More from the Katun: the Ilgumen Rapids and rainy gloom.

Hi folks!

Another day – another spot of rafting in Altai!…

After a thrilling day of whitewater rapids on the Chuya, we were back on the Katun river. By this point we’d already done the Cheeks, the Akkem Rush, and the Chuya’s Turbine and Horizon rapids. Next up – yet more exciting aquatic adventures: great! But, alas, the sky began to cloud over with nasty gray gloom: not great at all…

The plan for the day was to tackle the Ilgumen rapids – one of the most hair-raising stretches of the Katun…

And you just have to take the most exciting route on the water – the one where the standing waves are… two to three meters high! ->

The water’s incredibly wild; and that’s just fantastic! ->

But there were a good 35 kilometers or so from our campsite (at the confluence of the Chuya and the Katun) to the rapids. And that meant we were once again subjected to absolute, unavoidable, and thoroughly welcome contemplation…

The feeling here is unique. It’s like you’re on a silent platform (okay, it’s a raft) being given a slow tour through endless corridors of magically captivating, untouched (by man) scenery…

Suddenly – bridge! // To be honest, we remembered from previous trips that there was a bridge coming up here. But to keep the narrative dynamic, you just have to say “suddenly!” :-)

This bridge is a fascinating piece of engineering. Designed by Russian engineer Sergey Afanasyevich Tsaplin and built in 1936, it’s called the Ininsky Suspension Bridge.

There are local legends about it. Like that it’s practically a UNESCO candidate, and that the design engineer emigrated to the U.S. and helped design San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge… which is almost certainly untrue since the Golden Gate’s construction began a couple of years before this one. Still, to be fair, it was finished a year later. But their sizes hardly compare…

And here’s the Golden Gate:

They do look somewhat related, don’t they? I guess when you’re solving similar engineering problems, the answers can turn out technically quite close.

The local guides always mention the bridges’ connection. Well, let them! It makes things more interesting for tourists and livens up a lazy stretch of river, and curious visitors can always look up the truth online later.

Meanwhile, we admired the bridge ->

It’s a beauty, no question!

Then we drifted on, taking our time…

The scenery just kept getting more stunning, the river more and more lovely ->

Up ahead, the Chuya Highway – one of the most beautiful roads in the world – is carved into mountainside:

But up above, the weather was brewing some bad news for us… [and, alas, the gloomy forecast was right].

And here they are – the Ilgumen rapids! A furious, 300-400 meter long torrent, with waves up to three meters high – just five big ones at the entrance, and then who knows how many more? We didn’t count them (too occupied!). And the rocky banks on either side – oh, what a sight!

You could watch these raging flows forever…

But it was time to raft down them – from right to left, through every wave and dip ->

And what was it like in the thick of it? Like this! ->

The local vacationers came out to watch the visiting nutters (you can see them in some shots). Meanwhile, we were having the time of our lives:

And this is how the 360° camera snapped the fun! Any complaints – please addresss them to the camera!…

To give you an idea of the height of some of the waves ->

Onward! ->

Woah!

Now that was something!

A little later – more of the same! ->

But that’s what we came for, right?

After the rapids ->

Everything would have been fine, but the weather was turning worse in a completely inhumane and inevitable way…

We pulled up next to this strange tree:

A dead pine. And I’ve no idea why all the other trees around are regularly shaped, while this one grew up like so ->

Our camping spot turned out to be well-equipped…

…While the weather just kept on deteriorating.

Then the rain started, and it didn’t stop for a full… twenty-four hours!…

That night, our dining-awning nearly got ripped ->

Still, at least there was no shortage of clean drinking water.

No one had any desire to get back on the water during the lengthy downpour, so we canceled the rafting for this day and passed the time as best we could.

Which reminds me: I haven’t quoted anything from our trip diary. Let me fix that…

The day before the rafting began, while inflating the rafts:

“I inflated it – but didn’t like it because I wasn’t using my mouth.”

After the Cheeks rapids:

“Fearfulness comes with experience.”

A bit later:

“The day was uneventful until we reached the apiary. Spent the sunset on a little island supping mead!”

After the rapids of the Chuya, PS came over all philosophical: “Difficulties are evil. So is vanity.”

The rafting, the nature, the water, the air, the stunning views – it all does something to you. Your brain gets cleared out, it lets go, and that produces all kinds of verbal curiosities. For instance, on my first trip to Altai, I came up with this: “The greatest evil in this world is gravity. And the only way to fight it is by lying down.” This time, someone proposed a toast: “Here’s to the basal ganglia!” :o)

The diary entry for the day after Ilgumen is pure despair: “Rain rain rain rain rain.” And I can confirm that’s exactly how it was.

The two days’ stats: (i) the day before the rain we covered 47km in five-and-half hours, averaging 8.6 km/h, and dropping 90 meters in elevation (from 720 to 630 meters above sea-level). The rainy day: zero kilometers, zero elevation drops, zero adrenaline rushes!

The rain did eventually stop, but its impact on our journey was far from over. But more on that in the next episode…