Yangtze River Adventure

Continued

Dege

Dege isn't on the Yangtze, it is up a small tributary a few miles, so when we pulled over under a bridge across the Yangtze we didn't see a city, just a few out buildings and trucks ready to take us to town. The town sits astride the smaller river, with homes and sewers right on the river's edge. Ron and Paul had to try a kayak run in this new stream, and when they returned to our guest house they were more than glad to take a hot, soapy shower.

Dege is a bustling community, still high in the mountains, but with roads that usually remain open east to Chengdu and west to Lhasa. It was here that we heard we had not seen anything yet. Ahead lay the real white water. Impassable. The Chinese team skipped this section. That did it, if they skipped it, we were going to run it! We rested, walking around Dege, enjoying the good food provided by our Chinese hosts, a welcome change from the canned and packaged dinners of the previous two weeks. We visited the Buddhist monastery, watched preparations being made for the arrival of the Pachen Lama, due to arrive in a few days. The guest house we were in was getting full, with guests arriving expecting rooms previously booked, but taken by our team, arriving later than had been planned. We were able to rest a couple of days, however, and were anxious to get going again.

Upon leaving Dege we were back in single raft mode, and I was having a learning experience beyond any I had anticipated. Since the death of Dave Shippee I had been taking more photos, but that was hindered by my rowing a raft. Much of what we blasted through went unphotographed, either because I was too busy rowing, or if in the multi-boat rig, hanging on for dear life.

To the River of Doom

The filming slowed the trip as it would take hours to set up, film, stop the rafts, pick up the land based crew, and get going again. But the expedition had to be filmed since Mutual of Omaha had paid big bucks to have it appear on ABC's Spirit of Adventure. The first of the big efforts came when Paul radioed back that there was a large drop ahead and we should pull over to the China side if possible. We did, just in time. The hole would have given single rafts a bad time so all four were diamond-rigged together making a craft 36 feet long and 24 feet wide, controlled by two men on each outside oar and two steering off the stern.

It took three hours to lash the rafts so we had a late supper that night, camped on rocky ledges. The next morning I set off early with Dan Dominy and Paul Sharpe to set the cameras on a rock near the main hole. They each had a full sized 35mm camera. On the rafts were a couple of fixed movie cameras in waterproof housings, and the soundman, John Glascock had a handheld. He had also rigged microphones to record the passage. It was fun to watch and I wished I had been on board. The four boat rig disappeared twice from view, so large were the holes, but the size kept it steady and it emerged downstream, oarsmen yelling victory. Paul left his camera with me and went back to kayak the whitewater while Dan filmed. Paul disappeared a couple of times also, but mostly bobbed along on top, making it look easy. "A piece of pie," remarked Xu

Two hours later Dan and I caught up with the beached rafts. The day was getting long but it was felt that we could go a few more miles, or "K," as we had begun to measure it in kilometers. The river moved swiftly, and a bend blocked our view. Paul Sharpe radioed for us to pull over because there was no way we could raft what he was seeing. The canyon here was high, steep, and twisting. We couldn't walk out. Ken thought he spotted a way to make the run. The diamond rig was still in tact so we went for it, all big-eyed and hearts pounding. This is where the story began, with Chu and Zhang being swept overboard.

Normal whitewater is rated on a scale of difficulty from I to VI, but this monster water was off the scale according to Ken and Ron. How far off we had no inkling, "Try XII," Ron suggested afterwards. For over an hour we crashed forward, being tossed first up, then down, then left and right. The noise of the crashing water and the groaning rafts made it hard to hear even a yell, like being in a train tunnel with the train bearing down. And on it went, we had rafts full of water, but finally were able to pull ashore at a sandy beach with a cleft in the rocks that looked like it held a trail. We figured this was it, no more for the day, and made camp.

Continued