a Caucasian ww classic

Story: Mike Krutyansky
Photos: Mikhail Burov

Sponsors:

NRS, Spade kayaks AkSu Paddles Whitewater.guide App wwschool.ru

A CAUCASIAN WW CLASSIC
Dagestan, Russia

Discovering new challenging whitewater rivers is what I have dreamt about during my whole kayaking career. That’s a special feeling when you put together many skills in different fields to reach your dream goal. The rivers we opened and paddled down while filming the #Dagestan_whitewater project required the best out of our physical shape and kayaking technique.

#Dagestan_whitewater project

It was there when I realized that all those training laps down the continuous Alpine sections, all those thousands of days of kayaking throughout all those years, brought me to a point when I could safely make the first descents of the Upper Kazikuchumskoe Koysu and the Lower Kara Koysu. The same goes for the rest of the team – we have constantly paddled challenging whitewater together for the last 15 years.

Tough history

Dagestan is a Russian province with a tough history. It covers a significant part of the Caucasus Mountains, and it borders Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Russian province of Chechnya. Geologically, mentally and even politically, it’s as far from central Russia as it could only be. Being in Dagestan feels more like being in other Asian countries like Tajikistan than in the rest of Russia.

Most of the people there are Muslims, 5% are Russian Orthodox, and it’s still possible to meet Persian jews up in the mountains. There are around 50 different languages spoken in Dagestan, and many don’t have much in common. The only common language here is Russian. The usual question locals asked us was, “What’s up there in Russia, guys?” Dagestan was also part of the USSR.

a war zone

During the last decade of the empire, the whitewater enthusiasts started coming there with inflatable catarafts to paddle the two major rivers – the Avarskoe Koysu and the Andiyskoe Koysu. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya became a war zone. The whole area around was wiped out of the map of the outdoor destinations for many years.

Whitewater paddlers returned to Chechnya and Dagestan only a couple of years ago, and the catarafters again started the new era. They’ve made numerous first descents recently, including the easier sections of the rivers we were heading to. Finally, the time has come for the kayakers.

The idea of a first descent mission in Dagestan came into my mind in 2017 for the first time. I’ve spent hours with all kinds of satellite maps and old data from the Soviet time’s whitewater explorers.

Covid

Back then, the idea sounded a bit crazy and dangerous considering all the war conflicts. But since then, the situation has constantly been improving. When the Covid hit, I had to stop my international journey and reconsider exploring the home country. In the fall of 2020, we visited the more ‘classic’ part of the Northern Caucasus and made two major first descents there. That’s when I finally decided to give another go to my Dagestan project. Finally, in 2021, I’ve got a green light from NRS, and a professional outdoor filmmaker Mikhail Burov was down for the movie project with us.

The team was Ilin Sergey, Lukin Alexey, Trifonov Artem and myself. At the last moment, Voskoboynikov Egor crossed the border from Georgia to join us after being locked up there for over a year. Because of the Covid restrictions and permit issues, only Russians were allowed on the trip. It’s exciting to witness how the process of making the first descents has changed in the last couple of decades.

drone benefits

On the one hand, fewer and fewer unexplored rivers are left every year for the obvious reasons. One has to go deeper to the inaccessible valleys and unsafe countries to find the new rivers. That’s why it feels more and more precious to discover easily accessible world-class whitewater. On the other hand, we are fortunate to use all the benefits modern drones give us. I was not only getting nice slow-mo high-quality air shots but also scouting the canyons fast and efficiently.

The upper canyons

The lower Kazikumuchskoe Koysu has been run before by the catarafts, so that’s where we warmed up. The water level was high, but the rapids turned out to be easier than described in their report. So we headed up the valley to the perfectly shaped upper canyons. The drone saved us hours and days of scouting. There were two unrunnable sections with no portage options, even if you stopped way in advance! But the canyons further upstream looked stout but possible.

There is one trick with drone scouts. From high above, you can easily find the siphons, blockages and 100% unrunnable sections. But when it looks ‘all good to go down the middle,’ it could be both straightforward and super pushy and steep. You don’t see the gradient from the drone, and you can’t fly low in the canyons because of the GPS loss, wind and other obstacles. We were finally ready to charge by combining the drone, the binocular, and the conventional way of scouting.

world-class five-star class V

Some stretches were a real commitment because of the vertical walls and non-stop continuous whitewater. After two days of discovering section by section, we were finally able to link the complete descent of the Upper Canyons. That’s hands down a world-class five-star class V continuous technical and super fun run! The cherry on top is just before the take out. It’s so far the cleanest and the nicest waterfall in the whole Caucasus! What a section!

The second discovery of this trip was the lower canyon of the Kara Koysu River. We’ve gathered that the groups before us found this canyon too hard to commit while scouting from the road. Well, we’ve got the drone. Two batteries, 30 minutes of flying, and we immediately knew it was good to go! This crazy beautiful, relatively wide canyon featured some nice and easy bedrock slides – so unusual and rare in the young Caucasus Mountains! But the most spectacular was the huge pushy steep landslide rapids. This medium-sized river had the perfect flow to make it one of the best and the most fun first descents we’ve ever made!

We’ve enjoyed both first descents so much that we couldn’t avoid making a couple more laps on these sections. They will definitely become class V classics of the Caucasus. More and more groups will start coming there. They have already started coming.