Video part 6: the Canyon
Video part 7: away from the boat
Video part 8: a tail of whitewater
Video part 9: new horizons
Video part 10: to Russian tundra
Video part 11: civilization
Day nineteen, 3 August. I had slept on the bank of a small river that mounds into the Indigirka. It was the best tent place so far, protected by the southern wind and with a floor made of hardened mud, as level as a concrete floor. I had a good view on the Porozhny Mountains in the south. Heading north I would soon pass a mountain with vertical strokes of yellow and red, probably caused by volcanic activity.
Heading to the east a loud rushing was noticeable. I went into a smaller river to the left. Rounding the small Island I could see to have escaped from a wild rushing section that pushed through a series of black coloured rocks, probably as sharp as what I had seen yesterday. It was a very good choice to move around it, and not much later the small river spitted me out, back into the Indigirka, on a fast jet stream. Loads of fun!
After a great tour along some high cliffs and playful white water, I entered the exit towards a broad valley. The wind rushed through the gorge, now from the north. During my lunch a weasel jumped frolicking over the round boulders on the riverbank. It jumped on my boat and came really close by. A series of shivers and then the river entered the broad valley. Far to the north I could vaguely see the Momskiy Range, an area the size of the Alps, with a centre of dark coloured peaks that overlooks the tundra in the north as granite guards.
Day twenty, 4 August. It took a whole day to cross the broad valley and reach the settlement of Konuu near the slopes of the Momskiy Mountainrange. I went into a stream where a motorboat came from, to find the settlement. I was interested in the village, especially in the white building on top of the nearby hill, which I thought to be a Buddhist monastery. I entered an even smaller creek to the right. There was nothing that even remotely referred to a village, except from a jeep that stood on the muddy shore. A motorboat came by. Passengers went out, walked along the shore and disappeared into the nearby forest. Where was the village? Should I walk into the forest? And what should I do with the kayak?
It was already late. I decided to leave the idea of human contact alone as quickly as possible, before a feeling loneliness would start chewing on my heart. Later on, the traitorous streams almost pushed me sideways over one of the many gravel banks. I approached some enormous round white tanks standing on the shore, probably used for the storage of fuel. Here I met a kind Asiatic man who was paid to guard the compound. I camped on a nearby gravel bank a little further downstream.
Day twenty-one, 5 August. Another long day, paddling along the western Buorsysy elevation and along steep cliffs at the right for about thirty kilometres. I tried to catch a Taimen, a subspecies of trout that can grow to a staggering two meters, but everything remained quiet. Meanwhile the wind had picked up severely. Only with fierce paddling I managed to cover a meagre 40 kilometres, which was enough to reach the flanks of a foothill of the Momskiy Range. I decided to go up here the next day.
Day twenty-two, 6 August. The boat and the supplies were left in the forest, high up the riverbank. I choose to walk over the riverbed that would go all the way east into the mountains. However, the riverbed was just part of the Indigirka, so I went to find a smaller valley to the left. I went trough the forest, wriggled myself through a dense row of willows and reached a little stream. There were fresh bear prints in the muddy shore. Doubts arouse whether to continue but the grassy slope I had seen from a distance was only a few hundreds meters away.
I reached a valley to walk along a small stream for a while and went up the grassy slope. After several kilometres progress was hindered by a deep crevasse forcing me to go back to the little stream again. I continued for about one kilometer to pitch the tent, making a smokey fire with against the bears.
Day twenty-three, 7 August. After two kilometres I found a slope that would lead all the way up to the upper regions. It took about two hours to reach the highest ridge. Meanwhile I had been walking over a path that was in use by animals that didn’t show up. In the east a hill blocked my view on the central part of the mountains.
I went down to drink water in a cold mossy stream surrounded by birch bushes and up again to the hill in the east, where I put up my tent. The view was great but the spot was terrible, a layer of small sharp stones with no grip for the pegs. Late in the evening I went up the highest point to make some pictures and to absorb the surroundings.
Bear tracks
Day twenty-four, 8 August. Today I had to get back to the boat. I went down through low mountain spruce, to reach the narrow valley more upstream than where I left it. I walked for many hours and passed my camp fire of two days ago, meanwhile yelling my throat out to warn the bears. I was surprised to find a bush loaded with large black berries, which I stowed in an empty water bottle. Why had a bear not found the bush? Was he saving the berries for later? Late in the evening I reached the kayak and supplies and found a good camping spot in the forest, near the river.
Day twenty-five, 9 August. When I woke up a wind rushed over the treetops. Carefully I listened how the next breeze came down the slopes. Again, it came from the north – east. For three days in a row, the head wind had made me lag behind on schedule, while paddling like a madman for nine hours a day. Reaching the end of my journey, it would be increasingly harder to make up arrears. I started to worry.
Alternative plans crossed my mind. Should I wait one day for the wind to drop? What if tomorrow didn’t bring any change? I decided to leave the forest and give it a try. Packing the kayak at the riverside I spotted tracks of a bear and cubs, which were not there yesterday. I hasted to the waterproof food bags that lay hidden on the riverbank. They were still there, untouched! Without the calories I would certainly not reach my destination in time, a small town named Belaya-Gora, with the only landing strip in a vast area of tundra, forests and lakes near the Arctic Ocean. Missing the flight would cause a chain of missed flights to Amsterdam. A costly scenario, added with the hard-talk from my manager.
Moving along the western cliffs over the wind swept water, I had to hold the paddles with a fierce grip.The sun was shining continuously. Late that day I choose a small stream to the left to find a large gravel bank, protected from the wind by the high trees that stood on the other side of the river. In the west there was a dark ash coloured cliff with white, vertical patterns. I fixed the tent to big, round rocks, and sticks that could be found on the riverbank. I looked back at a productive day covering seventy-five kilometres.
A sunbeam continues
Day twenty-six, 10 August. The next day the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees Celsius. A snowflake passed by in the cold wind. Where the river approached the cliff the gale force gusts and steep waves almost made me capsize. The river added to the main stream, gained speed and led along another series of cliffs. The river went into the remains of the Momskiy Mountains in two large loops.
The rescue agency in Yakutsk told that in the most northern bend there were the remains of a village build by a small group of Kozachs in the year 1700. The settlers were likely part of the expeditions sent out by Ivan The Terrible to conquer Siberia from the Yakut and Evenk peoples. I imagined the Kozachs travelling from the south with primitive means, all the way to this remote region in the north – east of Siberia. However, great misfortune came upon them as every single one of them died from a transmittable disease.
I reached the settlement late in the afternoon. Only expecting some forgotten remains, I was surprised to see the efforts made to memorise the tragic history. Memory plates in Cyrillic, the earliest dating from 1950, wooden poles with Asiatic faces carved into them, their bodies decorated by cigarettes and coloured ribbons. I was touched by the combined effort of Europeans and indigenous Asians to commemorate the loss of lives. I camped a few steps away from a tiny wooden church, which was just large enough to stand upright inside.
Spook on the steep riverside
Day twenty-seven, 11 August. Around mid day the river left the Momskiy Range behind. The wind had vanished, and in the clear sky the light between the clouds sharply reflected on the water. Drifting away from the last outstanding hills I completely lost my sense of orientation. By now I had entered the enormous lowlands of the Russian tundra. With no clue where I was on the map, wise navigation over the meandering streams, dividing and converging continuously, was almost impossible. After a long gaze at the map I discovered to have made much more progress then expected. In good mood I found a marvellous tent place behind a sand dune.
Day twenty-eight, 12 August. The water level just tipped the backside of the tent, when I pulled the last peg from the muddy sand. In the pouring rain I navigated through another network of creeks, carefully manoeuvring along the stranded dead trees with their branches facing downstream. I spotted a radio antenna that reached above the tree – tops. A motorboat lay on the opposite shore. When I came closer to the boat a little boy ran to the beach followed by a group of ten people. They were kind and curious, and invited me to join them under a large roof supported with wooden poles. It turned out to be a family of Evenk and Yakut people living in the small town of Kebergene fifty kilometres downstream, spending their time fishing, hunting dear and picking berries. When I left, it took serious persuasion to prevent my kayak being stuffed with kilos of potatoes and cookies.
By the time the Indigirka converged to one single river again, it had slowed its pace, from a runner to an old man walking with a stick. I had to prepare for a long week of hard work to cover the last two hundred kilometres downstream. I decided to eat the sugared pancakes offered by the family and to sleep early. A motorboat passed by. It slowed down. Two men approached on land, introducing themselves as Stephan and Yura.
We had sort of a conversation, and then I made a mistake. There was some pure ethanol left that I used for burning my stove. I added some water and offered the alcohol in a little cup. ‘Can we have another one?’ Yura asked after a few minutes. ‘Yes, of course’. ‘Another one?’ ‘Ok, the last one’. ‘A little more?’ ‘No’. ‘Please? Please!’ ‘All right’. Now both were well – oiled, hanging half in my tent for three hours. I was pleased to see them walking to their boat again, but Stephan tripped over his right leg, fell on the ground and slept immediately. He rejected to be carried to the boat by wildly kicking with its legs. The rain came pouring down again.
Ice concrete
Day twenty-nine, 13 August. It seemed to take ages to round the first large bend to the left. A gray layer of clouds covered the impenetrable rows of willow and pine-trees, hindering the view on the snow capped Momskiy Range in the south. Oh boy was I tired. The whole night Yura had kept me awake by trying to have a conversation with me, and by persuading his loudly snoring friend to go home. Almost capsized because I fell asleep. Early in the afternoon I reached Kebergene, a pretty settlement of colourful wooden houses situated on a small hill.
On the high pebble shore I met a sturdy, Asiatic looking man, a wrestler, and the owner of a company that transports goods and people between Kebergene and Belaya-Gora. We had dinner at his home while negotiating about the price to get me there. Meanwhile, folks of different plumage entered the room, conversated briefly in Yakutic, and left through different doors. We would be off to Belaya-Gora at 18:00, and now I discovered my watch had not been adjusted to the time difference of 4 hours from the city of Yakutsk. Since my start at the Suntar I had been living 4 hours late.
It took five hours sitting at the back of a bumpy motorboat, packed in all the clothes I possessed, to reach Belaya-Gora in the pitch-dark. Just before we reached the shore, the rudder of the boat got stuck in the mud. Only with good team play and our pants off standing in the water, we managed to get the boat ashore.
I cheered loudly. By now I had become the first ever to paddle downstream the Indigirka River alone over a length of thousand kilometres. The next day I stared at a calm, broad river. A group of men were trying to pull a large vessel from the muddy shore. Meandering to the north, the Indigirka would enter uninterrupted tundra where the layer of unfrozen soil was too shallow for trees to grow, reach a coastal estuary after 800 kilometres, and mound into the Arctic Ocean. To get there it would take at least twenty days paddling through an uninspiring environment, facing snow and thickening ice. Another time, maybe. For now it was time to pack my stuff and prepare for the flight to Yakutsk. I was going home.
Dragon backbone
Map of the route, click to enlarge.
END OF PART 2
