By Anton Sveshnikov

Photos:
Anton Sveshnikov,
Mike Krytyansky
and Ivan Kozlachkov

Thanks
I want to express my thanks to all our team, to our driver Amber, to Callum Strong, Joe Rea-Dickins and James Edwars Smith for sharing the information about the rivers and to Ian Vincent and all his family for their hospitality.

If you were a good pupil in school, you’ve probably heard about Meghalaya, a state in the north east of India and the wettest place on the planet. Yet even if you skipped geography lessons, but have been following the news from the paddling community closely for the last couple of years, you might have heard about this place as a new paradise for whitewater kayaking.

Kayaking in the wettest place on Earth… Meghalaya

I spend a lot of time in India running commercial kayaking and trekking trips in the north west, Himalayas and consequently, just fell in love with this incredible country with its smiling people. I have dreamt about Meghalaya since I visited India for the first time.

The team

In October 2017, Russian friends of mine from the WW-School team: Ivan Kozlachkov, Sergey Ilin, Mike Krutyansky, Oleg Golovkin, Nikolay Kobzarev and myself, found ourselves in the middle of the Meghalayan plateau. Our plan was simple: paddle as hard as we can, enjoy the place and try to find rivers for first descents.

Meghalayan rivers are very special. At the northern edge of the plateau, you can find pure clean bedrock drops in wide valleys. At the top of the plateau there are some awesome waterfalls but they only good to go in the monsoon season or during heavy rain. South of the plateau offers deep gorges, pure jungles, a mix of boulder gardens and bedrock drops.

The Kopili

We started our trip from the north where the Umtrew and Khri-Bah rivers were great day runs. Both rivers have incredible warm water and class IV-V rapids with nice short pools in between. Our next river after that was the Kopili, which to be more exact, is located in Assam, a neighbouring state, but still on the Meghalayan plateau. In any case, the Kopili is one of the best reasons to travel to this region and one of our favourite rivers in the world.

The paddling section is only 26 kilometres with nice (Indian ‘nice’) road access to put in and take out, rapids are perfect bedrock drops, with pools in between, which are not overly long or boring. Normal flow is around 100 cms and our friend and Meghalayan river expert Callum Strond told me the Kopili was never too high.

The first run took us two days as we scouted a lot, didn’t rush and spent a night in a beautiful camp in the middle of the section. Rapids were huge and scary, but we realized they were very safe. Due to the bed rock nature of the river, there were no siphons and undercuts, but warm pools after each rapid. Kopili is probably the most safest class V run in the world. Our next run took just four hours.

Our third run of Kopili happened after a heavy storm. Two days of rainfall in the wettest place on Earth brought significant difference in water levels in every river. It was around 500 cms in Kopili and that run was a blast: huge features, mystery moves by creek boats, tricky lines and tons of fun. Looks like Callum was right: the Kopili is never too high.

We had very limited choice of rivers because of the storm. We decided to go to small creek Rymbai at the top of plateau. It was nice short run with clean slides and few waterfalls. A tricky combo of 12-metre high waterfalls and two steep shallow slides were waiting for the brave kayakers below the standard take out. Only Sergey Ilin was brave enough to play with this monster.

After Rimbai Sergey, Ivan and Oleg went back home, we (Mike, Nikolay and myself) decided to explore the southern edge of the plateau. Rivers there are completely different: it is mostly multi-day runs in deep inaccessible gorges. First off, we went to Umrew. Callum told us it was a four-hour hike to the put-in, but we found local porters and they showed us a short cut to the river. So, we reached the river in 30 minutes and found ourselves 2,5 kilometres above the standard put-in. Only then we realised we had made a mistake: the Umrew was totally unrunnable there. We spent the next one and a half days portaging our boats to the standard put-in. Mostly it was more like bouldering with kayaks.

Below this portagefest, the Umrew was a nice creek with crystal clean water in a beautiful endless gorge. There was still some portaging, but it was much easier than our first day.

First descent

The next river to the Umrew is the Umiam, we completed its first descent. Again, the porters took us on a shortcut but unfortunately we reached the river just below the most interesting section and all we got was a class III (IV) relaxed run.
A couple of words about the local people. Meghalaya is a land of tribes, with Khasi, Garo and Jaintia being the biggest ones. Each tribe has its own language but all of them are Christians. The average height of a Khasi man is 150 cm but I have never seen such tough people. Khasi porters were able to run trough the jungle with my kayak on his neck, making the Meghalayan people look tougher than the famous Sherpas.

The Wah Blei and Kynshi

The highlight of our trip was the Wah Blei and Kynshi expeditions – the longest runs in the region. Wah Blei had it all: perfect whitewater and terrible slaloms between nasty siphons, high clean slides and long hot portages, combined with boring flat sections and steep continuous rapids. Soon we reached the confluence with the Kynshi.

Kynshi is an iconic brand of Meghalaya. It has the same character as the Kopili (pool-drop big volume), but the rapids there are harder and much more dangerous. It was crucial to catch the right water level on the Kinshi to avoid another portagefest and during our run, the river was juicy. We enjoyed the rapids, few portages (yes, after the Umrew and Wah Blei, it was easy walks), stunning bedrock gorges and the incredible sunsets.

What can I say about Meghalaya after our trip? Rivers there are unique for South Asia. The place itself is the most exotic I have ever been. Travelling there is rather tricky due to poor infrastructure and lack of information but it was true adventure and I definitely would love to go back to Meghalaya.