Kiss The Guns
Turkey June 2009
On a Saturday morning at the beginning of June members of Southend Canoe Club and York Canoe Club with their kayaks over one shoulder, paddling gear over the other, paddles in one hand, passport and airline ticket it the other hand invaded a bewildered Stansted airport.
Why?
It started on the dark, wet banks of numerous UK rivers during winter months of paddling and a few emails, talking about a summer expedition to warmer climes but where? Done the Alps to death so that’s how ended up heading to the Courh river and it’s tributaries in the North East of Turkey. The reason for choosing this river was two fold, firstly for use to join the handful of kayakers globally who have paddled this area before the planned construction of a hydro-electric dam at Artvin floods the valley and the white water rivers of this area are lost to all. Secondly we wished to meet the people of the town of Yusufeli, whose homes, businesses and community will be lost forever as the waters of the lake behind the dam rise after its completion. (Yusufeli being one of the 18 towns, villages, arable land and wildlife to be lost under the flood waters with the displacement of approximately 15, 000 people).
So after an over night stop and a day in Istanbul we found ourselves at the end of our second flight in 2 days in the late evening, all hoping that our “fixer” Birol (whom we’d only had a brief email correspondence with before we departed) had arranged transport from the airport at Ezrum to his campsite in Yusufeli. Through baggage claim, where our 6 kayaks, 6 paddles and 6 large bags had arrived, luck? To be greeted by an empty arrivals hall! Tired and despondent at the prospect of finding enough taxis in an un-familiar town to get us and our over sized cargo the 3 hour (minimum) drive to our final destination in the hours approaching midnight we stepped out into the cool mountain night air to be greeted by our driver and 2 of his mates – relief was an understatement!
In a little under 3 hours of being cramped in a minibus with all of our kit (kayaks included), us and our 3 drivers we were introduced to our host / fixer / chauffer / river guide – Birol, his Greenpiece camping establishment and a welcome cup of Turkish tea (for tea read beer). We woke early after only a few hours sleep, excitement or anticipation as to what we were to find? So following a breakfast of locally produce, bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, honey (we were to see many bee hives lining the banks of the rivers we paddled and roads we travelled) and tea – lots of tea, we loaded Birol’s van and set of for our first river…….
At Birol’s suggestion we joined that mornings 9km raft trip on the Coruh as safety boaters, in reality (as we discover when we got off) this suggestion was to allow Birol to look at our skill level, for our safety or Birol’s reputation? How did we know we were good enough? Birol commented “all rivers here OK for all of you”. After a short drive back to the Greenpiece campsite we lunched on the fresh produce from Birol’s garden followed by a blast down our second river of the day – the Barhal, an 18km steep fast flowing river. This run saw the first swim of the week, the resultant of which was 1km boat chase for some, a cut and bruised eye (inclusive of 4 stitches) for the swimmer and a boat + kit + swimmer extraction from the river to the road for collection by our host. The remaining 5 of us reached the egress at our campsite in a little under 2 hours from leaving Pete.
The second day we hit the river Tortum, a classic steep Alpine style river. The river flows from a lake formed by an ancient landslide, geologists are still debating to this day exactly when the event occurred, some estimate that it was in the mid 1600’s whilst others push the date back to the Quaternary period, 1.6 million years ago. The river exits the lake falling over a forty eight meter waterfall prior to flowing through a steep sided gorge providing a waterfall kayaking run for the seriously adventurous. The team put on at the point the river exited the gorge, with a fitting backdrop to this rivers turbulent water exiting the 200 meter high vertical gorge walls we set off down stream at an alarming pace, a pace that was not to relent until we were flushed into the river Oltu some 10km later. The second swim of the trip saw the swimmer rescued quickly but the boat pinned in the middle of this fast steep chaotic white water. After an hour in the heat of the midday sun trying every rescue technique in the rescue manuals the pinned kayak was reunited with its owner.
Flowing into the river Oltu was a shock to the senses as we passed from the clear crisp waters of the Tortum into the thick brown silt laden maelstrom of the Oltu, where due to the lack of contrasting colours of the water made reading the features impossible, that is until the last second before you dropped in to the masked feature. Two thirds of the way down we were ordered off of the river by the police, their reasoning was that the river was in spate and that we were in danger, we looked at our fixer who said “we get off, but when they have gone keep going!”, so keep going we did until Birol indicated it was time to stop a few more km down stream. This egress point has to be the best place on any of the rivers I have paddled around the world to get off, with a kebab restaurant directly above us. Lunch consisted of the best kebabs ever tasted washed down with copious amounts hot sweet Turkish tea.
Our third river day was elected to be the “big one” the Yusufeli gorge section of the river Coruh. We’d inspected this 9km section of river the previous day on the drive out to the Tortum from the road which follows the course of the river albeit some 30 meters above the water line. It looked big from the road, very big. This section of the Coruh offers the kayaker 9km of steep big volume technical grade 4 white water. Five of the team put on at our campsite and paddled the last few km of the Barhal through town to the confluence with the Coruh. A slight miscalculation saw Steve swimming into town, not the place to swim but it provided the locals with some entertainment, for the rest of us a boat and kit chase. All reunited at the far end of town and back on the water we entered the Coruh’s warmer waters and headed for the gorge.
We had previously chosen to get out and inspect the larger rapids on this run whilst inspecting the rest of the river from our boats. It was at this first inspection the team running the gorge was down to three with the other two joining Pete in the comfort of Birol’s dilapidated go anywhere Mazda van. The following three hours and 9km were spent inspecting and paddling for ones life to make the “must make moves”. One move a couple of km into the gorge not made resulted in me slamming into one of the largest holes on a river I have seen, as stated earlier the river features were big when viewed from the road, from a boat they were huge. The outcome was not good and a swim ensued, if a swim in the turbulent waters was bad enough the second hole I was staring at and entered out of my boat was not going to be fun – it wasn’t. Sitting on the bank feeling like I’d just been put through the spin cycle of a washing machine collecting my thoughts on the rapids yet to come kicked me back to life so with boat emptied and spray deck on I was once again on the water in the thick of it. At the inspection of the final rapid, a series of diagonal waves to negotiate which would either push the kayaker into one of the numerous pour over stoppers or under the over hanging wall on the right hand river bank with all options looking terminal from the road if you didn’t make the thin line through. It was at this point I conceded defeat, being both physically and mentally spent. I joined the motley assembled misfits in the van leaving the last two to finish the river, which they did with style. Back to camping Greenpiece, dinner and off the water stories of daring do and a few beers.
An earlier than normal start had the team once again in Birol’s scrap yard Mazda van, suffice to say when it rained you got wet inside but that’s OK as it drained out the floor as quickly as it comes in through the roof. This day’s mission was to drive up the Coruh valley until we were unable to bear the heat inside the metal box on wheels and then drive some more before getting on for what was to be 45km of descending a world class white water classic run surrounded by outstanding views of multicoloured rock faces and ancient castles perched on rocky outcrops.
The first rapid of the day of any note is aptly named “Perfect Portage”, only Mike made an aborted attempt, after missing the line at the top of the rapid and rolling out of one hole, narrowly escaping the jaws of a terminal stopper by scrabbling into a micro eddy on the opposite bank to the rest of the team and a hard scramble up the bank to portage the last of this rapid. The rest of us decided to float down a conveniently man made irrigation channel which runs parallel with the river. A short climb down the bank saw us back on the river.
The second portage saw Mike come face to face (or face to knee) with an angry poisonous looking snake as we hauled boats up the bank before the five hundred meter carry round this section. We could all see the line down this rapid and we could all see that the whole river poured into one big, big, very big almost river wide hole, walking was the only option open to us. After 40km Steve took a couple of swims in quick succession through mistakes brought on by tiredness, so after another 5km when the road rejoined we flagged down Birol and called it a day returning to the campsite through mud slides and rivers now flowing across the roads, the results from a localised storm that we’d missed all but a few drops of rain.
Our penultimate evening discussion turned to what we would kayak on our final day. Eventually we chose a second run down the Tortum into the Oltu and out onto the Coruh for the large wave trains after the confluence. A second run down the Tortum and into the now swollen even more silt laden Oltu due to the previous evening’s storm did not disappoint. The colour of the Oltu being likened to the chocolate river in Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonkers Chocolate factory or by others just a plan old cup of tea!
As with the previous run down Oltu there was no white water as such just brown featureless water that you could taste as the silt ladened water splashed into your face which also caused more serious problems for those in the team who wear contact lenses, for the rest of us we just struggled to hold onto the paddle shaft as the silt caused the paddles to slip in your hand.
After a prolonged lunch stop at the kebab restaurant due to a thunder storm directly overhead (not a good idea to be on water waving carbon paddles around in an electrical storm) we flowed from the Oltu into Cohuh for the final 5km fun ride down the big sets of wave trains. Off the river thanks were exchanged with all those we’d paddled with and our host Birol. With boats tied on to the old Mazda we climbed in for the last time to returned to the campsite for tea, dinner and beer (too much beer) with kayaking legend Dave Mamby (Dudh Kosi – Descent of Everest in 1976).
At 5am the following morning (not yet hungover) we departed Birol’s hospitality and set out (once again all crammed into a van with the boats and still wet kit) on our journey home. After twenty one hours of travelling I walked through my front door and collapsed exhausted but contented. As for the people of Yusufeli? They are optimistic about the future of their town and that of the dam project. Today this small vibrant town is a hub amongst the surrounding subsistence farms and businesses with the residence going about their daily business of work, school and play cheerfully.
Big thanks to Lee Emmett for driving us to and from the airport.
Paddlers
Becky, Mike, Pete, Indy, Steve and Richard.
Photographic credits: - Ian Jones, Steve Lister, Richard Moore Written by Richard Moore and Ian Jones