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.