With the International yoga festival in full swing in Rishikesh, I had extreme difficulties finding a place to stay. So instead of treating myself to the standard veggie burger and chips at the tourist restaurants I headed upstream and spent the night at Aquaterra’s forest camp!
The following day was another travel day as we headed upstream of the Ganges, past the holy place of Devprayag where the Ganges is formed and then up the Alaknanda to the best riverside lodge I have stayed in - Shivanandi.
For the next 3 weeks I was going to stay at a place both Ute and I know extremely well. We have been staying at Shivanandi ever since it was being built some 7 years ago now. The traditional constructed houses are amazing, the food is great and not forgetting a natural spring so the water is pure and tastes great!
I was going to paddle with Stanzin who I had met there a few years back. Stanzin hails from Ladakh, India’s most northern state and part of the Indo Tibetan plateau. He is currently managing the resort but it still does not stop him getting out onto the river during the day. And so my routine was set: eat, sleep and kayak!!
The Alaknanda is one of my favourite rivers, with plenty of sections of various grades of whitewater it has something for everybody. It is not far to drive up to Karnaprayag where the confluence of the Pindar river pumps more water in. This section is great to paddle, with some big waves and long classic Himalayan rapids it gives you plenty of whitewater action. If that is not enough we found a sweet wave along the way. We spent hours surfing this glassy wave and with a bit of a foam pile at the top it was quite difficult to tear yourself away.
After heading back to the surf wave for 3 days we decided to drive further up the valley and kayak the Upper section of the Alaknanda from Berahi, past Chamoli and down to Nandaprayag. This section is fantastic and provides the most challenging part of the whole river. The drops are big at the put-in as it gorges up then by the time you reach Chamoli it is read and run class IV heaven! The last time I kayaked this section was just after monsoon a few years back and we were the first to come across a new rapid caused by a landslide close to the jail, which we had to portage. However, since then another heavy monsoon and a huge flood had completely changed the Alaknanda again and this rapid now had clean lines and was an absolute joy to paddle!!
As with Spring flows the river is a lot lower than the post-monsoon levels in the Indian Himalayas. So as we reached Nandaprayag we kayaked Hillary Falls - where the famous mountaineer was stopped on his attempt to get a jet boat up to the Upper Alaknanda. At the take-out we had our usually warm, sweet chai and headed back down to Shivanandi for some well earned rice and lentils!!!
Next up was a couple of days on the Pindar…..
Steve Brooks
Kayak School Arlberg
Austria
www.gokayaking.at
T: 0043 676 5303878
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