Altai Mountains - Siberia

The former USSR contains vast areas of mountaineous terrain laden with relatively unknown white-water potential. In August 2005 a group of Irish friends headed for the Altai region of Siberia to see what they could find... report by Karl Dolan.

After many months of research and planning we had narrowed the destination down to Russia. Our plan was to get some multiday trips completed and with a little more investagation the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia were to play host to the team.

After a couple of weeks we had made contact with Andy Somers (www.shivaoutdoors.com) who had been planning a trip starting in Moscow and moving towards the Altai mountains spending a couple of weeks there before moving south towards Tajikistan. We decided to join him as he has previous knowledge of the area. He was to be joined by Nikoli Timinov (www.kayaking.ru). The plan had been made. We would travel to Moscow, fly to Barnaul, then drive to the Altai Mountains some 400 kilometres away. This was not going to be easy. Many airlines we approached would not accept kayaks. The group would also have to split so has to reduce the amount of oversize on the one plane. We would split into 3 groups of 2 flying different routes before meeting in Moscow.

With our visas sorted before we left we were thinking that all the paper work was also. Not the case when you’re in Russia. Russia is split into regions a lot like Irelands counties. Every time you cross a border everything must be checked. We found out that having to wait half a day was not uncommon.

After the 400 kilometres we arrived in the Altai Mountains. The roads progressively got worse and if it weren’t for our truck we would not have made it to many of the rivers.

With supplies little and far between we were also glad that we had stocked up in Barnaul before we departed for the mountains. All the basics were purchased there. Cheese, salami, porridge, dried meat, sauces, powdered milk etc. In the mountains these would be hard to come by.

We started off our paddling with some easy rivers, 3 of the team had to get used of the new boats as we has got some bad news while they were been transported. They had been destroyed in a fire whilst been shipped.

The 1st river was a big volume river, which helped us get used to the extra gear we would be carrying. (Sleeping bags, thermarest, food, bivibag, and clothes for the evening and safety equipment). The team quickly got the hang of it and we progressed to some of the longer more difficult rivers.

The Chulysman River provided a mixture of steep, technical and big water. This was truly an enjoyable river. It took 4 days to complete and we were finally comfortable in our gear and boats after the many dry summer months in Ireland.

Our next planned river we had heard many stories about, the Baskaus. This river has been attempted by many but completed by few. When we arrived we were greeted with a very brown coloured water and flooded roads. This was a very different river to the one we has driven past a couple of days previously. We made the decision to wait and see would the river arrive. We waited a day and it did drop a little. We decided to attempt the river. Usually it takes up to 4 days. When we got on we knew this would not be the case. We planned for 6. Bringing enough food and film to do this epic river.

The 1st day was a different river than the one that nikoli and Andy had completed 2 years earlier. The 1st day was to be a class 3 run with some nice rapids to warm up before the committing gorge. It was very different, the high water level transformed this into a class 4+ big volume run with little or no breaks in between rapids. We had finished a couple of hours earlier than expected so we waited in hope the water level would drop. It didn’t. We would now have to enter this gorge.

A lot of the rapids had to be portaged which challenged the team and their group work to the max. This was hard. I had never done anything like this before. Neither had any of the others.

After 6 days we completed the river, surviving on porridge for breakfast, a snickers and chunk of salami for lunch and some rice and dried meat for tea. The sight of the truck brought in some massive cravings. We took a day's rest and travelled to a river, which we had been told, was not to be missed.

The Chulcha, this river involved a daylong walk in and would take 2 days to complete. The 1st day was truly enjoyable. It had some very technical rapids with some very nice drops. The 2nd day started of much more difficult with some very interesting rapids which we completed successfully, this river turned out to be a great end to the trip.

That night we travelled back towards Barnaul where we met up with some American and Russian kayakers where we shared many stories over a couple of vodkas!!

A trip to Russia would not be justified if we had not spent a couple of days in Moscow.

We planned to spend 2 days where we toured the city seeing all the known attractions. Lenin's tomb, Red square, all the general attractions. With the help of some local knowledge we came across an all you can eat… this was well worth the trip for!!!

We would like to thanks all our sponsers who can be seen here at www.teams7g.com

If you planning a trip and would like to know more feel free to email us at teams7g@gmail.com

karl