2010 Adidas Sickline Book of Legends Expedition.

In 1976 a team of Russian Kayakers tried to make the first decent of the gorge on the lower Bashkaus River in the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia, in the early stages of the gorge the team struck tragedy when six out of ten were swept away to their death by the powerful river.

The next year the four survivors retuned to the gorge to place a memorial plate as well as a book at the point in which they lost their lives, in this book the names and the story of the tragic but heroic explorers was left to be seen only by those that have the courage to take on and conquer the mighty lower Bashkaus, after every decent the names of those that survive and the stories of their decent are logged into the Book of Legends.

On the 17th July 2010 seven of the Adidas Sickline team along with three of the best German kayakers headed to the Altai Mountains in search of kayaking the hardest rivers that Altai has to offer and to test them selves against the mighty Lower Bashkaus in the hope to add their names to the Book of Legends. 

As we touched down in the motherland we were greeted by our two drivers and some sturdy looking 4x4 vans these would provide us with transport as well as accommodation and protection against mosquitoes whilst we weren't on the river.

After a 800km drive south we had finally reached what felt like the end of civilization and the put in to our first river the (&T&(**)) , this river section was amazing and gave us a good warm up and wetting of the appetite of what was to come. After a couple of days warming up and getting our team work to run smooth and be like one on the river, we left the (#$%$#$%)  river and what seemed like the end of civilisation and officially went to the end of the earth. in search of our first multiday river.

The drive was amazing with some moon like landscapes, followed by river crossings and moments where the boys decided to stand out of the van in order to survive, the vans showed their true character and we pushed them to their limits, after a solid day of driving into the middle of no where on what could not be described as a road, we arrived at the put in to the Karagem River.

With 3 Packets of instant noodles a Snickers bar a day and a quarter of a stick of salami we were ready to go in to the wild for three nights and push our selves to the mental and physical limits.

The Karagem was about 10km north of the Kahzakstan border and the scenery on the river side was amazing with huge mountains and some steep continuos white water we were all enjoying our selves.

After a day on the Karagem it joined up with the Argut river here the river flow doubled and we were feeling very small and very isolated, it also didn’t help that Tomass who was leading us down said the it was really high maybe the highest ever paddled.

The next morning we awoke with the feeling of going to war we knew we had 80km of Zambezi style river in front of us and that it was likely that at some stage we would all get a beat down.

withen 100m of our camp we found our selves paddling through 3m high waves and avoiding death holes left, right and center.  Early on that day we came across a fresh dead body that was still in neoprene and had been buried under rocks, it was rite below one of the biggest rapids and it was a very sobering experience, it showed us just how delicate life is. Later on we found out that in fact their were two dead in the same pile of rocks.

After one of the biggest days of my life we found our selves two hours from the take out after a 10 hour day of class V in amazing scenery and the biggest water I have ever paddled.

After a quick sleep the team was eager to get out to civilization and have a massive breakfast, it was the perfect kick we needed to stop being princesses and just get on with it.

THe next river we headed to was the Chulishman, this river had caught our attention not from the stories of the river but the stories from the put in. The put in lies about 10km from the mongolian border, at the put in their is a village, which has just recently got a road, we were lucky to only see three locals but the stories are so wild that I was happy not have any hassles.

Last year some russian tourists ventured into this little village, the village is full of drunk russian zombies, what happened is they ask for vodka or money the tourists said no! Soon enough the Villiage was alive with gun shots and one of the tourists was shoot in the leg, Tomass also has some amazing stories from this village and i even noticed an uneasy edge in his voice.

We arrived to the put in as the sun was going down, we quickly packed our kayaks and headed down stream to get out of reach from the village.

What awaited us down stream was two days of amazing class V white water with the hardest section at the very end of the chulishman.

After a skeptical feeling at the put in we all were glad to get on this amazing river and enjoy the spectacular scenery, wild white water and good company.

After such a busy schedule we were all a bit exhausted and ready for a break, luckily for us at the take out there was a camp ground with a little shop and a sauna, I think it was safe to say that the local economy was strongly boosted due to chocolate and beer sales over that day.

Next we hiked up to a sweet set of waterfalls that was awesome.

Any way I could write for days about this trip but we came, we saw, we concord and it was awesome. I saw  more in a month than i thought i would see in a life time.

the final tally was

2x dead russians

1x miracle car crash

1x killed sheep for BBQ

2x swimmers

countless good times.