Fear not this last report of September’s trilogy. Your rods and cones will not be taxed, and upon its conclusion you will have a month’s reprieve until we send the next clump of vague sentences about far away aquatics.
The sun was hot when we dismounted our steeds at the final valley we planned to investigate. Disrobing to head in town for still more food and a ride up the valley, the neck gasket on Middy’s drytop split in two places. This gasket is the vital feature for keeping ice water from barreling down your neck with every crashing wave. This was bad news now, but an unacceptable liability for our upcoming and climatic trip to the Pamirs.
We packed into a small Lada with the usual incapability of continuously cooling its own engine and rode up the Sarbog valley as the sunset. After several axel-to-rock encounters, it was the end of the road for the driver and his chariot. We were still several miles from the confluence of the Garib and Dubursa Rivers, but we shrugged this off when we spotted and ideal campsite 50 feet away. Scanning the valley, Simon called us over to see a bear foraging across the river. The driver departed with, “you know bears can swim, right?” That night we heard some persistent rustling. We slept in a tight clump for safety- a tight clump 10 feet from our food its safety.
The next morning we hiked up to the confluence, crossed the river on the 3 cables that serve as a bridge, and parted ways for a two-day scouting hike. The plan was for Simon and Andrew to hike up the Garib and branch to explore two tributaries and for Middy to inspect the Dubursa. As it turns out, paths no longer existed. Thorns, disintegrating hillsides, rock walls, and single-cable crossings limited Simon and Andrew to only 6 miles up the Garib despite a long day’s bush-whacking. Stalin depopulated the Dubursa’s valley leaving only local fauna to maintain the path. Middy fared a bit better making 8 miles. The reason for Middy’s better mileage was made clear the following morning when he could no longer deny the producer of the fruity mess littering the path and old village where he slept. After two minutes of morning walking, Middy and a bear met on a high bluff above the river with only 20 feet between them. Both were very scared. The bear exhibited good common sense when scared and ran uphill while Middy stood like a deer in head lights amongst the thorns. Clearly, Darwin did not prevail that day. Middy walked back with a new urgency and a tic as he constantly checked over his shoulder.
Back at camp, the consensus was to carry our boats up each river a few miles and run the whitewater near the confluence. Simon and Andrew had seen 6 more miles of fantastic whitewater, but it would have taken days we didn’t have to access it. Farther upstream on both rivers lies an unknown quantity of probably excellent whitewater. This set us all dreaming as we caught the last of the afternoon sun, and Middy tried to repair his broken neck gasket with part of a bike inner-tube and glue.
At about 9 am, we packed up camp, stashed our gear, and, with empty boats, walked upstream. We reached the confluence in 45 minutes, and like impatient kids decided what river to run first. Even the grey skies and drizzle couldn’t dampen our excitement. We ferried across the river, and continued up the Garib, the slightly more irresistible of the two. As the path degenerated into steep, crumbling slopes, we persevered long enough to reach the top of a marvelous pool-drop section. With four hands on the inner-tube neck gasket, Middy was birthed into a world he hoped would be warm and dry.
The first drop was a fast and narrow S-bend with a large pillow from an even larger rock kicking hard to the left. Andrew made the line direct, while Simon and Middy were shunted into the boily eddy on the left before completing the S. The second rapid was a triple step: a 4′ ledge to boof, a slide to ramp in the middle, and finally a 12′ near vertical fall to launch. If it had been easier to carry back upstream, we could have run this one all day. The last rapid of note in this section was another S: a hard boof left to avoid a slightly undercut boulder, then through a left slot around a mostly underwater rock. A few hundred meters of boogie water after this brought us to the entrance of a kilometer long canyon.
As the walls narrowed, a must make sequence of 3 eddies allowed us egress before the river disappeared under a massive chock-stone. A quick portage around this hideous, hideous obstruction brought us into the heart of the canyon. Two river-wide ledges provided the entertainment. The second was made spicier by headwall downstream and powerful pillow. Smooth water snaked out of the canyon below, and the river resumed its playful nature.
The remaining 2km to the confluence was filled with boofs, rock spins, and smiles. We stopped at the confluence, and ferried across the Dubursa to begin our second leg of the day. After a brisk walk, we put-in just upstream of a footbridge (more than wires, this time). Though smaller in stature, the Dubursa, like the Garib, was boof-tastic. Every rapid seemed to have a horizon line, if only a few feet, that was tons of fun. All too quickly, we reached the confluence again.
With the combined volume of both rivers, the Sarbog was powerful, with some large waves and holes, strong currents, and well-defined eddies behind big boulders. After picking up our gear, the river mellowed out, and the paddle down to the Kamarob was peaceful.
At the Kamarob confluence, we had just begun the desultory process of making dinner in the rain when Muhammad Azir, a guy our age, invited us to dine with him. Not hesitating to accept, we were presently in his guestroom, surrounded by carpets, eating plov and watching his wedding DVD. The plov (beloved national alloy of rice and oil) was middling. Even sub par plov, however, represents a considerable improvement in quality of life when a cold rain is coming down.
Back at the boats, kids had been messing with our stuff. They had gone through everything and spilled our juice in Simon’s drybag. Incredibly, in spite of all the cool things we had to steal, nothing was taken. The clouds went away, and the moon was like a black lamp lighting up the fresh snow on the mountains we had just left.
In the morning, we caught a coal truck heading up the Kamarob valley. The river was useless to our purposes. Where even the most optimistic map- reader could no longer imagine worthwhile whitewater to be found, we left our boats and rode the last few miles to the coal camp. There we met William, a 26 year-old Brit who has been running mining operations and sundry enterprises around Tajikistan for the last eight years. We spent the afternoon drinking beer by the river and an appallingly cold evening preparing fish and chips, which were greasy and effective.
About the Kamarob little should be said. Low volume. 100 ft/ mi. It was continuous and shallow but too small to be painful. The first highlight was a quick stop to buy gift- honey from a bee keeper. The second was reaching the Sarbog confluence. We paddled the rest of the Sarbog and camped just above its mouth. The following day we got a ride with William back to Dushanbe. Triumphantly we feasted there and have continued in this manner since. In the course of our gluttony one day, Simon made the discovery that ice cream can be cheaply acquired by the kilo. Nothing will ever be the same.
Mr and Mrs. Kara Weld at Immersion Research came through in the biggest of ways and have DHL’ed us an emergency drytop and warm layers to replace those that had bitten the bountiful Tajik dust. Now Middy can go to the Pamirs, and we have fresh Tajik visas. We await only re- reregistration and permits for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. As soon as these come through, we’ll head east to paddle the fabled rivers that surge through the colossal canyons at the roof of the world.
