One of my friends, Martin, asked if I was ready to take a trip to ZeYa? I complained that it hasn’t rained much and there may not be any water but he replied that people always go there in June and July for rafting. We called Angel and asked if she would be our Shuttle Bunny (she’s the only one with a car and loves to kayak too now!)? She said sure! Oh yeah and we had Martin’s pooch with us. Always nice to have our canine companion with us at the river.
I had seen ZeYa last October when there was no water. A hiking club had lead a trip there and we’d hiked up the dry river bed and my imagination had been soaring picturing the rapid; holes, boof rocks, waterfalls… oh it looked great. We strapped my Huck to the top of Angel’s car and hit the road. We only took one boat, no way was I letting them on what I expected to be a fairly advanced river.
Martin and Angel both tried out throwing the ropes again by the road before I put on. They’re ready if I need them. They wore my extra PFDs and carried two throw ropes. We decided to scout roadside from the car first. What had been a deep lake behind a very tall dam in October was now a large pond. Angel said she read in mid June the government had ordered all of the dams to begin releasing in preparation for the summer rains (aka: Typhoons, Wenzhou had 3 in September and October when I first moved here, sweet). Under that lake was hidden some great whitewater! All Class II and III- fun stuff! Upstream, where I had hiked before… *cringe* Class III+ and IV. Some may have been Class V but I’m not experienced enough to read it, check’em out for yourself…
Without skilled paddling buddies I decided not to run the really scary stuff. I put on in a spot where I felt confident. It has been a year since I’ve been on real whitewater and this first rapid drops 10-12 feet in about 35 yards. I know, I’ve that’s nothing but a year off the water, it was plenty of solid excitement! I estimate it to be Class II - no way to avoid the drops without portaging, continuous rapids with small holes, nothing I thought would keep me.
Though we had scouted much of the river from the road above, we couldn’t see it all. The plan for Martin and Angel to hike along the bank with the throw ropes lasted about 20 minutes. The banks became walls as the valley changed into a gorge. My friends hiked out and back up to the road. With no one around, I took every precaution paddling alone. I took a throw bag, scouted everything and endured a frightening hike out; a narrow, slick, muddy trail with a drop over 40 feet straight down onto rocks.
Time to wrap this post up. There is a Typhoon coming tomorrow, I’m scared that lake is going to fill up again soon and I’ll be waiting till next summer to run Zeya again.
I can’t wait to hike down there and run this one:
The day left all of us with a great smile.
Here’s a link to all f the photos, but on a server here in China.
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