Notes From the Underground

Incoming Wire...

while many suffer here in the drought stricken south, one man rejects this and takes it upon himself to rise above this condition of boredom. Here is his story:

Successful expedition to the Himilayas.
I left the states in early Oct. and headed to India. The US team got together in Dheli where we hired an opium addicted alcoholic driver to pilot our van. The teams main mission was to paddle the 5 sacred tributaries that make the Ganga or Ganges River. After a 2 week session on the Tons, Supin and Yamuna, as well as a couple of broken boats, class V first descents, no white people, no beer, very little English, and the first westerners to enter a village or two. We decided it was time to head to Rishikesh for a new driver, a couple rest days, and a replacement for the broken boats.
Then it was off up the Alakananda and the Mandanakini for a couple more weeks of paddling, seeking out the goods, visiting some sacred places, and living large T.J. style in the Himilayas. The last two drainages turned out to be the highlight of the trip. Easy access, tons of different runs, one or two possible first d's and lots of action both on the river and off. We also grabbed a couple days trekking in the Himilayas surrounded by 6000m peaks and working the legs a little. Than it was back to the rivers. On our last drainage of the trip, we ran into North Carolina's own JJ Sheapherd and his team of international boys. We hit it up together for a couple days before going on our own respective paths. We finished our planned expedition in 5 weeks, and decided it was time to wrap it up in India and make our way to Nepal.
Nepal is the shit. We left India took our 1st of many sketchy bus rides and crossed the boarder into Nepal early in the morning, only to find ourselves caught in the middle of a Maoist caused student protest due to a bombing that killed 25 people and stopped all east west travel. After 5 days isolated on the boarder the political groups reached an aggrement and travel was on. We made our way to Pokhara and the Annapurna Drainages. We linked up with some Scottish boys and lost a couple of our own, as we fired up 2 sweet runs out of Annapurna Sanctuary. Then it was off to Eastern Nepal, Kathmandu and a couple runs off of Everest. I'll do another update with pictures and some river descriptions later in the month. Now its off to the rocky mtns for powder season and a bit of work.Cheers, Stan #43 On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:14:25 -0500