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Kyrgyzstan

Day Eight; the Naryn's Four Corners Gorge

Rok Sribar scouting for the first time on the Naryn.
A light frost quickly melts off in the warm sun. We take our time as the day warms up, it's only 12km to the confluence with the Little Naryn, our take out. The largest whitewater of this section will be today, so we know it'll take some time to pick apart the puzzle, especially with the high water. Once the gear is dried we pack our boats and head downstream, it's only a kilometer or two to the first scout of the day. We make a quick scout and decide to run it down the right as there is a large hole in the middle.


Egor Voskoboynikov lines up the right side.

Michal Kuthan ferries across to the right side.


Michal Kuthan again, the move is a quick double boof sucession on the right.
Egor and Michal, the river makes a hard left bend downstream and there is an unrun rapid coming up down there. There should be an eddy on the right, then we'll ferry across to portage on the left. Egor leads, and with the high water the right eddy is gone and we move left, eddying out higher than normal for the portage. As we get out and scout it's a good thing we stopped early, the lead in is big.


Looking down the lead in to the portage and four corners rapid.


More zoomed in on the same, it sure is high water for this portion of the river. We haul our boats down to the the portage, a 15-20' drop that normally has a large reversal. It looks rather runable today, the problem is you'll be headed into the chaos downstream and while it looks like you'd eventually come out the bottom, the question is can you hold your breath that long?

Rok Sribar, Egor Voskoboynikov, and Michal Kutan scout "the portage"


The four corners rapid, big boils and hydraulics. Looks impossible to run with any vestige of control.
 

David Lew and Egor Voskoboynikov looking at the Four Corners rapid.
We portage past it and put on for the "must run". It might be possible to portage it, but the hills are loose scree and exposed, and we're tired of carrying loaded boats. Plus it looks fun if you don't mess it up. At normal flows it's standard to go left at the bottom, but at our water level it doesn't look so good and Egor believes the rocks on the right will be covered, making it more of a ramp than a hole if we go there. We decide Egor, Michal and Rok will go first while I take photos and Dave paddles with me.
 Egor Voskoboynikov


Rok Sribar making the crux move in the must run.


Michal Kuthan lines up the big rapid, thankfully it paddles better than it looks.
Michal ferrys across below the mandatory rapid. A quick scout for the next one shows that it's rather washed out at this flow and a relativly easy move through the boulders.


Egor Voskoboynikov


David Lew.


David Lew, just good fun on this rapid.
There is a rapid or two around the corner but no scouts, then it's a quick float to our take out at 7,400', the Little Naryn confluence. While we had to walk the Four Corners rapid, the high flow made the normally mellow day one section one of the best I've paddled in a long time, and we're happy with that trade off. Gmitry meets us at the confluence and we pack up to camp near the Little Naryn. Normally we'd head downstream but that bridge has collapsed and is under repair, but there should be an old soviet road that has been reworked as an alternate route.




On to Day Nine, The Little Naryn.



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