Karnali River Expedition

Bjorn and I came off the Sarayu/Kali expedition, straight across the border and had a 19 hour bus journey to Kathmandu. We arrived really late in the night and ended up getting ripped off with our taxi to Thamel and having to pay premium price for a hotel that evening. The next day we met our friend Chitra who was working with us in Sjoa this summer and we decided to go on the Karnali expedition which Chitra was trip leading through Drift Nepal. The only draw back was we were leaving in the morning and going back down the same road we had just came to Kathmandu!

The following day we got up really early and met the other clients coming on the trip. We also collected some other kayakers and rafts guides who we worked with in Norway this summer (Mo, Barbora, Emil, Elisabeth and Marius) so it was a very 'Scandinavian' river trip! It took over 4 hours to get properly out of Kathmandu due to traffic and accidents. We were meant to stay in a hotel for one night but instead we drove all day, all night and until about 3pm the following day where we reached the put-in for the Karnali River.

Pee break on the way to the Karnali Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

View of the Karnali put-in Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

We set up our first night's camp by the put-in of the river. It wasn't an ideal spot because of the amount of people coming down from the village to observe us but part of the expedition was 'Project Karnali' where a small group of doctors were visiting certain health posts along the way down the river. Their first visit was to a health post close to this village which is why we weren't able to camp further downstream.

After breakfast, lunch and a safety briefing the following day we started our trip on the river. We did about an hour of paddling which were some nice easy class 3 wave trains before pulling over in the afternoon to set-up camp.

Put-in for the Karnali Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Drying clothes by the fire of our second beach camp on the Karnali Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Our second day of paddling on the river was similar to day one. Pool-drop rapids and lots of fun class 3 wave trains. We finished off the day by scouting and running a large class 4 rapid called 'Sweetness and Light'.

Third night's beach camp on the Karnali Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

We paddled for about an hour on our third day on the river before stopping at a village where 'Project Karnali' did an assessment of another health post. We spent a couple of hours in this village exploring and had some chai before continuing down stream. Again towards the end of the day we scouted another large rapid called 'Jailhouse Rock' which had 2 huge hole on the right hand side of the rapid. This rapid was pretty exiting and got the adrenalin kicking in before we pulled over to relax and set-up camp at 'Scorpion Beach' for the rest of the afternoon.

Village where we stopped for chai on day 3 of paddling Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

View of the Karnali from the village Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Children form the village wondering where all these rafters and kayakers came from

Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Our 4th day on the river was the most exciting day with the most amount of large rapids and also provided the most continuous section of whitewater. The main rapids we were challenged with were 'God's House', 'Juicer', and 'Flip and Strip'. 'God's House' ended up with a lot of carnage. I ended up going into the top right hand hole and got surfed for a while in my creek boat which finally resulted in a swim. Unfortunately the fibreglass in my paddle smashed on my deck which was temp fixed with duct tape for the rest of the Karnali trip. One of the safety kayakers also swam in the eddy at the bottom of 'God's House' because he flipped and got pinned against a rock and said he kept hitting his head every time he tried to roll. The carnage made a lot of good footage for Mo who was standing on the bank filming and we were able to entertain everyone that evening by the fire doing our bootie beers.

Our camp at the end of day 4 on the river Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

Photo: Jacqui Whitehead

The last 3 days on the Karnali were relatively flat with occasionally some very small class 2-2+ rapids. The only exception was a new rapid which had formed that we found on day 5. Most people were unaware of this large class 3 wave train (with a descent sized hole at the bottom). Funnily enough one of the gear catarafts were not paying too much attention and were caught off guard and flipped in the bottom hole losing the fried rice which they had prepared for lunch that day!

When we finished our last day of paddling we had lunch at the take-out and were back on the bus for another non-stop drive back to Kathmandu. Luckily I managed to sleep most of the way because we were so worn out after 7 days on the river!

Camp on our second last night on the Karnali River Photo: Jacqui Whitehead