Katun abnormal water

To take a rest from hard class 5 rivers all the kayakUSSR guides headed to Katun. It is a big volume river with 150 miles of class 3-4 whitewater. The run is interesting for both running the river and rodeo. That's why do at least two Katun rodeo tours every year.



To have even more fun me and Vasilii Porsev decided to go on a Topo-Duo. We had a lot of good times rolling, surfing and boofing this thing. When I started to paddle in tandem kayaks on a lake close to Moscow, I could not even imagine that things will go so far.


After running a lot of quality rapids on the long Katun run, we settled on the Dollar rapid for some freestyle.


I would also like to mention one of the most dangerous rapids on the Katun river - Tekdelpen. The thing is that when we started the run, there was a storm that caused the flood. Usually Tekdelpen is a narrow tunnel between canyon walls 80meters high. But now the whole canyon became underwater. Eddylines and whirlpools were huge. Vasilii caught an eddy, trying to set safety for the raft, but got sucked in by a whirlpool with his boat and spat out meters downstream.


Altay is Russian Jamaica. It is always good to be here. There's tons of waves, beer and women. We will definitely come back here few more times during this season.


Artyom Palvelev,
25-30 may 2009