Report 4b

Turning right from the soupy, brown Surkhob River, we paddled 100 feet up the turquoise water of the Yarkitch River to the town of Khoit.  Our welcoming committee was a few shy kids and a friendly but crazy Tajik who fit all the stereotypes of a mountain-mad gem prospector: big, floppy hat and a desire to talk to us alone about the secret location of mountain riches all the while convinced you, and everyone else, are here to steal his rocks.

Leaving this funny scene out of an old Western, we hopped back into modern economics on an empty coal truck headed to the mine up the valley. Standing in the big metal bed, the ride was long and dusty, but the warm sun felt good, and our vantage point was ideal for scouting the river as we drove.

An army post mid-way up was not a problem.  The captain’s inspection of our documents from all angles did not help his inability to differentiate “date of issue” from “date of expiration” on our visas.  We suspect these were his first foreign passports and that he might not have been able to read.  Rather than point out this potentially embarrassing situation, Middy and Andrew read the Tajik and Russian to him.  Pleased and maybe a bit flustered, he sent us on our way.

At the confluence of three rivers we got off the truck.  Also at the confluence was a bee keeper’s camp and a young guy with a full beard and long robes eyeing us.  Tajikistan is a country mostly of small hats and clean- shaven young men, especially in the region of Khoit.  The truck left us to make introductions on our own.

With speed, we met Aub (bearded) and Yakob (small hat, no beard).  Rapidly, it became apparent this was Yakob’s camp, Aub was his brother, and “please come into the honey tent filled with 10,000 swarming bees.” Words of Russian and Tajik competed with the bees for airspace in the small tent as Yakob covered everything there is to know.  He was so fast, energetic, and charismatic that within 5 minutes of getting off the coal truck we had agreed to harvest honey with him once the bees dropped that night.

But first dinner, which arrived with a countdown.  “5 minutes,” yelled a sleepy, local cook.  This sent Yakob and his brother off in frenzy of work: changing the truck batteries and checking the wiring,
carrying bee boxes twice their size, bringing in enough firewood to make a bonfire for days.  By the “3 minutes to dinner” warning, they had already done more work than their hired hands did in a day.  When “dinner” was called out, Yakob came flying toward the eating/sleeping tent, dipped a rag in water, wrapped it around the blazing hot chimney of the metal stove, grabbed the rag and the stove’s door handle, and ran maniacally into the tent. With the stove for warmth, we all sat for dinner.  This was our routine for the next three nights.

That first night we helped extract honey from the comb.  Those not genetically related to Yakob struggled to keep up.  Even the fasting of Ramadan failed to slow them down.  They had the energy of busy bees. It was fun until we realized there were two stacks of a honeycomb trays and hours of work to be done.  Now that’s what we call a sticky situation!

The next morning, we each headed up different rivers to scout.  The real motivation was to find a nice, secluded spot to nap.  We reconvened in time for dinner and loaded the hive boxes into an empty coal truck for their night journey to their winter home.

Simon and Middy’s scouting produced only badgers, bear foot-prints, and the coal mine.  Andrew came back with a report of a small river with narrow canyons filled with whitewater and runnable glaciers.  We grumbled and prepared for an epic day when Yakob told us the river’s name- Piozi.

By 8am our gear was stashed and we were headed upriver.  The carry was only a few hours of thorny misery, and there was little evidence of the onions that give it its name (‘Zweite Zweibel’ if you like). The whitewater began without hesitation.  We flew through a couple drops, then jammed ourselves into piles of rocks along the shore to scout a rapid and route of egress before the first glacier.  Three moves were required to get into the final eddy on the river left before the black mouth of the glacier accepted the water tumbling downstream.  First, small waves and a hole to punch while fading right.  Then hop left onto a sheet of current flowing to a horizon line in the middle.  Third, deal with whatever that horizon line was concealing.  Middy went first and kindly made clear a hidden rock in the first hole by rattling into it.  He hopped the sheet of current but was sent into a backender at the bottom of that horizon line.  Scrambling to bring the boat down, he back- ferried with vigor to make the eddy.  Andrew and Simon took note and followed smoothly.

Fun boulder gardens led us to the second glacier.  Andrew’s thorough inspection the day before confirmed what Simon and Middy had a very hard time believing: it was runnable.  Ducking into a glacial tunnel is like running with flaming scissors on a pool deck; it is everything you are told no
t to do.  There was a small pour-over under the glacier, but mostly we stared at the icy underbelly as we floated through.

The river entered a canyon, and we found ourselves looking into the 3rd glacier.  Andrew and Middy hung in eddies above while Simon climbed downstream.  The decision was made through shouts and hand-signals for Andrew to paddle right onto rocks, where Simon could catch him if there was a problem.  Andrew charged hard but couldn’t see the rocks that prevented him from making it.  Simon’s quick motions resulted in netting the catch of the day.  He grabbed Andrew’s boat and hoisted Andrew, boat and all around a boulder to safety.  We were all scared by the close call.  After much analysis, Simon and Middy got out on a small rock pile on the left, hoping it didn’t slide into the river and send them under the glacier.

Big, open drops in a deep canyon followed.  The drop Andrew had most been concerned with after his hike was actually a fun slide and waves.  The fourth glacier stretched from the river- right down to water level but left a nice window along the river- left free of ice.  We proceeded under its second half with the uneasy feeling of directly contradicting instinct and instruction.

The river opened up, and the sun warmed us as we floated through easy riffles back to an afternoon siesta.  That night we dined with Yakob and crew one last time, exchanged addresses and presents, and said good-bye.

In the morning we started down the Yarkitch.  It was at first easy and meandering- a wide valley and rock gardens.  Presently carefree times came to an end in the form of a triple drop with bad hole, then a long rapid formed by the detritus of a mudslide creek.  It was mostly a test of memory- recalling dozens of small, donkey-punchy drops in fast sequence before being spat from our cowardly entrance line into the main flow and avoiding a large hole.  The rapid went on and on after that, but in a mellower mood, then gave way to more malicious whitewater.

While impatient Tajik soldiers on the ridge across the river gestured for us to ‘just, like, go already,’ we bushwhacked through sharp plants to scout, portage, scout more, and nearly portage again before deciding, incorrectly, that we could probably run it just fine.  The first drop was a left-to-right move that stuffed Middy, and especially Andrew, when they tried to run it from the river- right eddy at the lip.  It was followed by a massive, river- wide hole that could be boofed at a shallow point just left of center.  After that was a last- chance eddy followed by a seriously last- chance eddy, which we all thankfully caught.

There was a short carry from there, but then we ran everything else that afternoon, which amounted to 300 meters of whitewater before we reached a steep, narrow canyon.  We hauled the boats out and camped in a pretty field on the canyon’s edge.  There we cooked our bland food for dinner and again for breakfast.  We scouted the length of the canyon that morning.  The first rapid was the toughest: a boof left, then crashing things and boils pushing right.  Next there was a hole of indeterminate stickiness against the left wall.  We punched that, running a slot between the wall and a huge boulder.  Then the river turned left and a straightaway of holes and breaking waves commenced between high, canyon walls.  These needed dodging, and there were a few important moves to get out of the gorge, but honestly, it’s all pretty fuzzy, locked inside our brains in the file ‘canyon fear,’ every single memory of which will be recalled in a torrent, each perfectly preserved, the next time one of us finds himself alone in a class V canyon.

Below the canyon was more great whitewater, then the confluence with a river that’s hard to pronounce.  While Middy went shopping in Tajikabad (mark how much food shopping takes place over the next two days), Simon and Andrew scouted the tributary.  They hoofed it for hours, across both dale and glen, finding only one short, worthwhile feature- a narrow, overhung, canyon with class III whitewater inside.  This we all ran the next morning prior to heading downstream on the Surkhob towards the next destination.

In the town of Garm, we bought some food, tried and failed to make phone calls, returned in the morning, still couldn’t, and bought more food.  From Garm, it was a short, whirlpooly paddle through composite rock- dirt gorges to the town of Novabad.  There, we immediately went in search of food, then began our third and last journey of exploration.