The Upper Yangzi (Tiger Leaping) Gorge

Before anyone gets to excited, no, I most definatly didn't paddle this stretch of water.

The Yangzi, the third longest river in the world begins on Tibet/China border and initally flows through Yunnan province, South West China. After the Great Bend the river runs through Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest gorge in the world. From the river to the top of the gorge is 3,900M, put another way, over two miles straight up!

I did a three day trek through the upper trail and then into the actual gorge itself. I'm not really one for treking and all this outdoors shit but I made an exception for this.

The trek is fairly tough but looking down into the river was quite somthing. Some of the paths are very narrow and the drops into the river are massive.

This stretch has never been kayaked in it's entirety and it never will be kayaked. Although, rather scarily, I saw it in very very low water and with the exception of two rapids which are the most definate portage you've ever seen, the rest of it looked like it would run at a big grade five. It has been 'run' by Chinese team in a capsule raft (you know, the kind of thing people go over Niagra falls in). They made it to the end but suffered ten fatalites, that somewhat takes the shine off a 'first descent'.

Anyway, enough of the blabbering, pictures are what you're hear for.

Looking through the gorge from the bottom.

The rapid just below Tiger Leaping Stone. Note the guy for scale, bear in mind he's a good ten meters above the water and this is super-low water! I stood pretty close to this rapid and it's frankly terrifying. I'm not sure you could call it a stopper as such, it'd just tear you apart. That said, what you can't see in the picture is that hard river right the river hits a big rock, forms a massive cussin wave, which, if you were the worlds top boater and you had a serious death wish might run. The only problem is that you'd probably get slammed into the rock with enough force to kill you and even if that didn't happen you'd pass with feet of the 'stopper'. Anything going in there isn't coming out alive.

The rest arn't mine but are pictures taken of the two big rapids in normal water. Again, note the people for scale. Spoof for the first run?

Actually, Ricky, how'd you grade that? Probably a big grade four right?

Scroll further down to see the rest of the rivers and compare the scale, scary.