About 30 kilometers down stream from last chance cascade the gorges began closing in and the rapids became longer, more violent and the gap between them decreased. I was delighted to see that the horse trail proceeded to follow the river throughout much of the day offering a lifeline back to civilization should I need it. Nevertheless it rose so high along the ridges that it would take a full day of dangerous climbing up one of the many avalanches to reach it and then more than a week from there.

Occasionally I would pass tiny green islands in the otherwise barren and eroding valley walls that revealed the presence of farmers. One has to see the incredibly tough environments in which these people can survive to appreciate just how resourceful they are. Entire families survive off as little as one acre of relatively flat land surrounded by otherwise precipitous cliffs, steep rills and avalanches.

I navigated 3 x class V and 14 x class IV rapids throughout the day; most were caused by the frequent avalanches that littered the valley. At several points I was forced to paddle around bends in sheer sided canyons with no idea what lay down stream or weather there would be a place to stop should I encounter a dangerous section. I continued until last light each evening and then hoped to find a farmers settlement low enough in the valley to trek to, besides that the alternative was sleeping under a sheet of wet plastic.

On the fourth evening around 8.30pm I rounded a bend to see a farmer’s settlement that was only a 100m meter climb above the river. What appeared to be a 15 minute walk turned into a 90 minute saga as I made my way through a seemingly impenetrable maze of spiky shrubs and bushes. I was surprised to find it completely deserted and was forced to spend yet another night alone in the gorges yet it was a treat to have a fire and a dry abode.

The conditions were testing. Freezing winds whipped up the gorges every afternoon and caused my nose and lips to blister and peel. My fingers began to crack at the tips from being wet for too many hours per day then drying out quickly in the evenings and by body ached in the night. When the winds were up it was often too cold to stop paddling and get out of the kayak, forcing me to spend up to 8 hrs at a time in the boat. The leg cramps and back pain were at times almost unbearable yet preferable to hypothermia. Its one thing to paddle in weather conditions that would regularly reach freezing but when you add constant splashes of water and 30 knot winds to the situation it might as well be minus 15 degrees.

Going by map it appeared that I had successfully passed the steepest ravines. The map was wrong. The next morning I entered a long section of canyon that would not be traversable if necessary and did not see a single path or settlement all day. The rapids became more and more violent and at times were almost continuous.

If I swam I would have been lucky to get myself to the edge not to mention my kayak and the supplies that would be essential for getting out of the gorge. With evening temperatures dropping below freezing and without supplies one would be lucky to survive a week. The ravines were so steep that my GPS only worked occasionally and I doubted whether a chopper assisted rescue was possible in ravines that were many hundreds of meters deep and at times only 30 meters wide at the base, receiving unpredictable gale forced gusts of wind.