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Rich,
Frazer, AdrianStep 1: Buy the 'White Water Nepal' guide. It's packed with useful info about trip planning, logistics and cultural hints. The actual river info is generally excellent as well, just take off half a grade and ignore the word 'continuous' on anything that's rafted commercially. Treat the sketch maps as sketches, particularly the Sun Kosi one.
The biggest problem with paddling in Nepal is getting your kit too and from the country. Getting an airline to agree to fly your boats is tricky and difficult (well done Adrian). Flying back isn't too bad, you just bribe the baggage handlers at Kathmandu whilst someone else distracts the clerk. We flew with Bangladesh airlines (Biman), which seem to be the cheapest guaranteed method. Addendum : Since 1993 we have heard of several groups who have been worked over by Biman, losing their boats in the process. Sounds like they aren't such a good bet anymore.
Aeroflot are cheaper but can't assure you the boats will fit on the plane whilst Pakistan Airlines (PIA) are more expensive and charge extra for boats. Our flights, including a note mentioning the boats (which is all you really need) cost 500 pounds, people we spoke to on the same flight paid as little as 360 pounds for late bookings. Aeroflot regular flights cost around 440 pounds with no extra charge for kayaks as far as we could gather. We had about 50kg of gear each but lack of large scales and large hand luggage gets you away with a 23kg allowance. Note: Take diving knives out of hand luggage before trying to go through the baggage check.
To help reduce problems you can cut out a lot of the crap that you usually have to carry on a trip. The water is warm, so a wet-suit or buffalo gear is useless, we paddled in shorts and thermal top or t-shirt under a dry-cag. All spare clothes can be bought very cheaply in Kathmandu, so you don't need any. 2/3 season sleeping bag is fine (you could also buy this). Billies and even stoves can be bought on the spot. Petrol stoves block very quickly anyway due to leaded petrol.
Modi Khola:
Typical boulders
on the Modi Khola
We got on at Birethanti and paddled down to the confluence with the Kali Gandaki in 4 hours. This was a tight grade 4 river that full boats made very entertaining. The first few rapids were `Oh my God' sort of country. Learning to control a heavy boat took a while and this really wasn't the place to do it. We portaged the guides `photogenic ledge' but ran everything else blind from there down. The guide is accurate on this section and we were assured the upper stretches were just as good so it's probably worth getting some porters and walking upstream as the guide recommends.
Kali Gandaki:
We paddled from the confluence to Ramdi in two and a half days, (4 days Pokhara-Pokhara). This is much bigger volume, getting on for 100 cumecs. We thought this entire run was grade 3, with long flat grade 1/2 sections. All the rafted sections in the guide are overgraded by between 1/2 to 2/3 of a grade (i.e. for 4- read 3, 4+ read 4-) with long (sometimes huge) flat stretches in between all rapids (i.e. continuous means less than 1km between rapids). The biggest rapids on this section could be run sideways on a double lilo. You did need to avoid some major holes though, so maybe paddling it blindfold wouldn't be such a good idea.
Marsyandi:
We hired porters in Besishahar to take us up to Ngadi. Arriving at midday we put on late and paddled down to Bhulbhule through some (what I thought was) continuous hairy 4+ water. After stopping for the night we paddled out to Bimalnagar, about 50km downstream. After Besishahar the river is noticeably easier with longish gaps between rapids. Below the rafting get on at Bhoteodar the river eases to grade 3 with the occasional 4- rapid. We again ran this whole section (apart from the very first drop in Ngadi) blind. Definitely walk in on this river, you'd be missing all the fun stuff if you put on at Besishahar.
Bhote Kosi: On a theme of trying anything once we bummed a raft trip off Dave Allardice, joining a Bhote Kosi trip as `kayak support'. Paddling the km95 section was great fun as we had empty boats and could really play about. This section is quite a challenge in a 5m raft as it was twisty in a kayak. Watching the rafts really upped our opinion of how good a rafter can be. This section would be a really good warm up for a Nepal trip as the road is always nearby and you can run it with light boats (leaving kit at the bottom if you don't have a raft team). The guide to this section is pretty accurate.
Tamba Kosi: 
4%, 80cumecs, 2km of grade 5 with two 5+ sections in the middle, no portages for Rich bar one chicken shoot. Engaging water. We all thought this was definitely a grade 5 section. 2 and 1/2 days but we filmed the descent, reckon on 2 days without filming. Many inspections and several portages if you're not on form. We heard of 2 written off boats on this section out of the 10 people we know paddled it this year.
Sun Kosi: Boring as hell, get me off this lake as fast as possible. Worth considering the 2 day paddle upstream to take out rather than paddling downstream. Should be graded 2(5), you could walk around the 10ish grade 3 and above rapids easily. Only one grade 5 rapid (No Quiche, made worse by the last monsoon) and you could still run that easily if you bothered to look at it first. Rich swam out of a hole on it that held a 20ft oar rig for 5 minutes a week earlier. Note: The map for this section is complete garbage. Get another in Kathmandu and still don't trust it.
Tamur: Excellent wind down, grade 4 eddyhopping. Only the bottom bit is worth running, it's pretty flat until the last footbridge. We ran the section from Mulghat to the confluence with the Sun Kosi in 3 hours. It would be possible to make Dharan-Dharan in a day and paddle this fun section in empty boats. We ran this at about 80cumecs, more would have been fun but wouldn't have created any real problems.
In total 461km of white water, 1 swim (Rich), no epics.
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Modi Khola | 4 |
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Kali Gandaki | 3 |
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Marsyandi | 4+ (above Bhulbhule) easing to 4 |
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Bhote Kosi | 3/4 |
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Tamba Kosi | 5 |
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Sun Kosi | 2(5) |
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Tamur | 4 |
Total cost: 850 pounds each, of which 500 flight, 70 film, 50 insurance.
For more info, or if you know anyone who might want to go to Nepal (we can place them on a
raft trip either as a kayaker or a rafter) e-mail: F.R.Pearce@durham.ac.uk
