For the last 3 year I have focused my energy on getting on the world class white water on Australia's back door step.
The last few years has seen me push through language barriers with creek boat in hand in Laos, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and China. It not easy work but when you put on a rarely (if ever) paddled section of white water and its just me and the buddy I convinced that they should join me its all worth it.
This year has been little different, I have a favorite run in Asia that I think I know better then anyone. The Asahan.
In October Anthony Yap and I headed there to wash away our time off the water and get fit for our upcoming China trip.
The Asahan is an amazing section of white water, dropping straight out of the biggest lake in South East Asia and also the last super volcano to blow.
Its non stop, the first 8km is one big class 4+ bigwater rapid, punching holes, making ferrys, ducking under the overhung jungle to make lines, and boofing. There is nothing in the first 8km that I would rate as below 3+ but its mainly 4.
The crazy thing is you can easily bomb 8km in around 16-18 mins on average, no eddys!
Sections down stream mellow to class 2-3 scenic and some stomping class 5 sections, defiantly one of my favourite runs of all time.
From 10 days on the Asahan we headed to the Cold flooded water of the Salween in Central China, here I met up with a range of paddlers from all over the world, joining together to film the latest river roots film "Frontier" Let me tell you, this is with no question going to be the best film from Rush, We were all filming on cannon 7d's (amazing cameras) and using advanced filming techniques Dolly's etc.
3 weeks on the huge rapids of the Salween and I am back in Sumatra off to the Asahan again with a different crew, with some first d's lined up as well
More updates and photos can be found at www.follow-the-river.com/latest
Also you can check out all the footage from China and Sumatra in my latest film I am making with Joel Kowalski titled "The Calling"
Enjoy the Photos.
LC
