Kayak Taiwan

I wrote this article for Paddles in August 2006:

KayakTaiwan – The Expedition of 2006

Whilst listening to the talks at last year’s ‘Adventure Paddlers Weekend’ on Dartmoor, it struck me that I might have missed a trick. As a an experienced white water paddler, possessing at least some innate imagination, common sense and problem solving ability, there didn’t seem to be any reason why I couldn’t achieve something along the same lines as the glamorous speaker line-up of 2005.

I’ve, literally, just returned from the steep, jungle-cloaked mountains of the tropical island of Taiwan. Together, with a group of three first-class Brits, Greg Nicks, Tim Trew and Pete Cornes, I ran some astonishing rivers, including some first descents and, we like to think, left a legacy of friendship, white water and river safety skills with the local paddling community.

In the space available here, I’ll give a general flavour of the cultural and kayaking opportunities present by Taiwan, which as a paddling destination merits further investigation. Though it might not make for highly entertaining reading, in the latter part of the feature I will go through how we planned the expedition, in the hope that it will be of interest to next year’s explorers.

Taiwan

We stepped out of Taipei’s airport at 10.00 pm and were nearly knocked flat. The temperature was in the high thirties Celsius and the humidity at 100%. Bear, a Taiwanese kayaker (Bear is his nickname) and Aron, a Canadian contact, were there to meet us and drive us away into the fetid night and onwards to the market vendors of barbecued MSG enhanced squid and chicken offal.

Rivers

Bear’s canoe club, Club 222, hosted us on the Nan Sheh River the next day. The river is approximately the same length and difficulty as the Upper Mawdach in North Wales. However, if Taipei were London, the river would be located, roughly, just outside the M25. It’s a 45 minute drive from the city centre. Amongst the other key contrasts to British rivers, the temperature remained in the high thirties, the water was warm and the level at optimal without having to belt it down with rain.

The local paddlers run rivers in a very different style to a typical western boating mission. They stop at every opportunity for a break, light snack and a chat. The river took all day to complete with the club, whereas later in the trip we ran it in 50 minutes. It’s very different but not wrong, so ‘whilst in Rome’, we sampled some delightful pickled eggs, crispy seaweed and swam in the river in a futile attempt to cool down.

Our second river was the Tai-Gong, just a few hours out of Taipei. The river reminded us of New Zealand’s West Coast runs, with alternating boulder and bedrock rapids – all a little bit chossy, to keep us on high alert. During the four hour, grade IV-V run, we started to appreciate the implications of what we had seen on the maps back home and how any sort of mishap would be rewarded harshly. We were continuously astonished by the physical presence of Taiwan. The river environment in the interior is pristine and remote, offering spectacular and steep mountains, incredibly deep canyons and unsullied jungle scenery.

On the Tai-Gong, the road looped far away from the river and we were separated from any sort of help by, often, vertical sided canyon walls, climbing thousands of meters each side into nowhere and clad in impenetrable jungle. In the event of an accident, climbing out would have been impossible with boats and highly challenging without.

It was a real pleasure to paddle the Tai-Gong with two Taiwanese paddlers, Bear and James Soong. The different skills that we bought to the trip complemented each other. The Taiwanese had useful local and language knowledge while they appreciated our tight-knit paddling style.

When we reached the take-out, the East-West culture clash hit us as we were invited into the back-room of a local bar and made to sing Karaoke with a couple of heavy-drinking construction workers! Our virtuoso performances of ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’ left our new-found friends agog while their crooning of Taiwanese pop classics whiled away the wait for our shuttle truck. That is, until they got so drunk that they collapsed and had to be propped up and taken away on the back of a scooter.

Tropical Storm Bilos

We had to hot foot it to safety after the Tai-Gong as a typhoon was heading straight for Taiwan. A typhoon is generally considered ‘bad news’ by the Taiwanese, rivers can rise by as much as 20 meters and whole mountainsides collapse, taking away roads, villages and people’s lives.

It turned out that as the weather system approached Taiwan’s east coast it moderated to a mere tropical storm, still quite a spectacle. We made the best of our enforced hiding by eating as many curious pieces of offal and fish giblets as we could find. There was much to choose from. It transpired that there is nothing the Taiwanese could cook that Team Taiwan could not eat – though we weren’t especially keen on the chicken gonads, flying fox (a.k.a. rat) and stinky tofu.

Water not very clear

After the storm passed we attempted to explore rivers further south on the island. Apart from one or two very high volume runs, we struggled to find rivers that weren’t high velocity liquid mud and completely unrunnable. We drove round looking at the rivers that we had identified on our maps in England, hoping to save time by finding all the access points so that we could return after the rivers dropped off. Typhoon Kaemi had other plans, as it transpired. We drove and looked, and drove and looked, eventually circumnavigating the island to again reach the Tai-Gong River. It was high but not too high

First Descent Bagged at Last

We carried/hauled/lowered the boats 500 meters vertically downwards into the Upper Tai-Gong canyon. When we eventually reached the bottom we appreciated why no one had attempted the river previously – the put in was extremely hard work. However, the river turned out to be great, mainly class III/IV with one long class V. Even though the river was relatively easy, there’s always that first descent tension, ‘What is round the next corner and can I escape if it’s heinous?’

We passed on into the middle Tai-Gong – previously run on the trip but now with twice as much water. Altogether we ran 15km, mostly at IV+ with a few Vs for extra interest – most definitely a world class run.

Heinous

The crux river of our expedition was to come just before Typhoon Kaemi smashed into Southern and Central Taiwan. The Nan-Ao Pei River, previously unrun, required us to carry our boats 8 kilometers along a hunting trail, gaining 700 metres of altitude, before descending 100 meters through unstable landslide shale and tropical jungle, all in 36 degrees heat with 100% humidity.

The first day on the river was mainly class IV/V, in a series of canyons. Bear, our Taiwanese friend, struggled a little bit and took some swims, wrapping his boat and losing his paddles in the process – thankfully no damage to Bear himself though.

The second day was mainly class V/VI, in boxed canyons. Regrettably, Bear was still struggling with the class of difficulty. Three hours after setting out, he swum again, snapping the only split paddles and was compelled to walk out of the river. There were no marked access points, paths or roads, anywhere near him and with a Typhoon approaching we were worried for his safety (as was he, no doubt).

Over the course of the next six hours the river team undertook a lot of portaging and a fair amount of hard class V – sometimes of the uninspectable unportageable variety. We had a couple of serious scares along the way but made it out, battered and exhausted but in once piece, having run 32 kilometers of V in 16 hours of boating

We were delighted to hear that Bear, with the motivation of an incoming typhoon spurring him on, made it to the road almost exactly at nightfall, called in on his mobile and was picked up.

By unanimous agreement, this river was by far the most sketchy (sieves & sumps everywhere), remote and altogether heinous river any of us has ever run.

The End

We ran a couple more rivers after the Nan-Ao Pei, without incident, and made it safely back to the UK. Due to the two violent weather systems that swept the country during our stay, the trip was forced to react and change but even so we managed to get on the river for 10 days of the 21. As an exploratory trip, “outside the guide-book”, we think that figure is entirely what could be expected.

We learnt that Taiwan offers an abundance of world-class white water, both single and multi-day, with a level of difficulty to match everyone’s requirements. However, it is not quite ready to become a ‘holiday’ paddling destination, as the level of information available is currently poor. We hope that the river notes we will soon publish will build a bridgehead and help the next adventurers to expand the knowledge base. In addition, we have exhorted Club 222 to write up the information that resides within their membership and publish the knowledge in both Mandarin and English.

Planning

Destination

Since that evening in the bar at the Dart Country Park, I was on the look out for a destination. To make the time and cost of an exploratory trip worthwhile, it needed to have previously escaped the attention of the paddling world and not because, to be honest, it would not be much cop.

Whilst ‘Googling’ for pictures of waterfalls, I chanced upon a picture of a waterfall in Taiwan’s Taroko Gorge embedded in the website of the Taroko National Park. A few clicks later and a light bulb switched on above my head.

Google, and other Internet tools, were to play a significant role in the planning and execution of the entire expedition.

The next step was Google Earth, a truly amazing application that lets the user zoom around the planet viewing seamless 3D aerial images of the planet. We were able to fly along Taiwan’s river valley and up over its mountains. It all looked good.

After Google Earth came Google searching. I found out as much as I could about Taiwan’s geography, geology, climate, politics and paddling. The latter of which seemed barely to exist. Eventually, I found a canoe club in Taipei, one of only three clubs on the island – an island the twice the size of Wales. I contacted the club via its message board (all of which was in Chinese writing – a challenge and no mistake) and was soon communicating in English with its members.

Club 222 passed me some digital photos that they had taken on their recent river trips and advised me of the appropriate time of year to visit. Eventually, I was put in touch with a native English speaker, resident in Taipei, a Canadian and former paddler called Aron. I was able to have lengthy conversations with Aron through another Internet tool called Skype. Skype allowed me to talk to Aron for nothing, for as long as I wanted; that’s right, nothing, free, gratis.

The Tea

Next I spoke with the British kayakers who I knew would have the right combination of kayaking skill and a relaxed approach to personal hygiene, sleeping in ditches and the types of discomfort that would have most people running for the airport screaming. Parasite attack and bottom trouble seem quite normal at the upper-end of kayak expeditioning. The ability to make a joke of those things is an important asset.

Target Rivers

With a good team in place we bought plane tickets and a complete set of 1:50,000 topographical maps of Taiwan’s highlands. All of the maps were written in Chinese but were nonetheless, invaluable sources of information.

We spent a day reading the maps, identifying rivers that looked like they would be of the right size by catchment area, locating potential access point, have the right overall gradient to have runnable white water and, most eye-straining of all, looking for individual sections of river that might prove to be far too steep.

I’ve never looked at a map more closely than I did in the lead up to and in Taiwan. It turned out to be of crucial importance and time very well spent. With the type of river we thought we would find, long rapids ironing out the gradient, rather than big drops condensing it into one spot, we thought between 25 and 40 meters/kilometre would be about a good gradient to aim for. It turned out that our educated guess was about right.

Class III was approximately 15-20 meters/kilometre, Class III/IV was 20-25 meters/kilometre, Class IV was 25-35, 35-45 meter/kilometer tended to be Class V and anything above 45 meters/kilometre was Class Crazy. Through making an incorrect assumption we managed to drop into an 80 meter/kilometre box canyon, which was fairly exciting.

The Plan

After conducting all the research we were able to come up with a coherent plan, something that if people asked we could sum up in just a couple of sentences:

After arriving in Taipei in the North, we will first descend the world famous Taroko gorge, then move further south, exploring river drainage systems, until we reach Yushan At, the highest mountain in South East Asia. Once at Yushan we will run the rivers draining its flanks, all of which appear to be serious multi-day undertakings.

As it turned out, the two weather systems that swept the island whilst we there, meant that the rivers in central and southern part of the island were out of contention for our entire stay; completely unrunnable. However, because we had a plan, even though it was forced to change quite considerably, it was easier to stay focussed on achieving the underlying goals of the trip.

Sponsorship

We were very grateful to receive backing from the BCU’s Expedition Committee and equipment from several kayaking manufacturers; Palm Equipment, Dagger Europe, Liquid Logic, IR Werner and Pyranha. We also received camping equipment from Zigg and Alpkit. However, we did not acquire any significant commercial backing, i.e. cash.

 

There is no doubt that paddle sport and this kind of expedition does have commercial value. Many organisations market themselves with outdoor imagery. However, companies all have a budgetary cycle and if you approach them at the wrong time or too late, as we did, it is much harder for them to invest in your project.

 

To give yourself the best chance of acquiring sponsorship put together a proposal of what potential sponsors will get, number of article placements, news reports, dedicated photography, and how much it will cost them. Aim to approach them with your proposal at least a year in advance.

Leaving Taiwan

We would like to thank Club 222, the Adventure Club and the people of Taiwan for their support. A happier and kinder bunch of enthusiasts it would be hard to find.

We would also like to thank our sponsors, whose products, quite simply, make this type of trip not only possible but as safe and comfortable as it is possible to be: Dagger Europe, Palm Equipment, Liquid Logic, IR, Werner, Pyranha, Alpkit, Ziggg. Thanks also to the BCU’s expedition committee for having faith in our idea and our abilities.

Later this year our river notes will be available on www.kayaktaiwan.net. As time goes by we hope that the notes will be form the first edition of an eventually comprehensive guide to the rivers of Taiwan.