The next member was Chris Sloan , who I met only about five years ago , but I took an instant liking to him as he ’ s one of these people who are quietly super talented and gets on with it ; he also likes to get away from the norm and loves exploration . Then we have Dave Marshall , who is an OC1 paddler . Dave and I have been friends for over 30 years ; we climbed , trekked , mountaineered , paddled and skied all over Europe and had many adventures and a few epics . Dave also has worldwide trekking experience and was a solid contributor to this expedition with his previous experience in Kyrgyzstan .
Finally , myself . I have built my kayak coaching and guiding business over the last 20 years , but more importantly , I have a passion for adventure and exploration . My 30 years of experience have given me the edge to sort logistics , find water and have the leadership and safety qualities needed in such environments , along with my self-belief and resilient attitude .
We flew out of the UK on the 23rd of July for a twoweek expedition . We had a little hassle at check-in with the size of our boats , but we all ganged up on them , and they gave in and took them , Except Dave ’ s OC1 , which unfortunately took a week to arrive . I was a little gutted for Dave having to miss out on the first week , but he still came along on our days out and enjoyed being the cameraman until his boat turned up .
ARTISAN TRAVEL We flew into Bishkek and then had a seven-hour journey across to Karakol , which we used as our base and has the highest mountain range . We used Turkistan yurt camp , also known as Artisan Travel , as our base and for sorting us out with a serious off-road vehicle and driver . We also used Iron Horse Nomad ’ s vehicle specialists for our shuttle to and from Bishkek .
July is still relatively early season for boating in Kyrgyzstan , with most other expeditions coming out throughout August / September instead . This couldn ’ t be helped for some team members who have work commitments . We soon realized that all the glacial rivers were running very high with an excellent snow year and hot weather , which put everything a grade higher than the already established runs .
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