Filed April 28 by Kyle Dickman
Photographs by Adam Mills Elliott
It's been a phenomenal week of kayaking for the Epicocity crew on southwest China's Salween River. Himalayan snowmelt left the Salween swollen with rapids that were the biggest and most exciting we've paddled over the past two months.
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Text by Rivers in Demand teammate Kyle Dickman
A year from now, it will be impossible to repeat the eight-day rafting trip we just completed down the Great Bend of the Yangtze. This 120-mile section of the Yangtze, like many of China's rivers, will be dammed in 2009. It was amazing to experience this world-class stretch of whitewater before it changes forever.
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Photograph by Adam Mills Elliott
Loaded up with kayaks and filming equipment, the Rivers in Demand crew began making the overland journey across China this week en route to the Tibetan Plateau for the first part of their ambitious new expedition. Today (March 14) Trip Jennings (one of our 2007 Adventurers of the Year) and his teammates will begin a first descent attempt of the upper Salween, the last unexplored section of whitewater draining the Tibetan Plateau.
On its upper reaches, the crew expects to encounter severe Class V rapids with dangerous levels of commitment and exposure. The glacier-fed Salween cascades down from some of the highest mountains in the world, frothing through profound slot canyons, guarded by underwater boulders, torrential rapids, and waterfalls.
The last free-flowing major river in South Asia, the Salween flows between Myanmar and Thailand to the South China Sea, but controversial plans exist to build a Chinese-funded hydroelectric dam on its lower stretches. The group hopes to draw attention to the consequences that this development would have on the millions of people who depend on the river.
If all goes according to plan, the crew will drop in on the Salween today at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet (3,353 meters). Keep tabs on the their progress at china.riversindemand.com. The site features a bit of context for the Rivers in Demand project, along with regular audio and text reports from the crew as they descend through Tibet and China. We’ll keep you posted as they move on to the Great Bend in the Yangtze and the middle Salween.
--Lucas Pollock
Photograph by Travis Winn, taken on a 2007 scouting trip of the Salween
If you haven’t yet taken a rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, no doubt you want to before your days are done. In our national parks cover story last year, Contributing Editor Dan Duane wrote:
“To run the Grand Canyon on your own is one of the world's genuine once-in-a-lifetime trips, a voyage that's not only the best in our national parks—by a long mile—but also on par with walking the Inca Trail, trekking to Everest Base Camp, motorcycling across the Sahara, and sailing the South Pacific.”
On Wednesday (March 5), federal flood control managers released millions of cubic feet of water from Glen Canyon Dam to help restore the Big Ditch's sandy beaches and pools for endangered species and campers. But, as reported by the L.A. Times, some are skeptical that this 60-hour surge, which will be followed by smaller flows this fall, is the right strategy:
“National park officials said that 10 years of research at a cost of $80 million ha[s] shown that the flooding as planned could irreparably harm the national park's ecology and resources.”
We asked the Grand Canyon rafting experts at O.A.R.S. to weigh in on the debate. Here president and founder George Wendt and veteran river guide Michael Ghiglieri put the issue into context for adventure travelers. More >>
Photograph by Contributing Photographer Corey Rich
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