Legacy in Central Asia

I first met Middy when I was 18 years old. He picked me up with a mutual friend at my college dorm in the bay area for a weekend trip down the Middle Fork of the Feather. The drive was long, and Middy wasn’t interested in talking about kayaking; we discussed art, romance, books I was reading in school, vegetarian cooking as the night wore on.

There was evidence of his paddling resume that I missed during our first weekend paddling together. His gear looked like it was from the early 2000s (it was), he subsisted on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter (very soviet), and he was supremely calm, borderline unimpressed, by the whitewater this classic stretch presented (I was not).

It was some time after that weekend that I learned about his paddling exploits in Central Asia. The stories of the walled in big water of “the Stans” became the backdrop of my kayaking dreams. I would find excuses to walk over to Middy’s house and pester him with questions about these rivers. He was always more interested in talking about the people and the cuisine. I wanted to know about the rapids.

A couple of years later I met Ben Luck, another Central Asia big water practitioner. We paddled the Middle Fork of the Kings just the two of us and I certainly annoyed him for a week with relentless questions about all things expedition kayaking. He was infinitely patient, kind and strong. Ben’s gear wasn’t as old as Middy’s, but he had the same calm affect that I dearly aspired to have. Two days after our trip he completed the Middle Kings solo in 15 hours. I still hold that day as the pinnacle of kayaking.

Many years after these formative trips, I sat in the back of a stuffed SUV, bouncing down a dirt road with two of my closest friends on the way to the put-in of one of these rivers that had occupied much of my young adult life: the Muksu.

Vance, Bernie and I had been in Central Asia for over a month. We had completed the Sary-Jaz in Eastern Kyrgyzstan and were now several weeks into an overland journey that would ideally end with a link-up of these two rivers. Everything had miraculously come together-- it was the right moment in life for the three of us to fulfill this dream.

Our voyage from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan was not without excitement. Highlights included: Bernie’s rampant hanger after being denied a lunch stop in Osh, horrendous dust, flu like symptoms, our vehicle being denied entry to Tajikistan, and our subsequent Tajikistan transportation missing the essential item of roof racks for our kayaks. Somehow, we made it to the put-in of the Muksu. What was once a multiday hike over a 15,000ft pass was now a half day drive; neocolonialism and extraction have facilitated China dipping its omnipresent fingers into the natural riches of the Pamir mountains. The new road was grated and smooth-- Vance kept a running stream of dialogue about how his beloved front wheel drive truck could have made it. It was a very different start to the Musku than the stories of my heroes.

Kayaking the Muksu actually begins with kayaking the Belinkyk river. Kayaking is perhaps a generous term, as is “river”. The Belinkyk is more similar to a pile of rocks, turned at a downhill angle, with a trickle of water running through it. Already dubious about the state of our kayaks, and afraid of wrestling all our gear down the Belinkyk, we were more than happy to continue driving downstream. After driving for several miles past the traditional put in and some helpful albeit inaccurate beta from local miners, we began to wonder when the road would end. Our question was answered as we came around the bend and saw a plume of dust and a massive bulldozer, currently in the midst of constructing the road. We performed a five point turn and began to unload just upstream.

It was cold that night. Thankfully we were already to tree line and engaged in one of human evolution's most tried and tested practices: huddling around a fire and worrying about the future. Morning came cold and sunny. The banks of the river were frozen solid. We put on and made easy and bumpy progress down the river; the rapids were interesting but low quality. We made quick miles and arrived that afternoon in the fedchenko valley. The canyon widened and the river dispersed into a complex web of braided channels. Some were too shallow to paddle and we alternated between walking and floating. We camped near the base of the glacier in the shelter of several large boulders.

The sunrise spreading up the valley the next morning drenched the gray peaks in a bath of gold and orange; we agreed it might have been the best camp we had ever had. We started our day by paying for our lack of culinary foresight; we had not gotten anything to sweeten our oats and each choked down a couple bites of the bland mush before scrambling down the bank to get back to the river. The river was a tedious, shallow affair. We alternated between scraping and walking down the gravel bar as the river braided. We were all eager to make it to the Musku and above the gorges.

Eventually we reached deeper water. Unfortunately, this somehow coincided with a dust storm. It felt like we were in Lonesome dove- just a couple of cowboys in the Wild West, trying to drive the cattle. As we paddled the wind picked up sand from the banks, filling our nose and mouth. We didn’t speak much, but at some point I recall saying something about what the Muksu was doing to me that was expletive. We stopped for lunch in a ravine, which thankfully sheltered us from the torrents of sand and wind. Vance rolled cigarettes for the team and Bernie optimistically forecasted that the wind was dying down.

This was incorrect, and we continued our cowboy-esque journey through the canyon. Mid afternoon we arrived at the whitewater. The quality was immaculate and the river was clearly not high. I would stop often to empty my boat, peeking towards a rapid downstream and breathing a sigh of relief as we continued to find good lines. We found an excellent camp a couple of miles above the infamous gorges and went to bed full of trepidation for what the following day would bring.

In preparation for our trip, I would often return to Middy’s trip report from their descent. It opens with a proclamation: ”So at last we were heading to the Muksu, the river that lay monumentally before us, darkening any thoughts of a sunshiny future, making long- term plans seem speculative and premature”

This sentiment felt eerily accurate, and was largely made true by the 10 miles of river we found ourselves camping above on day 2.

I awoke to the sound of Bernie lighting the stove next to me. The sun had just begun to light up the surrounding peaks. The canyon was deep. We suited up and it was cold and dark. The quality whitewater continued down to the start of the first major gorge. We changed and climbed up the bank. Patchy flew his drone and we scouted the canyon via the small screen on his control panel. We didn’t see anything that was a show stopper. There were plenty of rocks in the river, and we felt confident we could operate at river level. We dropped in.

The canyon was committing and the rapids deceptively powerful; we routed a ledge hole that, upon a quick scout, I had described as “chill class 3”. We made an easy portage of a fatal looking ledge, before eddying out above another horizon line. This one was much more optimal for kayaking, and we all made it through without incident. The canyon walls receded and we embraced, elated to have made it through one of the sections whose mystery had been playing on loop in our minds for a month.

We paddled a few more easy rapids before the next gorge. This one was mostly flat with the exception of a massive siphon pile. We made an easy walk around the whole canyon before making camp just above the last hard gorge. We had hoped to paddle all the gorges that day, we were dubious of another night right above a scary gorge and the psychological warfare it would impose. However, there was also a consensus that dropping into an unknown gorge at 3pm wasn’t what smart people would do.

Vance and I used the rest of the afternoon to scout the gorge. We climbed up a scree field, then traversed along the canyon rim. We followed a game trail that we both agreed was likely more dangerous than paddling the gorge. Hundreds of feet above the river, we peered over the edge. The rapids looked big, potentially portagable, potentially not. Armed with this vague information, we returned to camp.

The next day the rapids were indeed portagable, but only thanks to some heroics by Bernie. Above the last drop, he grabbed onto a wall, clipping his boat to a throwback and continuing our theme of wannabe cowboys by climbing out of his boat before roping it up behind him. We shared a couple of whoops and maybe a yee-haw or two as he secured his boat on shore. The rest of us climbed out easily as Bernie held our boat and whispered soothing words. The rapid turned out to have a great line, but due to general fatigue, or perhaps relief to not have to blind route the rapid, we all portaged except for Patchy.

The rest of the run was high quality and largely manageable. We spent another day and a half paddling our way down the Muksu. As we approached our takeout bridge, the river became braided once again. Snow capped peaks surrounded us as we drifted the final several miles. For me, it felt like the end of a lot more than this river.

I had spent the last 3 months living out of my kayak, in Africa and in Asia. I was so committed to following the path of my heroes. I think in some ways the rivers could have never lived up to the expectations I had for them. I wanted them to be life changing, identity shifting experiences. I wanted to exist in the stories that fed my imagination as a teenager.

In some ways, these river trips probably were life-changing. We fulfilled this dream in our own way. I felt liberated from the desire to be someone else.

The Muksu was way more fun and enjoyable than I was expecting. Less masochistic. It exemplified everything I love about kayaking and contained less of the things about kayaking I dread.

10/24/2025