Tag Archives: rafting

My tales about our 10-day hike along the Karavshin mountain trail have all been shipped, but, as they say, “not so fast”… For next up was part-two of our action-packed summer vacation, which saw us teleported northeast from Kyrgyzstan’s Pamir-Alay to the Sayan Mountains. Plan: rafting down the Oka River. Result (spoiler): it was brief but unforgettable!…

Technical details will come later; for now, as per tradition, teaser pics to give a sense of the scale involved, to roughly map out the directions, and to give you an idea of what the scenery looks like [in good weather] // and that’s important.

Surprise! The banks along the river are all made of volcanic rock! Brief history: an old mountain valley was flooded by lava flows from a newly emerged volcano: the lava flowed down the mountain valleys and then solidified, and later water and nature carved out new riverbeds – carving out canyons like these. The views left and right are just mind-blowing!

The Oka River at first carried us along at 10–14km/h – that’s how fast the current runs in its upper reaches.

Oh, the views!

Waterfalls cascading down the same volcanic cliffs:

Of course, we headed on over – and under!

This is where our CTO, A.I., went and… left his sunglasses behind:

This all went on in the mostly Buddhist Republic of Buryatia. Hence the mantra Om mani padme hum appears on mountains ->

The campsites along the Oka are pretty decent, but I I’ll save the details for a little later…

Drone pics of the Sayan landscapes:

A rushing tributary – where it meets the Oka there’s a good campsite:

The river’s main channel:

Views from the water:

Lunch break :)

And “back to work” again :)

But we didn’t come here just for the contemplative views; we came for something else that’s wholly wholesome for hardworking office plankton in need of some proper recuperative time-off: adrenaline! – the kind that courses through the veins from activities like this! ->

More on both contemplation and adrenalization in the Sayans coming right up!…

The best photos from our Sayan rafting trip are here.

Ladies and gents, boys and girls – greetings!

It’s been a while. But of course it has: there was a vacation-heavy summer to get through! And now, finally, the time has come to begin my traditional tales from the summer-holiday side…

This year I’ll be splitting these write-ups into two segments: the first – all about our mountain trekking adventures; the second – all about our mountain-river rafting escapades. But first – also as per tradition – overview intro-post: an overview of what we did, and what’s coming up in both photos and texts…

First we hiked the Karavshin route in Kyrgyzstan, then air-teleported ourselves over to the Sayan Mountains (Russia) and rafted down the Oka River there (not to be confused with the more well-known Oka River not that far from Moscow – literally five thousand kilometers to the west:).

So how was it? In a word: awesome!

Karavshin = 10 days on foot, 115 kilometers covered, total ascent and descent = 7.5km:  the most physically punishing trek I’ve ever done. Even Kamchatka-2015 (315km trekking up and down volcanoes) was easier. All the same – it was worth every step!

The views on show there are downright magical:

The (southern Siberian) Oka River is a real beauty too…

Read on…

And so, our Altai-Katun rafting adventure was coming to its inevitable end, and so is my Altai-Katun series of posts detailing it. All that’s left to do is share the most interesting photos that I don’t think I’ve shown here before. If I have – apologies for the repeats. So, in this final installment to the series, a brief review of our summer Altai rafting trip – guided by a perusal through said leftover pics.

Altai-2025: a five-day hike through the Altai mountains, then an incredible 500-kilometer rafting journey down the Katun (plus a short side-foray along the Chuya) ->

Read on…

Continuing the tales of our Altai summer adventure – next up, we’re edging down the Katun with the final stretch fast approaching…

Today’s rapids – the Teldekpen Rapids, aka “the Stumps” (here) – which, in high water, are probably the most difficult, unpredictable, and genuinely dangerous of the whole river. But let’s start from the beginning…

That morning, we saw that the water was still high (as I mentioned earlier, it had rained non-stop the previous day – raising the river by 130cm). On the flat sections, the current was racing along at around 13km/h (if I remember rightly), so there was absolutely no need to paddle ->

Read on…

After a full day of downtime given the incessant rain, the following morning, finally, we were able to get back on the Katun. Which we were reeeaaally keen to do since, turns out, without a steady stream of outside stimuli to jolt the nervous system, modern big-city office types like us get rather down.

Another effect of the rain: the Katun’s water level had risen a staggering 1.3 meters in just 24 hours – a massive change, and not a good one for tackling rapids…

Read on…

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…

Read on…

Another day, another spot of Altai whitewater rafting – but not on the captivating Katun!…

No, this year we took a detour – yes, as the title indicates, for a stretch of rad-rapids down the Chuya river.

After the Akkem Rush and the following relaxing day, we took a break from the Katun. Why? But of course – for the rapids! For there are some good ones on the lower reaches of the Chuya – like the “Turbine” and the “Horizon”. Check these beauts out: the Turbine ->

And the Horizon ->

Read on…

As I already mentioned, after conquering the wildest ride the Katun has to offer – the Akkem Rush (or “the Pipe”) – we stopped at Argut Camp, aka the Rafters’ Museum, at the junction between the (turquoise) Katun and the (milky) Argut:

Read on…

We finally made it to the main water “attraction” of the Katun: the Akkem Rush, aka the Akkem Breakthrough, aka the Pipe. Long ago, the Katun carved out a gorge about 12 kilometers long right here, squeezing the river down to just 30 meters wide. The result: all that water rushes forward with tremendous force…

Read on…

After shooting through the Katun’s Cheeks, we had another two weeks (!) of assorted rafting ahead – “assorted” as in: some lazy stretches, some bursts of action, and the occasional bout of nerve-wracking whitewater rapidding. But the five days after the Cheeks were all one thing: lazy. We even call this stretch the “lazy Katun“. Around 200 kilometers of gentle current, ripples and pools, and only a handful of small rapids. All in all – smooth sailing: the perfect setting for quiet reflection and meditation. Andf if the weather’s nice the mind totally resets.

Read on…