Big Water Challenge on the Katun River

The lower Katun' has a very high volume, so you will have a special feeling on it. Sometimes it reminds me of the Colorado; both rivers have very strong whirlpools and a pretty violent current. But the standing waves of the Katun' are incredible. Even the Colorado does not have anything like them.

I remember our first impression of the lower Katun' at very high water. Our big four person catamaran (6 meters long) came to the rapid Shabash. There were several groups of rafters gathered near this nice rapid with very powerful water. We successfully passed the first step of Shabash and were watching the second step. It seemed very simple: a "chain" (or consequence) of huge standing waves without holes or drops. We decided to have some fun and run straight down the center. From the bank the waves seemed smooth and promised us good "Russian Mountains."

We entered the rapid aimed exactly down the center of the standing waves. And in this moment we had understood that we had made a mistake. The waves were huge and had very sharp tops. Each successive wave turned the catamaran a little bit, and we could not do anything with the craft on this very fast stream among hills of water. With every wave our catamaran was closer and closer to a flip. The last wave set us almost vertical. Only our length saved us.

Five minutes later a trimaran (a boat with three long inflatable tubes) with a Ukrainian crew started. They took the exact same line, but their boat was shorter than ours and the third wave flipped them. It looked like a dump truck - in Russian we call this, "people fall down like peas." Farther downstream we saw only the white bottom of the trimaran. Its crew reached the bank in only 0.5km. The Ukrainians told us they had the same feeling as we had in these "smooth" waves: helplessness.

- an excerpt from Rivers of an Unknown Land by Vladimir Gavrilov