ThePADDLER 28
First
DESCENTS in Kyrgyzstan
Two years ago , a good friend of mine inspired me to look at an expedition to Kyrgyzstan as he had already been out a few times working for trekking companies and mentioned that the rivers he had seen looked amazing .
So , I started some research and found a few teams had been out there , A couple of YouTube videos and a few write-ups on a USSR kayak website , among others . I also found that there had been a BUKE expedition ( British University Kayak Expedition ) in 2006 that had also done a good trip report write-up .
The few expeditions that had already been there were mostly multi-day descents like the Naryn River ( 7 to 10 days ) and Sary Jez ( 3-4 days ) and then a few reports of the odd section done in the smaller lesser valleys . I wasn ’ t interested in the big multi-day descents as these are already established runs but more in the small valleys where only a few lower sections had been done with potential for other sections that were not recorded and still waiting for their first descent . So after months and months of researching the internet , looking at maps , Google Earth images etc . I came up with a plan , and our journey began .