether the other group would have entered without stopping to regroup – it was 7pm and would soon get dark.  We figured they must be behind us so we hung a boat a tree at side of river and wrote a sign on ground, before walking back upstream to the confluence. 

There was no sign of them at the confluence so another sign was left and we crossed the river and stayed in a mountain hut that we found at the bottom of the path. 

By morning there was still no sign of them, so we headed down river changing our signs to indicate that we had been here and were moving downstream. The Karagem was pushy with lots of trees and very continuous. After a few hours we came to a big portage looked around for any sign of the others, but found none.  It was clear that we were ahead of them so we set camp at the next good place and prepared to sit out for the rest of the day. 

After making a fire and stringing up another kayking we suddenly heard a whistle and found Graham and Sean chasing a kayak down the river! Action stations! It turned out the boat belonged to Lowri, who had fallen and dropped it while portaging a tree and was now walking down the river on the top of the gorge. This turned out to be quite an epic hike with scary moments that she recounted with wide eyes when she finally made it back to camp. It was a big relief to have everyone together with all the equipment as from this point it would take over a week to walk out over the mountains. 

 On the confluence between the Karagem and the Argout we stumbled upon a little village… 

 It is well known in the mountains that the currency is vodka and rope.  With that in mind we set off to buy some meat armed with a Russian phrase book and none of the above currency.  While Graham haggled a deal outside with one of the farmers, the rest of us were sitting in a house eating fresh bread and jam.  In the end we managed to get two large pieces of unidentified smoked meat for 100 rupees and that evening feated on a garlicy steak stew.

The Argot was higher than expected, after two days of continuous rain and we soon railsed this was turning into a spate run with no high water marks visible.

  These high levels made it quite intimidating as the rapids were long with some being several km in length.  The waves were huge and there were very large holes to navigate between.  Early on our forth day on the river, I missed a crux move and ended up in a monster pour-over! I was thoroughly beaten before being sucked out of my boat and swimming for about a hundred meters of powerful white water. Thankfully fast work from the team meant me and my kit were rescued before the next big rapid!

As the days went on the river got even bigger as it flowed through some beautiful gorges, into boxed canyons and must run rapids.  On the fifth day we reached a river wide hole that led into a box canyon. Lowri and Tom ran the rapid with style, then as the rest of us looked on Graham’s boat thought that it should run it solo! His boat fell into the river and floated through the rapid (getting a geat line) and the chase was on again.  After an hour or two and a fair bit of mountaineering by Graham, he was reunited with his boat.

No trip like this would be complete without some blood being shed and this came after Sean wanted to show his love to Ben’s kayak by giving it a Glasgow kiss while Ben was surfing in a big hole. Sean sustained a large gash above his eye, giving me a great opportunity to practice my first aid skills.

When the Argut finally flowed into the Katun, it was time to relax and reflect on the epic run that we had just had; with many highs and lows, all on an awesome, challenging, wilderness multiday river trip.

With only few days left of the Russian leg of the expedition, we decided that we would try and fit in one more river; The Chulcha. This 8km run needs a 100% walk in and starts at the base of one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the Altai. The plan was to walk in that day with the boats and then walk back down again to camp. In the morning we could then quickly walk back up and paddle down the same day. This may sound like a lot of unnecessary walking but it meant that we would be able to paddle the river with empty boats which was proving a rarity on the trip so far.

We arrived at the confluence of the Chulcha and the Chylshman mid-afternoon and proceeded to paddle across and carry our boats upstream. The carry up was tough but it gave us a good chance to look at the river on the way up and we were enjoying the exercise in yet another spectacular Altai valley.

As the evening followed we dumped the boats and headed back down to the confluence where the truck and our tents were waiting. On arrival at the confluence it was almost completely dark; this made the swim back across the Chulyshman rather more daunting. We all made safely to the other side and got our heads down, excited about the coming day.

We woke up early the next day, kitted up and yet again swam across the Chulyshman (a little easier this time!). We hiked to the boats where Dave and Graham decided to be purists and walk up even further to the highest boatable point. The rest of us were feeling rather lazy and lowered down to the river from where we stashed our boats. This lead to some unforeseen delay which meant that we only got on the river at 3:30 pm!!

With all the hard work behind us we finally could get on and enjoy kayaking the river which did not disappoint. 8 km of grade 4/5 pool drop in a spectacular setting kept us entertained all the way back to the confluence. An excellent river to finish the Russian Altai on.

For more Chulcha photos, click here.