The Madi Khola

So far we’ve done one river from here- the Madi Khola. It’s normally a three day river trip with an extra day hiking in. We hooked up with four English boaters and got a jeep up to a place called Lamarkhet. From here we hired porters for the hike up to the put in at Souda. We had a bit of hassle at a town called Chousun, where a new tourist checkpoint had just opened up (three days earlier!!). The boundaries of the Annapurna trek were changed but nobody was told, we all had permits but back in Pohkara. Luckily ,after maybe an hour of arguing and trying to convince the woman from hell that we were not going to trek the circuit with our boats and would be passing by tomorrow, we managed to get through. We got to hike up the river and scout a lot of the upper section. Unfortunately levels were very low and what should have been nice four plus and some five became read and run four, but it was still looking good. The river was very similar to home, tight- steep- technical- paddling but with lots of lovely boofs, eddies, drops, and rock splats etc. We managed to do in one day what is supposed to take two but it was still really sweet paddling. We decided to cut the trip a bit short (paddling wise) due to the level. We decided against what would normally be 27km of grade one (at this low level it probably involved a lot of walking). Instead we went for the most insane bus journey any of us had ever done. We got a bus from Karputar back to Pohkara. The bus drove through the mountains on a track a jeep would struggle on and with huge sheer drops! Not for the faint hearted. In all, a class river trip with good paddling and plenty of excitement both on and off the water. Heading off to the Modi Khola soon, will get this updated.