Steung Kach Is Raging 🌊 Calling All Whitewater Boaters 🚣♂️
It's been raining heavily in the mountains for several days, and the river is now a raging torrent ready for whitewater sports.
Calling All Boaters 🚣♂️
The river was really loud today, so I decided to go have a look and check the water level, which happened to be the highest I've ever seen, and super close to the hammock huts. When I saw the state of the river, my mind began imagining the paddling possibilities of this river.
Yep, that's me on the Arkansas River in Colorado in a former wilderness guiding life. I used to do a lot of whitewater boating, but I'm particularly poor kayaker, but I loved rafting, especially R3 (3 people), R2 (2 people), and duckying (alone in a tiny raft).
Steung Kach Possibilities 🌊
Our home is basically the headwaters of Steung Kach, and the first real rapids are in our backyard. It's a bit of a shallow river, so I never assumed there were any kayaking possibilities until several more kilometers down river, but at highwater this river is a beast. Even as a former whitewater rescue technician, I would be very hesitant to swim Steung Kach under these conditions.
I actually took these pics and short videos to share with my old adventure friends in Colorado that are still living this life and have all the gear and careers to fund massive outdoor adventures. I'd love for one of my old buddies back in Colorado to bring some kayaks or an R2 raft over here so we can make a first descent of Steung Kach.
There is more than enough depth at highwater for boating, and I am surprised to see some proper whitewater in Cambodia, and even more shocked that it's actually my backyard. In the above GIF there is a little surf hole that many of my old friends could spend several minutes in doing flips and barrel rolls, etc., but my kayaking skills never reached those levels.
Brown Is Beautiful Too 💩
Usually I'm attracted to the river when it's crystal clear and calm because these are the conditions ripest for family swimming. However, I like to see this raging brown beast too, it's just as beautiful in it's own intimidating and dangerous way. There are at least 10km of this river running near the highway, so support for a boating expedition would be fairly from our house to a bridge about 15 minutes away where the river goes into roadless territory where there is still land yet to be checked for landmines and/or demined.
I know all the boulders in the river and the way it looks during low and clear waters, so I am surprised to see boulders the size of small houses completely underwater, even ones I've had picnics on top of. In the world of whitewater sports, "strainers" are obstacles like rocks or logs that let water pass, but that would catch a human. There are plenty of strainers in this stretch of river, so I was just having fun pretending to scout the river as guide plotting the first descent.
Even though I have no boats, no proper PFDs, and no whitewater gear at all anymore, it is still to now know this river is runnable. I really hope a Colorado friend decides to come over some day and help make the first descent of this river. Sometimes companies will sponsor such a trip for the video footage, but things like these usually take a long time to manifest.
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That river looks awesome, too bad you don't have the equipment. You could start a tour business! Especially if you could figure out a safe way to pass the bad stretch with the mines, and go a bit further.
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project 🙌 Keep up the great work!
I can't help but let my imagination wander. Since we are somewhat close to New Zealand, I might be able to order some sledges, basically whitewater swimming boards. I think the sport started in New Zealand, but it still has yet to catch on around the world. The shallow water and rocks are bad combination for falling out of a boat, but a swimboard would be perfect. Thanks for the curation support my man.
That could be fun :) Maybe a little hard on that river though 😂
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No one wanted to swim in raging water. @justinparke and family, take extra care!
I like swimming when it's moving fast and a little opaque, but the brown raging beast would probably swallow all humans that enter.
It seems that the river behind your house is indeed raging because it wants to call people to exercise in it, yes, the river is very suitable for white water rafting athletes. I don't know about white water rafting, I only know about it by watching on TV or youtube. But what I do know is that this sport is only for people who are brave and have high adrenaline because the risks are big. is that true my friend?
The risks are especially the greatest when you are the first one to run a new section of river. There is so much trash dumped into Cambodian rivers that it's hard to know if there is a piece of scrap steel or rebar ready to destroy your body or raft. I still think innertubes would be a nice starting activity for lower water levels.
It is a raging river. Hope that you will be able to develop the sports.
I guess a more simple start would be innertubes during low water levels. I've already floated on my back the whole length of our property, only hitting my butt on a few small rocks, so I think tubing could be possible.
Yeah, brown look beautifull too. The river is call for adventure
I hope to paddle it someday before I'm too old.
ahaha you never old to do that :).
Wow.. it's amazing to see what you did in the past... Especially with such a manly activity.. I don't think I have the guts to do white rafting.. too extreme for me.. I saw ur picture and thought.. "wow"... Your a beast... Ur in the front right? This place could be a tourist attraction.. there's jungle, waters and nature.. a potential hub for tourism..
We had to select 4 specialties in wilderness school and whitewater was my number 4, so definitely not my main love, but still a fun sport. The potential for serious injury and death was just too high, and many of my former classmates have died in avalanches, whitewater, etc.
I am still thinking that tubing would be a nice mellow activity during low water levels, but there are two or three hazards I need to fix first, all of them to heavy to move by hand. The most dangerous is a piece of rebar sticking up and out of the water, ready to stab anything that gets too close.
Don't think I can stand a lightest chance in this real strong current. I almost can hear the loud roaring river from the gif already
Well, nowhere is deep enough not to stand up during normal water levels. Luckily I am heavy enough to stay on my feet, but when it's raging and brown like this, nobody stands a chance.
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