Buri Gandaki - Solo Mission

It's almost one month ago since my last blog update. One month of good times! After our big swiss expedition on the upper Arun river, my friends went back home to cold switzerland, but my trip was of course not finished. I had ten days left in Nepal and decided to go for a solo mission. Thuli Bheri seams to be one of the best multi-day trip on the planet. Two years ago I tried to catch a plane up to the put-in, but bad weather conditions made it impossible. Unfortunately this year the same happened! My time run out and there was no plane flying up to Dolpa area. This can always happen in mountain areas like the Himalaya, but because of hundreds of other great river it's easy to get a plan B. I have paddled many of the Classics in Nepal and as always I like to explore unknown or rarely paddled river. Buri Gandaki is described in Nepal's guide book, but I haven't heard of many kayakers or rafters that went there. Why? I don't know. It's close from Kathmandu, the description tells about a beautiful valley and great whitewater. Let's check it out thought.

The Bus ride from Pokhara to Arughat took me almost two days. From there I drove three more hours with a Jeep till the end of the road at Soti Khola where I slept in a local guest house. Really basic as usually in Nepal. Dhal Bhat to eat and dirty room with wooden planked bed to sleep. Next morning it took me a while to find a Porter to carry my Kayak up the valley to the put-in.

After a couple of hours, a motivated and small Nepali showed up. I showed him the technique how I would carry the kayak, with straps as a backpack on my shoulders. But he didn't liked it, took his own strap, fixed it somehow on the kayak, the strap over his head and let's go. He went really fast and it looked kind of crazy this 1.50meter tall guy with a 2.50m Kayak.... on his foot he had sandals! The whole day he took maybe five short brakes and the rest he was almost running, the best Porter I've ever had!

This first day we hiked up till Mochikhola. The trek was amazing! There are on both sides hugh canyon walls, more then 1000meter high and sometimes I could see far behind the Ganesh Himal with it's 7500 meter high peaks. The river was mostly a couple hundret meters below the trail and looked great but really challenging. In Mochikhola I slept in a super nice guesthouse. Normally, during october are here up to 150 Tourists, Trekkers every day. End november I was the only one! I eat some spaghettis for dinner and went to bed at 6 o'clock! Next morning we went up early and hiked further up the valley. The river and the valley became more and more beautiful as further we hiked. After Dovan the river gets more gradient and became just serious class 6. I decided to put- in below that and paddle the same day back to Mochikhola. This day was the best day of the whole Nepal trip! Such a amazing hike, local people and some of the best class five kayaking I've done in Nepal.

The next day started on easy whitewater for a couple of kilometer till it dropped down on a huge landslide. The portage took me one hour, but afterwards I paddled the whole day just great whitewater. At the end of that day I was super tired. I've paddled almost 70 kilometers, 3 bigger portages, 10 km on class 5, 20km class 4 and the rest class 3. I found a beach to setup a camp, make fire, cook dinner and sleep. The last day I finished down after the confluence with the Trisuli river where the Himalayan Whitewater Challenging was going on. Two years ago I have won this cool event, but this times I arrived to late to compete. I met some friends, drank a beer with them and took the bus back to Kathmandu.

Thats the end of my Nepal trip 2010, but just the beginning of five month trip around the world. Next stop was Indonesia. Two weeks of surfing on Bali and a couple days kayaking on Java. The kayaking on Java was really cool! We hooked up with some local kayakers and raftguides, paddled a couple of really nice rivers with palm trees on the side, 30 degrees water temperature,..... . Not my last time there!

Now I'm down south in Patagonia, running big rivers, surfing big waves, fire big campfires.... Update coming soon!

Ron : )

Chile - a different way

Back home from my trip to Chile after an unfortunate series of problems

- airport-traffic-control strike for two days
- broken car on the way to the airport
- lost baggage and lost boat & paddles for three days
- several stops at the mechanics

After all I had to realize that one of my three weeks was wasted. But there was plenty of time to enjoy these amazing rivers. Equipped with the new and fantastic sample of the commend Assault I was ready to head to Pucon with an awesome side trip to the Rio Claro that I had to check.

Directly after the run I put out my list of misfortune and added one more point:
- another visit at a mechanic, but now including an overnight in his front yard (dumping ground)

After we arrived in our residential timber cottage with our own gay combat-dog (poor Maxi), a hot-tub on the terrace, with a view over the Lago Villarica and the volcano (thanks for that Maxi) we were ready to run the classics.

As nearly all of you know these amazing rivers - it was fantastic! After some training runs on the upper Palguin there was no way around the Upper Palguin Race. But directly after the start my competitor jumped full tilt off the ramp on my left arm. Meant the end of the race after one meter. That was just another point of my lovely list.

- demolished left arm

But some painkillers and lots of beers helped me to proceed next days. Ah, and another point of the list:

- a little car accident

And what is the best way to cool down your mood directly after a crash and before the date at the police station. Yeah - park `n huck the 70 footer on the middle. Lunch, get the direction, throw the paddle, lean forward and wait for the impact and thinking why I don`t play chess!

The next days followed with some more little park `n huck actions and a few river runs, I had to recognize that my left arm needs more and more a time-out, not only because my list extended:

- boat cracked twice

Finally it was the right decision to end the trip without more heroics. Strange, that I missed the earthquake… That would have round my list!

Just to say: Preparing my arm for Chile - Part II

Thanks to Seppi and Maxi for these wonderful pics!

Alex Rodegro
Nookie Team Rider

I love Mexico because...

I like going to new places and meeting new people, and of course I take my boat along with me and explore new rivers. My autumn adventure in 2010 took me to Mexico, it's a paddlers paradise; awesome rivers, warm water, friendly people, spectacular landscape, cold cervezas, Tequila, yummy food, the list goes on and on.


My journey started from Zurich, then to Barcelona to Mexico City and finally to Veracruz, it all went well 'til I landed in Mexico City on 20th November, Revolution day! Maniana maniana was the name of the game and all 'planes outta Mexico City were delayed and many cancelled. After 8 hours of waiting and wheeling and dealing I was on a plane to Veracruz.


I had arranged to meet up with open canoeing legend Jim Coffey in Veracruz and then drive out to Jalcomulco, Jim has spent the last 15Winters in Mexico so knows his way around pretty good, after a 2.5hour drive we where in the middle of a crazy street party in Jalco, free food, free beer and fiesta!


I only had a short time in Mexico so the aim of the game was as much paddling as possible, Jim took this mission statement almost too seriously and we were on the road heading out to the Filo Bobos at 7am the next morning! I hardy ever get to go canoeing with other ww open boaters so this was a special trip for me, don't get me wrong I love going on the river with all my kayaking buddies but to go paddling with another dedicated open boater is kinda special, it was almost bizarre to realise how many similarities we had in our paddling styles even though we had learnt to paddle on different continents.

We paddled loads sections of many cool rivers, some I have forgotten the name of and some I never knew the name of, but 2 rivers really stand out as favourites, the Rio de Oro and the Rio Alseseca.

The Rio de Oro, I had been really looking forward to this river, white water all the way to the beach! The river did not disappoint, sweet rapids, a nice double drop combo, 12meters then 9meters and then cruisy rapids all the way to the beach. We had hoped to reach the beach for sunset but a perforated ear drum and suspected broken ribs kinda slowed us down and we had to paddle the last rapids in the dark. Class 2 can be quite a challenge in the pitch black!

The Rio Alseseca is one of Mexicos most famous rivers, with several sections to choose from, full of clean drops and slides it really is a paddlers dream. To prove how small the World is we met 2friends from Germany, Anne and Seppi, at the upper put in and paddled with them down the upper section. Having already decided the Rio de Oro was my favourite river I now had to issue joint honours to the Alseseca it is also awesome, no beach at the take out but incredible rapids and not too much hiking!

Top tips for paddling in Mexico

Good shoes, I did lots of hiking to and from rivers and there is lots of dancing in Mexico.

Hang out with the locals on the beach after paddling the Rio de Oro and go fishing with the locals.

Visit the Taco Man and the Juice Ladies in Jalcomulco, the best breakfast and dinner you can can get.

Contact Jim Coffey at Esprit to organise your logistics, he is a legend!



Mexico is a superb November/December paddling destination for all levels of paddler, there are loads of class 2 cruisy runs and for the hardcore among us there are some BIG drop to hit up.


Stay safe and see you on the river in the Spring melt
James