~ Rafting in Russia ~
An early morning photo looking downriver to where it widens out after the kilometre of rapids. The first few days I went for an early swim here, until the rafting began - then I got soaked anyway while rafting so I decided an extra swim wasn't necessary! Truly, the water was was really freezing!!

Unlike British rivers, this one actually contained fish and some small, very tame water rodents. I also saw quite a few lizards, which was surprising because it was so cold and snowy there.

It's Pasha and Artiom hard at work preparing our breakfast on the 5th day (while everyone was still asleep in the tents).

Breakfast involved a trek to the spring to fill the pots, then cooking everything in one pot over the fire. Amazing how good our food was, considering we had such limited ingredients!

......................

After spending a day building the raft we finally set out on the river and hoped it would stay together. Building the raft involved selecting the right trees to cut down and then crafting the poles and pegs with axes and knives. Then lashing everything together with ropes that had been soaked in water to ensure that all the poles were held together firmly.

In the picture above there is me and Olisia at the back and Vera and Dima at the front. We navigated very successfuly the first three sections of rapids but then crashed into a rock on the last section and got stranded. We got free, but broke one of the spars... repairs needed!

On the left is another rafting group who arrived on the 3rd day. Looks like they saw us hit the rapids earlier and decided to stop before that part. - Come on! who's afraid anyway?!?!

 

<< The opposite bank of the river had this excellent vista and I felt that I really must try and get the photograph.

After building the raft we noticed a difficulty... >> the raft was in our basecamp on the ridge high above, and the river was..um... below. Man-handling the raft down to the water was quite a feat, our muscles felt it every day as we rafted down the river and then carried the raft again and again back to the start of the stretch of rapids.

 
..