Team Potomac Paddlesports

OK! So the goods are coming in... Nepal is a world-class kayak destination, no doubt. I was lucky enough to rally with the Scottish and English crew up to the Modi Khola and it was definitely the best trip yet. Quality low volume technical whitewater, not unlike what we have on the East Coast at home. Except for it's like 70K and there's fantastic food and sleepings all along the way.

We left Pokhara at dawn's asscrack and started the one-day trek in the Anapurna Sanctuary up to the river with our trusty porters. The porters are amazing... small statured, but far more athletic than they let on. For about $7 per day these super-heros in disguise will lug your boat to the moon and back. We rolled into a tea house just as dark was setting in, indulged in dalbhhat, fended off some abnormally large insects, and hit the hay for the wild river on Day 2.

Beautiful Trekking!

From NEPAL 2008

Sneaking in before Dark

From NEPAL 2008

Day 2 we finished the trek to the put-in, which coincidentially is at the largest sieve I have ever seen. Observe with horror, nearly 2/3 of the river spirals down this thing.

SIPHON!!!!! aaaaah!

From NEPAL 2008

Simon lines up for the flume.... the boys ran the upper mank, meeting us at the bridge for more fun.

From NEPAL 2008

The rest of Day 2 was a little hellacious... we had a bit of an 'epic' early on... but managed to recover alright and continue on down for camp, where we reunited with the friend who had opted to walk out. Camp was fantastic. This is the secret to why Nepal is so great... is you can paddle sick-wicked-nasty whitewater all day, then pull over in a village and sleep in a warm bed [of varying quality] and stuff yourself full of as much food as you can afford. In the morning, it's wash, rinse, repeat.

We started paddling the next day as early as possible to try and catch the rest of the group (we were pretty big so we split up at first). We ended up passing them at their camp and then finding them later on when we were scouting something. The second day on the river was much closer to what we anticipated, strong Class IV eddy-hopping bliss.

Tim Burne is lovin' it!

From NEPAL 2008

With our massive crew of 10 finally re-united we sped off to the dam and took out. I carried on with the English to run the Lower Modi Khola... just a little easier and wider open than the Upper and it was definitely worth it. We rode the bus roof all the way back to Pokhara... feasted on massive $3 buffalo steaks, had too many beers, and then conked out. Such a good trip... I'm lovin' it! I'll definitely be back to this one when Christie and Andy get back to town, yeeeeehaw!