ThePADDLER 32
There is one trick with drone scouts . From high above , you can easily find the siphons , blockages and 100 % unrunnable sections . But when it looks ‘ all good to go down the middle ,’ it could be both straightforward and super pushy and steep . You don ’ t see the gradient from the drone , and you can ’ t fly low in the canyons because of the GPS loss , wind and other obstacles . We were finally ready to charge by combining the drone , the binocular , and the conventional way of scouting .
WORLD-CLASS FIVE-STAR CLASS V Some stretches were a real commitment because of the vertical walls and non-stop continuous whitewater . After two days of discovering section by section , we were finally able to link the complete descent of the Upper Canyons . That ’ s hands down a world-class five-star class V continuous technical and super fun run ! The cherry on top is just before the take out . It ’ s so far the cleanest and the nicest waterfall in the whole Caucasus ! What a section !
The second discovery of this trip was the lower canyon of the Kara Koysu River . We ’ ve gathered that the groups before us found this canyon too hard to commit while scouting from the road . Well , we ’ ve got the drone . Two batteries , 30 minutes of flying , and we immediately knew it was good to go ! This crazy beautiful , relatively wide canyon featured some nice and easy bedrock slides – so unusual and rare in the young Caucasus Mountains ! But the most spectacular was the huge pushy steep landslide rapids . This medium-sized river had the perfect flow to make it one of the best and the most fun first descents we ’ ve ever made !
We ’ ve enjoyed both first descents so much that we couldn ’ t avoid making a couple more laps on these sections . They will definitely become class V classics of the Caucasus . More and more groups will start arriving , in fact have already have .