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STORY: MIKE KRUTYANSKY
PHOTOS:
Sergey Ilin,
Ivan Kozlachkov,
Alexey Lukin,
Vladimir Kazanskiy and
Mike Krutyansky
Sponsors:
NRS, Spade kayaks AkSu Paddles Whitewater.guide App
Taming the incredible Rondu Gorge
Fly directly to the put-in, paddle the 130 km long Rondu Gorge with a couple hundred class V huge volume rapids with a total vertical drop of 900 metres. Take five days of rest hiking and biking in the heart of the world’s highest peaks, drive to the put-in, do a second lap and fly out from the take-out… Repeat every year!
It could sound like an exotic recipe, but after you’ve paddled the gorge and you enjoyed it, this recipe starts making a lot of sense. Why go somewhere if you could just paddle the Indus? I’m sure there are many answers to this question, but it just keeps spinning in the mind while you are going through the gorge and long after.
The Rondu Gorge has a significant history of descents that has been described numerous times. In recent years it has become a kind of a benchmark for the top whitewater paddlers all around the globe. Many have visited the place, more will come, and the water levels have also started to be pushed up.
So what’s the thing? Why is it so good? I would like to share a bit of my personal impression
It’s here where you start realising the importance of every effort you have made during your long paddling career. Every rapid on the Stikine taught me something about huge volume rapids, every Oetz lap built the necessary fitness, and every race training lap made my moves a little more precise. More than that, every eddy I ever took brought me an inch closer to performing some of the most challenging lines on the Indus.
I actually felt how all those experiences combined together brought me to the point when the challenging, powerful and technical Indus rapids became possible. It’s here where catching a ‘traditional’ eddy behind a rock becomes a massive challenge, and then the whole team starts discussing if it’s even possible and the outcomes of not making that eddy. Boofing the eddy line close to rock? You will be sucked in by some of the most enormous whirlpools you’ve ever seen. Surfing a massive curler and flying in with lots of speed lower into the eddy? Sounds like a good plan, but if you miss that massive curler or it flips you over, you will end up on another side of the river in the middle of the chaotic monster holes.
What is really exciting is that in most cases, the answer was to go with the white water. The stoppers give you directions and can change your speed in a semi-predictable way, while the green and ‘flat’ water consists of a dozen smaller currents that are way faster than you and are unpredictable.
Scouting the rapids was another exciting challenge on its own. Every time I got out of the boat, I was impressed with the power, the complexity and at the same time, the cleanness and logic of almost every rapid.
The first thing you see is a monster chaotic rapid with enormous features. But as you concentrate on finding the clean lines, you start spotting them. It’s once again the result of all these years of paddling all kinds of whitewater.
Every kayaker has experience building a theoretical line in a rapid and then proving it write or wrong after paddling the rapid with the buddies. Well, those experiences never felt more valuable than during the long and controversial scouting of the Indus rapids.
Paddle with speed
The hardest to evaluate was the ‘flat water’ on the entrance of every second rapid. It was vital to study the currents extremely carefully and perform the lead-ins precisely as planned. A small mistake on a ‘flat’ green water just before the main events started could result in missing the line and ending up 20-30 metres away from the desired line. This was when fast boats helped a lot! If you paddle them with speed, they are less affected by the turbulence and better maintain a straight line on difficult water.
Aniol’s words from one of the Indus kept spinning in my mind, “This is one of the hardest rivers in the world with around 200 class V rapids on the Rondu gorge of the Indus.” 200? Seriously? It’s hard to realise this number, especially when you know that the water level is very high. After the first day of paddling, when we paddled four class V rapids, this number started to feel even more threatening and unbelievable.
The following six days were some of the most intense and unforgettable of our lives. The Indus tested the limits of our minds, endurance, power and technique at every rapid, and I must admit it was incredibly thrilling!
Looking back on that experience, I would like to thank the team and the river for the safe passage through the Rondu Gorge. There were no close calls or hazardous situations. Considering the difficulty of the run, it makes the Rondu Gorge a #1 world section in my personal list for the challenge/risk ratio.
The only downside of the section is the ongoing road works. They make the run spicy in a not nice way, but luckily there are dozens of really friendly Pakistani spectators passing the word about the kayakers to the workers.
If there was no road along the whole section, it would probably be the most challenging piece of expedition whitewater kayaking in the world.
But after the road works finish, the Rondu gorge will probably become the best big volume section on the planet. Although many more groups will keep coming, it will remain an extremely hard and dangerous river.
As for me, I strongly desire to get into the club of the ‘multi-runners’: David Sodomka, Serrasolses brothers, Sergey Ilin and maybe some others.
Fun fact
It’s probably thanks to both high water and recent river changes there was no unrunnable rapid on the Indus when we were there. A flush descent is possible!
Fun fact 2
After the Rondu Gorge, we took a few days of rest: hiking, motorbiking, cultural sightseeing and just chilling out. We still had a few days left, and we decided to repeat the best parts of the Rondu Gorge. After half a day of paddling these stout rapids, we found ourselves really exhausted and drove back to Skardu to have more rest.
