The Paddler ezine WW kayak collection 2013 | Page 46

ThePaddler 46

A swim or a flip

on this section
of river would not be highly recommended so we
took conservative lines on all of the rapids
ensuring our team safety at all times.

The milky grey glacial water made reading the
river at times tricky. The raft could rely on the
kayakers to roughly scout the lines for them.
Paddle commands came in real useful during
this section. Uncontrolled cartwheels and loops
in creek boats was a signal for a big hole.
You might think that rafting in Iceland is cold
and you would be right it is but on a run such as
this the cold was the last thing on our mind.
After 2.5 hours of solid concentration and
paddling the river gently eased a little.

Amazing sunshine

There had been no wind and amazing sunshine
all day. It wasn’t until around 7pm I felt a touch
of the cold north wind on my face this was a
signal to get our heads down and start to paddle.
As we were still on the water so late in the day we
also had to deal with the low sun too.

I wanted the members of the team with no
multi-day experience to kick back and relax.
Myself and the Nepali boys Madhu, Kalu and
Sayas got stuck into the catering. We had a team
of three crack commando Nepali chefs preparing
some top-notch food. Kalu and myself started off
the proceedings by serving popcorn and Kalu’s
very own recipe for rum punch. whilst Madhu
and Sayas made a chicken curry to die for.
Once we were all full with the dishes washed we
sat round with a few beers, big smiles wind and
sun burnt faces all around and did what raft
guides do best we talked absolute garbage. We
were all soon in the land of zzzz!
I was the first to wake in the morning with my
head still intact. Hailing from northern England
my job was simple! Breakfast. Pints of tea easily
washed down the egg bacon and mushroom
sandwiches. Funnily enough team Nepal
understood the concept of the English breakfast
but the Nordic members of the team Finnur and
Einar from Iceland and Aapo from Finland could
not quite grasp the idea of it all.

All of a sudden I heard a loud psssst noise from the
raft my heart sunk. The boys had started on the
beers. Been the official unofficial trip leader I made
a deal with the boys to just have one beer until we
got to the camp and to be fair they kept to there
word. By doing this I killed two birds with one
stone, the boys stayed alert and sober and then
there was a beer for me when we got to the camp!
Camp was a loose term though. I was starting to
get the “where is the camp?” Questions from the
team I knew we were not far away. Imagine being
in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden a
cosy heated cabin pops up next to the river in an
amazing valley. We hurriedly unpacked the raft
and made out way to Hildersel, our palace for
the evening. The Hildersel cabin is a bunkhouse
complete with fully equipped kitchen gas heater
bunk beds with blankets and a view to die for. A
true Oasis in the barren landscape that
surrounded us.

The full English!

In the far north of Europe in the summer the sun
sets and rises in the north. This daily ritual of sun
set and sunrise takes about five minutes. So to
sum the situation up it was around 7pm we were
seven guys – four in the raft and three kayakers
heading in a northerly direction against a
northerly wind with the sun right in front of our
faces. We had just paddled an amazing section of
water. The mood was high we had around one
hour paddling to our camp.

We cleaned Hildersel, packed the raft and slowly
made our way down stream to the start of the
lower canyon of the East River.
The lower canyon of the East glacial river has the
nickname ‘The Mini Zanskar’. Each day each
guide no matter how many times he has run the
lower canyon (over 200 for some of us) gets that
little feeling in the pit of your stomach that says,
“I wonder what will happen today am I going to
get it today.” The Lower East is not a river where
you can allow the voices in your head to take
over.