1st Descent - Cagayan River 2012
This was a real "first" for me! Kayaking down a section of a river that nobody else has kayaked down.
As the video itself explains, this river trip was along 6kms of the Cagayan River, ending at Palaez Bridge. This was one of the few bridges that withstood the mighty force of the flood that followed Typhoon Sendong as it is a large concrete and steel road bridge. All of the hanging bridges, foot bridges, service bridges and smaller steel and concrete traffic bridges were swept away. The remains of one of the latter can be seen momentarily in the top right corner of the video at 1:40. That gives you some idea of the increase in water level, measured at 10m (33 feet) in places!
I had paddled down this section of the Cagayan River a few times before and had just got to the stage of remembering each of the rapids with the help of Oneal from Kayak Domain as my local river guide who has paddled it many times. But as you can see in this video, Oneal no longer recognizes the river and we were required to get out above each new section of white water to establish a safe route down the river.
The incredible force of the flood has changed the river bed and even the direction of the river beyond recognition. As you will see in the video, the flood deposited hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks, in places where there were previously none. These then formed the new course of the river once the flood water had subsided. The once tree and shrub lined banks are now barren rock "walls" that seem to have been formed by manmade machinery. In the 2 months that have passed since the flood, new greenery is already emerging between these rocks but it will take some time before the remnants of the flood will be concealed.
The opening "still image" shows the remains of the service bridge, just above Palaez Bridge, that once carried the main water supply pipe to Cagayan De Oro City. The flood travelled from left to right in this image, completely submerging all of the original structure. The flood water carried with it the debris from many destroyed buildings, large uprooted trees and rocks and the sheer mass of these effortlessly folded the bridge downstream to leave the mangled ironwork as seen.
My paddling companions were Oneal and Harry and we shot this video with two GoPro cameras, one fixed to Harry's helmet and one fixed to mine. The climate was not ideal and the slightly cooler afternoon air, combined with the heat generated by the cameras inside the waterproof housings, caused condensation inside the housing on the lens during the trip. However, I hope you can tolerate this where it occurs and that it does not spoil your enjoyment of the video too much. For me, I think that it actually adds to the realism of the event as it is a recording of things "as they happen" with no retakes because of a steamy lens! But I plan to place absorbent pads in the housing in future!
The GoPro's were set to 135 degree field of view (medium). Due to this wide angle of vision, the true scale and size of things that you see cannot really be estimated. As things get closer to the camera, they become significantly larger. As they become more distant, they quickly shrink in size. The only way to estimate the actual scale of something is to place it immeditely next to an object you are familiar with. A good example of this can be seen in the video at 3:30 where I try to draw a comparisson between Harry's 2.5m kayak and the opening in the rock wall in the distance that I had to steer his kayak away from! At 3:45 the kayak hits the rock wall and a direct comparrison in scale can be made. It is a much larger chunk of rock that it seemed! This also applies, unfortunately, to the scale of the white water. My laughter (which is actually laughter more of disbelief than humour in some places!) relates to water that is bigger than I have ever paddled on in the UK. The hole at 8:07 would swallow the entire width of the River Tryweryn in Wales. The weight of the water here is amazing but the speed is moreso. At 10:45 you can get a true feel for this as I remain stationary and record the water passing me.
The dangers were sometimes very clear and sometimes not so clear. Below the first destroyed bridge, referred to above, was the sunken remains. Lines had been used to drag parts of this away and the combination of iron and lines meant we had to take a small offshoot around an island. Fallen trees were a significant hazard and we could not be sure that around the next bend that the river was even navigable. Our worst fears were realized when we came to a fast flowing narrow part that was very congested with fallen trees (13:10). There was nowhere to get out of the river and Oneal found himself having nowhere to go but downstream. He had called out to me to tell me what he had seen but I was watching and recording Harry's run. Only when I followed on did I see the problem ahead. I could see Oneal was ok downstream so I knew the route was not completely blocked. My concern was really for Harry, the least experienced of our small group, ahead of me. I talked him through the first part and he took a perfect line. I saw more trees to the right so paddled quickly to catch him and put my kayak between him and the hazard as we cleared the debris. These hazards will hopefully clear themselves in the next flood but before paddling that stretch again it will be necessary to check that no more of the countless fallen trees just a few hundred metres upstream have been washed down to block the river surface. If you look at the video at 10:03 you will see hundreds of them!
What the flood has done in places is deposit a large amount of rocks where the river previously ran at normal level, particularly at bends in the river. When the flood subsided, these rocks have entirely blocked the old route and caused the river to "back up" before finding another route. This changes the level of the river at that point, altering any remains of the river pattern upstream and creates a new path downstream. One such new path (16:45) now ploughs the main river headlong into a large rock causing the main flow to run river right and a smaller amount of flow river left. Water was passing around to the left but it was seemingly going under the rock more than around it. Wherever it went, it looked like a death trap. It was not, at all, a difficult rapid to paddle above the rock and it was very straightforward to paddle down and keep river right. However, the prospect of someone swimming, for whatever reason, and having far less ability to prevent being swept to the left of the rock, brought up the subject of walking around it. It was reasoned that it was safe if we stayed upright and to the right so we paddled on.
Another change of direction (18:03) was found at a previously known undercut. Here the river now flows head on into a wall that it previously flowed alongside. You can see the rocks deposited by the flood at river left on approach. Just like the last hazard, if you stayed in the flow, you were going to have a problem! Here it was necessary to go river left, again, an easy task and easy to avoid the danger in a kayak. But if you were swimming, not nice.
For those who wish to skip through the video, here are some of the more interesting points:-
01:00 Harry capsizing
01:40 Destroyed bridge
02:06 Inspection from the bank
02:25 Self running rapid with rock to avoid. Compare the size of the water with the people on the left bank :-)
02:48 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
03:02 Harry Capsizing
03:30 Avoiding the cave
04:45 The defiant tree
04:58 Inspection from the bank
05:40 Oneal leading the rapid
06.30 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
07:24 Inspection from the bank
07:42 Self running rapid
09:00 Oneal running rapid
09:14 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
10:03 Self running rapid
10:45 The speed of the river
10:51 Oneal running rapid
11:01 Harry running rapid
11:50 Self running rapid with tree hazard
12:35 Oneal running rapid
12:50 Harry running rapid
13:10 Dangerous sunken trees
14:10 How many rocks?
16:45 Keep right or else!
18:03 The Undercut
19:00 Final rapid from the bank
19:13 Self running rapid
End.
I understand that this video will probably have a limited audience but I hope you enjoy it. It was a very different experience for me and a very exciting one too. Sometimes a little too exciting at my age!
Peter.
Read MoreAs the video itself explains, this river trip was along 6kms of the Cagayan River, ending at Palaez Bridge. This was one of the few bridges that withstood the mighty force of the flood that followed Typhoon Sendong as it is a large concrete and steel road bridge. All of the hanging bridges, foot bridges, service bridges and smaller steel and concrete traffic bridges were swept away. The remains of one of the latter can be seen momentarily in the top right corner of the video at 1:40. That gives you some idea of the increase in water level, measured at 10m (33 feet) in places!
I had paddled down this section of the Cagayan River a few times before and had just got to the stage of remembering each of the rapids with the help of Oneal from Kayak Domain as my local river guide who has paddled it many times. But as you can see in this video, Oneal no longer recognizes the river and we were required to get out above each new section of white water to establish a safe route down the river.
The incredible force of the flood has changed the river bed and even the direction of the river beyond recognition. As you will see in the video, the flood deposited hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks, in places where there were previously none. These then formed the new course of the river once the flood water had subsided. The once tree and shrub lined banks are now barren rock "walls" that seem to have been formed by manmade machinery. In the 2 months that have passed since the flood, new greenery is already emerging between these rocks but it will take some time before the remnants of the flood will be concealed.
The opening "still image" shows the remains of the service bridge, just above Palaez Bridge, that once carried the main water supply pipe to Cagayan De Oro City. The flood travelled from left to right in this image, completely submerging all of the original structure. The flood water carried with it the debris from many destroyed buildings, large uprooted trees and rocks and the sheer mass of these effortlessly folded the bridge downstream to leave the mangled ironwork as seen.
My paddling companions were Oneal and Harry and we shot this video with two GoPro cameras, one fixed to Harry's helmet and one fixed to mine. The climate was not ideal and the slightly cooler afternoon air, combined with the heat generated by the cameras inside the waterproof housings, caused condensation inside the housing on the lens during the trip. However, I hope you can tolerate this where it occurs and that it does not spoil your enjoyment of the video too much. For me, I think that it actually adds to the realism of the event as it is a recording of things "as they happen" with no retakes because of a steamy lens! But I plan to place absorbent pads in the housing in future!
The GoPro's were set to 135 degree field of view (medium). Due to this wide angle of vision, the true scale and size of things that you see cannot really be estimated. As things get closer to the camera, they become significantly larger. As they become more distant, they quickly shrink in size. The only way to estimate the actual scale of something is to place it immeditely next to an object you are familiar with. A good example of this can be seen in the video at 3:30 where I try to draw a comparisson between Harry's 2.5m kayak and the opening in the rock wall in the distance that I had to steer his kayak away from! At 3:45 the kayak hits the rock wall and a direct comparrison in scale can be made. It is a much larger chunk of rock that it seemed! This also applies, unfortunately, to the scale of the white water. My laughter (which is actually laughter more of disbelief than humour in some places!) relates to water that is bigger than I have ever paddled on in the UK. The hole at 8:07 would swallow the entire width of the River Tryweryn in Wales. The weight of the water here is amazing but the speed is moreso. At 10:45 you can get a true feel for this as I remain stationary and record the water passing me.
The dangers were sometimes very clear and sometimes not so clear. Below the first destroyed bridge, referred to above, was the sunken remains. Lines had been used to drag parts of this away and the combination of iron and lines meant we had to take a small offshoot around an island. Fallen trees were a significant hazard and we could not be sure that around the next bend that the river was even navigable. Our worst fears were realized when we came to a fast flowing narrow part that was very congested with fallen trees (13:10). There was nowhere to get out of the river and Oneal found himself having nowhere to go but downstream. He had called out to me to tell me what he had seen but I was watching and recording Harry's run. Only when I followed on did I see the problem ahead. I could see Oneal was ok downstream so I knew the route was not completely blocked. My concern was really for Harry, the least experienced of our small group, ahead of me. I talked him through the first part and he took a perfect line. I saw more trees to the right so paddled quickly to catch him and put my kayak between him and the hazard as we cleared the debris. These hazards will hopefully clear themselves in the next flood but before paddling that stretch again it will be necessary to check that no more of the countless fallen trees just a few hundred metres upstream have been washed down to block the river surface. If you look at the video at 10:03 you will see hundreds of them!
What the flood has done in places is deposit a large amount of rocks where the river previously ran at normal level, particularly at bends in the river. When the flood subsided, these rocks have entirely blocked the old route and caused the river to "back up" before finding another route. This changes the level of the river at that point, altering any remains of the river pattern upstream and creates a new path downstream. One such new path (16:45) now ploughs the main river headlong into a large rock causing the main flow to run river right and a smaller amount of flow river left. Water was passing around to the left but it was seemingly going under the rock more than around it. Wherever it went, it looked like a death trap. It was not, at all, a difficult rapid to paddle above the rock and it was very straightforward to paddle down and keep river right. However, the prospect of someone swimming, for whatever reason, and having far less ability to prevent being swept to the left of the rock, brought up the subject of walking around it. It was reasoned that it was safe if we stayed upright and to the right so we paddled on.
Another change of direction (18:03) was found at a previously known undercut. Here the river now flows head on into a wall that it previously flowed alongside. You can see the rocks deposited by the flood at river left on approach. Just like the last hazard, if you stayed in the flow, you were going to have a problem! Here it was necessary to go river left, again, an easy task and easy to avoid the danger in a kayak. But if you were swimming, not nice.
For those who wish to skip through the video, here are some of the more interesting points:-
01:00 Harry capsizing
01:40 Destroyed bridge
02:06 Inspection from the bank
02:25 Self running rapid with rock to avoid. Compare the size of the water with the people on the left bank :-)
02:48 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
03:02 Harry Capsizing
03:30 Avoiding the cave
04:45 The defiant tree
04:58 Inspection from the bank
05:40 Oneal leading the rapid
06.30 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
07:24 Inspection from the bank
07:42 Self running rapid
09:00 Oneal running rapid
09:14 Harry running rapid - 2 points of view
10:03 Self running rapid
10:45 The speed of the river
10:51 Oneal running rapid
11:01 Harry running rapid
11:50 Self running rapid with tree hazard
12:35 Oneal running rapid
12:50 Harry running rapid
13:10 Dangerous sunken trees
14:10 How many rocks?
16:45 Keep right or else!
18:03 The Undercut
19:00 Final rapid from the bank
19:13 Self running rapid
End.
I understand that this video will probably have a limited audience but I hope you enjoy it. It was a very different experience for me and a very exciting one too. Sometimes a little too exciting at my age!
Peter.
