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We searched for a camp but there wasn't anywhere to pitch the tents. We navigated among the rocks, twisting through the cliffs. Kurt called, "Did you see that? I just saw a musk deer!"

We had been told the musk deer, famous for its scent glands, roamed these valleys, and even though it is illegal to hunt them, poachers have made sightings rare. Below a series of log bridges, we found enough small campsites to accommodate all of us. I chose a sandy alcove near the river, spread out all of my wet clothing and lay in the sun. Dave came over and sat down. It had been a long day and we had all been ready to camp long before we were able to stop. Dave began, "Back on that last big portage, you know that one where we had to line the boats through," he paused, "you didn't happen to pick up my tent poles by any chance..."

I stared in disbelief. Dave and Kurt had both been sleeping in Dave's small two-man tent. Paul, Andy, and I all had small one-man tents but Dave had been carrying the tent and Kurt the poles. "They were under my seat but must have fallen out somewhere," Kurt explained.

For the rest of the trip they would share a large bivy sack. "We are probably below the cold nights," I told Dave, but it didn't seem to cheer him up much.

"The next two days turned out to be the most difficult of the entire journey. Along the way our physical and mental endurance would be tested to the extreme...."

Our camp was very picturesque. Downstream, the steep, rock walls framed snow capped peaks above the river. The full moon that night illuminated our extraordinary surroundings. The group was eager to get on the river the next day. This section of the canyon was beautiful, but also quite committing. The magnitude of the gorge was a bit overwhelming. We had spent the previous day cowering at the bottom of this huge crevice; finding a spot flat enough to camp proved to be quite a challenge. How long the gorge would be this steep was unknown, but we were anxious to find out.

As we conducted the morning ritual of packing our gear into the boats, a group of 10 Nepalese wandered into our camp. It was difficult to say who was more surprised to see who. We had spotted a log bridging the river between two large rocks near our camp, but we found no other sign of a trail. These fellows took over our fire as we tried to communicate with them. They were from Dolphu and had walked three days to reach this point. More importantly, they had spent the night at the Langu's confluence with the Ruka Khola. A British mapping expedition led by John Tyson has attempted to climb Kanjiroba North via this drainage. They had walked up the Langu to reach it so this tributary was an important landmark for us and we were overjoyed to learn that we were close.

The whitewater down to the Ruka Khola was some of the best we had found thus far. The canyon was very narrow and we paddled through spectacular class IV rapids with a few class V's to keep things interesting. After only a few hours we reached the Ruka Khola and stopped to take note of our position. During the afternoon, I looked around and realized the river was much larger than before. Even though the area was very dry, each drainage was adding water to the Langu and the river was getting much more powerful. We made our way down through the big and increasingly pushy rapids eventually coming to an impressive horizon line. The pile of boulders that blocked the river rivaled any we had seen yet. From my altimeter I determined the river dropped 300 meters per kilometer in this short section. We camped at the top of this maelstrom and began carrying loads down the shore. I finally realized how heavy our boats had been as I leapt through the boulder field with the empty craft on my shoulder.

If you start in civilization and walk up the Langu, the last town you will pass before heading into unpopulated areas is Dolphu. This was the base for Rodney Jackson's Snow Leopard Research Project, conducted 10 years earlier, and we hoped to reach it by the end of the day. Although huge mountains still towered overhead, the valley was open compared to the previous few days, and we now had the option of walking out if catastrophe struck. Landslides were the major cause of the rapids and water surged in, around, and under huge rocks. Some of the biggest and most technical rapids we had encountered yet were in this section. As we moved downstream, we kept looking for a town high on the hillside which would signal our return to populated areas. We pushed ourselves further hoping to reach our latest goal. I had stopped with Kurt and Paul below a turbulent section to regroup when Dave pulled into the eddy with an uncharacteristically dour look on his face. "Andy broke his boat again," he said.

Around the corner was an impressive cantilever, log bridge. Campsites had been scarce, so we took this opportunity to stop for the day. It was Andy's birthday, but it had not been a good day for him. Paul had been secretly carrying a bottle of rum for this occasion and we drank it while Andy opened a card from his girlfriend that Dave delivered. The river was quite powerful at this point. Also, due to the nature of the rapids, there was water flowing under rocks in countless locations. Now, with two large cracks in his boat, Andy thought the chances of a patch failing at a bad time was too great to continue. He had paddled over 100 km with a broken boat, passing through remote and uncharted territory. We were now camped on a trail probably only a few days walk from our resupply. Andy had been pushing his luck for 10 days and decided to quit while he was ahead.

"Our definition of doable lines was constantly expanding...."

It was decided that Andy would walk to Dolphu where he could get help carrying his gear. From there he would walk to Gumgari where D.B would be waiting with our food resupply. The remainder of the group would continue down the river by kayak. We only had a few days of food left, so we would kayak until it ran out and then hoof it down to meet Andy.

The next two days turned out to be the most difficult of the entire journey. Our physical and mental endurance would be tested to the extreme. The river was in the process of dropping out of sight and, as a result, we began encountering continuous whitewater with large sieves dispersed in between. The day we left Andy we encountered some beautiful class IV and V whitewater, and some horrendous portages. The steep riverbanks were composed of large, loose boulders making it difficult to determine if it was more dangerous to kayak the river or carry our still heavy boats through the shifting rocks that threatened to crush us. At the end of the day we collapsed on a sandy beach, exhausted from physical and mental fatigue.

In the morning we arose to find everything soaked by a heavy dew. Sleeping in the sand had seemed like a treat the night before, but as I attempted clean the sand off my gear I wished for a rocky campsite. When the sun hit the river we were ready to go. As we approached our boats, Paul announced, "It looks like today is going to be a repeat of yesterday, there is a trail along the river and I think it will be easier to walk than haul my heavy boat in and out of the river all day." The other three disagreed, so we elected to meet at the end of the day near the town of Kimari. We watched as Paul shouldered his boat and headed down the trail.

The river contingent was now reduced to three. The whitewater was difficult and worse it was fraught with hazards at every turn. We ferried in and around ugly boulder sieves and log-choked slots trying to find clean routes. The boulders towered above us making scouting very difficult. We had dropped into a heavily vegetated area which made walking along the river a chore. Every plant had its own unique defense mechanism, so you only had to walk a few feet into the woods to be covered with burs and pierced by countless thorns. The river was even steeper than the day before. We boated until our survival instincts took over, then portaged until intense frustration or cliffs drove us back to the river.

The river was composed of stout class V whitewater between large death traps. During a portage that consisted of hauling our boats on top of house-sized boulders, dropping them down the other side and repeating the process, we saw a clean line down the opposite side of the river. Our definition of doable lines was constantly expanding and we decided to link a series of complex maneuvers to reach the magical slot. Dave entered the river and ferried through turbulent water above a horrible mess of logs and rocks, catching a boiling eddy in midstream above a tight slot. The water poured into a tight hydraulic between the rocks with the current moving quickly into another sieve below.

The move required enough momentum to punch the hole and then turn 180 degrees and ferry above the sieve to a slot on the right bank. Dave executed the move perfectly but after reaching the intended route, determined it was impassable. He nuzzled up against a rock slab and gingerly climbed out of the river. After careful deliberation, Kurt and I decided this convoluted route was the best option and repeated it one at a time. At the end of yet another portage we saw a flat area and decided to camp. We had been on the river six hours and covered only three kilometers.

"We boated until our survival instincts took over, then portaged until intense frustration or cliffs drove us back to the river...."

Dave and I found a trail and walked downstream to look for Paul. We had seen him only once during the day on the trail about 300 meters above the river. Downstream, the river went ballistic. We were only two kilometers from the Mugu confluence and the river was disappearing in several locations under rocks the size of multistory buildings. The trail left the river and headed steeply upwards to the town of Kimari. Dave spotted a footprint on the trail. "That looks like Paul's shoe," he announced excitedly. We were not sure if we would find Paul that day, but we ran up the trail motivated by the possibility.

After many switchbacks up I stumbled on a kayak. "I found Paul's boat," I called back to Dave. Paul's gear bags were missing, so we pushed on. Further up the trail we found Paul resting in the only shade we had seen since we left the river. He was exhausted by the walk with a boat on his back, and the afternoon sun had left him sunburned and dehydrated. I handed him my water bottle and asked why he left the river without refilling.

"I filled up before I headed up hill," he replied, "then I met a thirsty woman working in the field and she drank all I had."

The three of us headed up to Kimari, stopping short of the town to discuss our next move. The river down to the Mugu was similar, or worse, than what we had done that day. "My boat is nearly to Kimari, then all I have to do is walk an hour downhill to get to the Mugu," Paul said. "We know it's a three-day walk to Gumgari and we only have one day of food left," Dave added. It looked like the two kilometers down to the Mugu would take one day of intense portaging and some boating. I was very interested in keeping the group together so we elected to ask the people of Kimari for help carrying our gear to the Mugu confluence. Paul stayed in Kimari while Dave and I walked back to camp with Kurt.

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Early the next morning, Paul walked down to our camp with some of the locals from Kimari. Packing up our gear, we headed back to town. Our new friends made us a wonderful lunch which was the first real food we had eaten since Dunai. We camped just below the confluence where, below our camp, the river looked beautiful, but from our maps we guessed it would again go ballistic below the town of Mangri, from which it would still take us a day-and-a-half to reach Gumgari. We decided that Kurt and Paul would paddle empty boats to a bridge near Mangri, and Dave and I would walk with the gents from Kimari to the bridge. Then we would all walk down to meet Andy in Gumagari.

Late in the afternoon or the next day, we met Paul and Kurt on the bridge. They had tales of fantastic boating with only a few portages and one near-death experience. Whole again, we made our way downstream camping high above the river. D.B. found us before lunch the next day. He had waited in Gumgari until Andy showed up, then headed upstream to find us.

Our reunion was a happy one, and we all had stories to tell. Our host was a nice, Nepalese man who ran an aid program sponsored by the Dutch. He was very proud to have Andy staying in his house, and told people of our accomplishment whenever possible. We still thought the police might arrest us in Gumgari, so Andy was justifiably nervous as our host took him around to the government offices and police stations to show him off. But our original information was correct and we did not need permits to be in the Mugu District, thus our fears were unjustified.

In the mid-'80s, a group of catarafters had come to Gumgari and descended the Mugu down to the Karnali. Our original plan was to follow this route and then retrace our steps from the year before, but the river was much higher than we had anticipated and the Karnali was bound to be huge.

Due to the delays in Kathmandu Dave and Kurt were out of time and had to return home as soon as possible. Andy, Paul, and I had already run the Karnali and had little interest in repeating the 10 days of boating to reach the highway at Chisapani. The quickest way out was a three-day walk to the airstrip in Jumla. From there we could fly out to Nepalganj and then to Kathmandu. As we started the walk to Jumla, Andy stopped and excitedly pointed to the map. "Once we cross the first pass we will be in the Sinja drainage. I bet no one has kayaked the Sinja," he said. The Sinja ran down into the Tila, and the Tila was a major tributary of the Karnali.

My interest was peaked and our fate was set, the only question was what trouble would we get into during the 10 days it would take us to reach the highway at Chisapani.

— Ethan Green, Langu Khola Expedition Member, MountainZone.com Correspondent

The Langu Khola Expedition was sponsored by a Shipton/Tilman award from W.L. Gore and Associates Inc., the Endurance Grant from Dagger Canoe and Kayak, and PowerBar. The members would also like to thank Lightning Paddles, Kokatat, Backpacker's Pantry, and Cascade Designs for their support and assistance.