Kitoy
We have come to the very source of Kitoy. Here, this river looks like a small stream and the road easily crosses it. We unloaded our panties-singlets out of vehicles and packed into the boats. Just couple hours later we floated down to Pervie Shoki (First Cheeks). "Cheeks" is a word locals use for "canyon". We stopped there. Good fishing. No rapids yet.
The next day we did couple tens of kilometers over flatwater, after which we finally made it down to Verhniy Shoki (The upper cheeks). Little by little water started to get boogier. We floated everything through without scouting when finally we arrived to a turn with a horizon line in a narrowing walls. This was the first waterfall rapid on Kitoy. And this is the place where the real canyon starts. We left our boats at the start of the canyon, got all the belongings and portaged to the middle of the canyon, where we stayed for the night. Walking down the canyon we were enjoying amazing views - emerald river dozens meters down and stream tributaries falling as waterfalls into Kitoy.
The next day we got back to our boats to finally run some rapids. The waterfall itself was portaged by everyone. But all the rest was ran by everybody. There was this hooooorible class 5 rapid with a terrifying drop with two pockets at the bottom. But turned out it was quite easy to run. But a lot of people flipped for some unknown purpose.
After that we ve done a nice little rapid "Vint" (The screw) and found ourselves close to where we camped last night. We stuffed our panties-singlets in boats and continued the run. After some more boogie water the canyon opened up and we were facing more flatwater. That night we camped at the confluence with some beautiful but unknown stream and caught enormous amount of fish.
The next day we finally got the most interesting obstacle of Kitoy river - Motkiny Shoki canyon. The difficulty of whitewater built up quickly and soon it became scary to paddle the center of the river. Everyone started to get more to the chicken chutes. But over all, it was not too difficult at all. We scouted only one rapid - "Palets" (The finger) and stopped to portage the Motkiny Shoki Waterfall.
The Motkini Shoki Waterfall is the hardest rapid on the run - class 5+. It consists of several drops right in between sheer canyon walls hundred meters high. Once in there - no way to walk out. The rapid was once rafted by Jack Kovalevsky in 2004
(photo) and once by Nikki Kelly in 2005
(Boofing the Iron Curtain). We portaged without doubts.
We left all the belongings (panties-singlets) near the Finger rapid and portaged The Waterfall. It was hard - about 5 kilometers through taiga. But there was a trail - here everyone portages. At the end of the portage we had to repel our boats down from 50 meters. Then we did several interesting rapids of class 4 on our unloaded boats with a great opportunity to ride a huge hole. Then portaged our camping gear and finally were at Ekhe-Gol.
Artyom Palvelev
part two
