Last Descent of the Yangtze

In my short tenure at International Rivers, I've come to expect dams in every corner of every country around the globe. Still, I was shocked by the ubiquitous nature of these concrete beasts as we flew above China. On the three-hour flight south from Beijing to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, I counted over 70 dams.

This was excellent preparation for our possible last descent of the Great Bend of the Yangtze River. If these small, insignificant streams were subject to that much engineering, certainly China's signature river, the Yangtze, or Jinsha as it's known in this region, would be a primary target of China's ambitious hydropower companies. I was about to find out that there are no shortage of future plans to tame the Yangtze's waters, already home to the Three Gorges Dam (the world's largest man-made structure and possibly its largest environmental disaster).

I arrived in Lijiang, an 800-year-old stone town surrounded by a rapidly spreading Chinese city, to meet the rest of the team. This was no ordinary bunch of American adrenaline junkies. The participants had been hand-selected by Last Descents River Expeditions (LD) and China Rivers Project (CRP), US and China-based organizations whose combined mission is to protect China's river heritage and encourage conservation - by taking Chinese media, policy-makers, and citizens to experience first-hand those very same rivers. The organizers assembled Chinese and American journalists, scientists, and environmentalists of the highest caliber. Many of the Chinese were able to join the trip for free as part of LD/CRP's scholarship program - after all, if you want people to try something new sometimes you've got to entice them.

Seven days guiding a raft down one of China's grandest canyons? They didn't have to convince me.

Take Me to the River

Yulong Snow Mountain looms over Lijiang like a Himalayan step-child. Over 18,000 feet high, it has been tempting international mountaineers for decades, but word on the street is that it's never been summitted. It's a sacred mountain to the local Naxi people, a minority group numbering some 300,000 in Southern China. While there are no laws forbidding its ascent, the members of an unsuccessful Japanese expedition in the 1980's might attest to the fact that the mountain itself doesn't want to be climbed - if they hadn't died trying.

We opted to go around the mountain instead of over it. A three-hour drive brought us to the picturesque village of Daju. While we ate lunch, our trip leader spoke to some local farmers about coming down to the end of the road to help us carry our gear to the river's edge. For a fair price they were happy to oblige, and thank goodness for that - it was a half mile and 200 vertical feet from the spot where our truck got stuck, and we had more than two tons of gear.

While 11 people spent a day pumping up rafts, rigging them with aluminum frames, and strapping in a week's worth of food and supplies, the rest of the group sauntered through one of China's most scenic canyons - Tiger Leaping Gorge - on their way to a charming local guest house. I won't say which group I was privileged to be part of, but let's just say that having to wait 15 minutes for a freshly-baked walnut cake while sipping scotch and watching the sunset over one of the most dramatic rapids in the world was not a hardship through which I had to suffer. In any case, the leisure crew arrived the next morning well-rested and ready to jump aboard. After a few days of hard work it was finally time to let the river take over.

Shoving off the shore into the current, I was overcome with joy and let out a few yee-has, betraying my crude American river-rat history. I'd heard a few tales about what lay downstream, but they were all vague enough that no mental picture had yet formed in my head. I didn't yet know what the rapids would be like, or that the canyon walls would tower thousands of feet straight up, or that the water would be a milky emerald green for the entire 120 miles of our trip. I didn't even know we'd be going that far.

Up until the previous day, we'd all been told that the plan was to go 65 miles - halfway down the Great Bend of the Yangtze - taking out at the ancient stone village of Baoshan, before we reached the second of the under-construction dams on this section. Thankfully, our trip leader, Travis Winn, had done a reconnaisance of the trip a few days prior, and determined that although construction was well under way, we would in fact be able to pass the Ahai Dam site. The news that we'd be able go the full distance was doubly welcome - not only did that mean more time on the river, it also meant we'd get to see with our own eyes this controversial mega-project.

The Ahai Dam, one of a cascade of eight dams planned for the Yangtze between Tiger Leaping Gorge and the Three Gorges Dam, had already caused the only other raft trip this year to abort the lower section of the trip. It will almost certainly be far enough along by the time next year's rafting season rolls around to prevent another group from passing through. After that, if the Ahai and its sister dams continue at their current pace, the entire Great Bend will soon be one long reservoir. That's a big loss for those of us privileged enough to have been able to see its grandeur, but to a Naxi villager whose family has spent generations living here, farming and building terraces into the steep walls of the valley - well, it's hard for me to even comprehend how they might feel.

That feeling of impending tragedy would follow us throughout our journey, even as we cheered through rapids and laughed over cold beers in camp.

I awoke at 7am to the sound of tent poles being dismantled - a luxury after the previous day's pre-dawn start. If we were going to do the full 120 miles we needed to be ready to go by 10am. On a weekend backpacking trip that would be a piece of cake - but for 28 people to pack tents, cook and eat breakfast, and load the aforementioned two tons of gear back onto the boats in two groggy hours, it would be quite a challenge.

The second day was similar to the first in terms of distance and difficulty: 20 miles, and a dozen or so fun wave trains, including two class IV rapids. We also managed to make a brief stop at a very small village inhabited by the Pumi minority group. When our trip leader was here on his recon trip he spoke with one of the local farmers, who invited us to come pay him a visit. Arriving this time after a steep 400 foot climb up the hillside, we were greeted only by a young man who seemed justifiably hesitant to have his home invaded by 28 foreigners. Most of the villagers, he said, were out working in the fields. Sure, almost half of our group was Chinese, but to a Pumi villager in this remote canyon, someone from Beijing was hardly more familiar than someone from San Francisco.

We quickly acquiesced to his uncertainty - he was willing to speak with a small number of us, but the rest of us headed back. As we descended down to the rafts I wondered whether our interest in this seemingly pastoral lifestyle served any purpose other than our own edification. It was hard to imagine any positive outcome from our visit for this young man, or his few neighbors.

The few who did stay behind and speak to him clearly had his best interests at heart. They were China Rivers Project co-founder Kristen McDonald, filmmaker Kyle Dickman, and a US based researcher named Lexi Tuddenham. These three would make a point of interviewing as many locals as possible over the course of our seven day journey, as well as all of the trip participants. Some folks were happy to discuss the dam project, hopeful that these foreigners with fancy video cameras could somehow help publicize their plight. Others were reluctant, perhaps worried that they would be exposed to project developers who might not have much tolerance for their opinions.

One thing the locals were quite clear about was their bewilderment that we'd dare to run huge rapids that, to them, marked the navigable boundaries for their decrepit fishing boats. We saw all kinds of craft, ranging from 30-foot-long rusty steel motorboats to 40-year-old worn-through rubber life rafts - and for them going above or below the nearest rapids was out of the question. So it was no surprise that when they saw us approaching a chaotic mess of steep waves, with no sign of parking our boats, they'd all flock to the rivers' edge to watch us flirt with death.

We probably weren't the first crazy rafters they'd seen. For the past five years there have been two commercial raft trips per year on the Great Bend, run by American adventure travel companies. Prior to that rafting has had a troubling history in China, and nowhere more so than on the Yangtze, where in 1986 twelve Chinese died on the ill-fated first descent.

Apparently, over those past few years the local farmers had begun to accept that rafting wasn't certain doom. They didn't beg and plead with us to abort our mission for the sake of our own lives, as had many locals on a previous expedition on the more remote Class V upper Salween River in Tibet. Here on the Yangtze, they'd merely congregate on a big rock alongside the river to hoot and holler us through the waves.

A typical Great Bend rapid was about a quarter mile long, with waves up to ten or twelve feet high. In a 16-foot rubber raft that adds up to near vertical moments, and more than a few close calls! We smashed through the first rapid (named "Baptism" by Western rafters) without incident, other than getting completely soaked by the chilly 50 degree water.

Spirits were high after that, and a few more hours of drifting through the deep gorge was icing on our cake. Well, for some it may have felt like drifting, but for the oarsmen it was a slow and steady battle to keep the rafts moving through the upstream wind. I was delighted to arrive at our next camp, yet another shimmering expanse of golden sand ("Jinsha" means golden sand in Chinese) with more than enough space for our small army. We hit the beach and began the ritual of setting up camp once again. The crew only had one day of experience, but we were beginning to work together well.

A 7-day river trip is also 7-day camping trip, and a 7-day camping trip with 28 people sounds a little bit crazy. I think this is where the river helped out quite a bit, teaching us teamwork as we made our way downstream. Cooperating, we unloaded the boats quickly, and within a few minutes the night's kitchen crew was hard at work setting up the propane stoves and getting our gourmet meal started. This was one area where the Chinese guests could really show the Americans how it was done. With a few coolers full of veggies, and an impressive arsenal of hot pepper sauce, the bilingual cooking crews whipped up delicious regional dishes every night. Particularly skilled were the Szechuanese, who refused to cave in to typical camping food shortcuts, and routinely had us lining up for seconds (and something to cool our mouths). After a long day on the river and a satisfying meal I didn't hesitate to look wimpy - I went straight to bed.

Terraced Fields, Cotton Sheets, and Mah-Jong

On day four of the trip we parked our boats early in the afternoon, and hiked straight up the terraced canyon wall. From the river we couldn't see much, other than the usual crops growing on hundreds of brilliantly built terraces, themselves an engineering marvel. The usual crops around here are wheat, rice, and rapeseed (for making vegetable oil), among others. Where there once was a craggy, dry and dusty 45 degree slope, we now stairstepped up and over small, crescent-shaped fields, negotiating our way through the maze of tiny irrigation canals that now keep this desert mountain green. It's a stark contrast to the dam-site we passed the day before. Instead of bulldozers taking a few months to tear apart river banks, here generations of Naxi families have spent over a thousand years transforming a vertical desert into a garden.

An hour's hike brought us to the gate of Baoshan, a 1300-year-old stone village, where our leaders had reserved space for us in two local guesthouses. After having spent a few days in the beautiful but Disney-like Lijiang, it was a treat to experience this charming and unexploited village. Basically just a converted family home, our guesthouse was one of a few hundred houses built onto the steep hillside, all of which shared our stunning view of the river and the barren canyon wall on the other side. The team was tired, and having clean beds to relax on before we set off exploring was a welcome break.

And what a delightful adventure it was to explore Baoshan. There were no roads, only a labyrinth of well-worn stone paths leading between whitewashed mud-brick buildings. Around every corner was another beautiful and unique sight: A farmer and her small horse plodding up the alley, each with equally huge bundles of wheat on their backs: a group of village elders playing cards beneath a gorgeous fern-laced cliff: children playing basketball in a small town square: an old man smoking a pipe on a thousand year-old bench. The homes were large and solid, the fields were green, the people looked healthy - was this truly the pastoral paradise it appeared on the surface?

I took an evening stroll out into the fields. There were only a few paths leading out of town, and this one contoured around the mountain in the direction of a neighboring village. Absorbing the peaceful quiet, I admired the craftsmanship of the terraces, often walking on 8-inch-wide paths which stood atop handmade stone walls. A group of young children were playing on the next path down - I could hear their laughs and chatter as they made their way toward a large cave in the limestone wall across the creek. And as the sun went down, I wondered where in the world, where in MY world, would this be possible? Kids going to play in a cave in the dark, a mile from home, while their parents chatted and played mah-jong in the street - and none of them afraid.

Dust in the Wind: Ahai Dam Barrels Ahead

Certainly the people of Baoshan face challenges. The rising waters of the Yangtze, if the Ahai dam continues, will be one of the greater ones. I wondered if their ancestors built the town this high above the river just in case such a hare-brained human idea became reality. Turns out they just wanted to reserve the more fertile lowlands for growing their food. With the best farmland underwater, that ancient foresight won't be of much consolation.

If the 160-meter-high Ahai Dam is completed, its designers will be able to proudly say that their concrete work erased a thousand years of lovingly crafted Great Bend terraces in just a few years of reservoir filling. The legacy they are focusing on is surely a more positive one: increased distribution of eletricity to a power-hungry China, and increased efficiency for the Three Gorges Dam. According to the engineers, the main purpose of this eight-dam cascade will be regulating flows and sediment for the world's largest hydroelectric power station downstream. Whether or not all eight dams are actually required to make this work, and what that says about the design of Three Gorges itself, are all unknowns in China's disordered grand plan.

After leaving Boashan we climbed aboard our trusty rubber rafts once again and dropped into the next gorgeous canyon. It was another hot and sunny day, but somehow the air seemed a bit hazier than previous days. We floated on downstream unsure about the reason...Was there a forest fire in the area, or smog blowing in from a neighboring industrial center? Could there be fog mysteriously rising from the river in this dry climate?

Seven miles and two hours later the reason finally became clear. We had arrived at the local dust factory, also known as the under-construction Ahai Dam site. Where there once was grass, cactus, and the occasional boulder we found bulldozer-scoured hillsides spreading massive clouds of dust into the sky and up the river canyon. After five days of remote beauty, floating through this mega-project was an otherworldly experience. The signs appeared slowly: first the dust, then evidence of new roads, then cheap, litter-strewn worker housing, dozens of dump-trucks, and a gargantuan concrete plant. Still we drifted on, into the cold, dead heart of this modern marvel. Eight-hundred-foot high slopes of freshly dynamited rock spilled into the muddied river on both sides for over a mile, until we finally saw the beginnings of the concrete leviathan.

With us on the trip was a Chinese scientist named Yang Yong who specialized in the Yangtze and was well-versed in the grand plans for harnessing its hydropower. Astounded, we learned that the construction of this dam isn't even legal. It has been approved by the local prefecture government, but final approval rests with a State Council and Ministry of Environmental Protection, which has still not ruled on the legality of Ahai and its sister dams. Yet here we were in the midst of a massive construction project that must have begun a few years prior. The dam's investors and contractors had apparently decided to go ahead and get started, perhaps hoping to push the project beyond the point of no return and force the approval of an official permit. We asked Yang Yong how things could develop this way, without more control from the national government. Who was in charge here anyway? "It's driven by independent special interests," he said, "and there's not a comprehensive plan for managing water in the west."

If the dam continues to barrel ahead at its current pace, rafting will no longer be an option here, as early as next winter. The group of rafters who had been here a few weeks prior to us were forced to end their journey in Baoshan, due to blasting here at Ahai. On this day, we made it through without danger. We floated past dam workers and suit-clad supervisors who signaled us to "pull over." Did they want to offer a friendly greeting, or prevent us from passing through and documenting their encroachment? We opted not to find out, as we kept a comfortable distance from shore and let the cameras roll. Almost an hour after entering the construction zone, we left the dusty scene behind. Still trying to comprehend what we'd seen, I jumped in the river to cool off.

The Great Wall-banger

I focused on the oars as we left the dam site behind and pushed downstream into a headwind. Soon the dust and mayhem diminished and we were once again alone in a beautiful place. The character of the river continued as before - relaxing stretches of flat water followed by refreshing rapids. We appeared to be easing into a wider section of the canyon, but the boatmen weren't quite ready to let down their guards yet. We still had the most formidable obstacle of the entire trip to tackle - "Wallbanger" rapid.

Some rapids around the world, with names like "Jugbuster," "The Paralyzer," or "Coming Home Sweet Jesus" beg the question, "what exactly happened here to inspire THAT name?" Not so with Wallbanger. You guessed it - the river goes straight into a wall. Grand Canyon sized waves gather speed for three hundred yards as the river bends left before slamming against a jagged black wall of metamorphic rock. Here the river splits in two, one half veering off at a 90 degree angle to the right, and downstream, and the other half forced back upstream into a whirling helicopter eddy. Fail to make it to the right and we'd either get sucked back upstream and have to try again - from a more challenging starting point - or hit the wall and get flipped over.

Even though there was only one line to take, our crew of intrepid raft guides studied the rapid for almost an hour, trying to figure out exactly which surging wave offered the path of least resistance. Finally, we pushed out into the current and set up for the waves, pulling hard to the right. The first boat got pounded in a wave at the entrance, throwing them off course, before the oarsman finally regained control and pulled his craft safely to the right. Raft number two also had a close call as one of the oars was yanked out of its oarlock by an unruly current. They recovered in time to miss the wall by a narrow margin.

If it seemed our squeaky clean record in the Yangtze's rapids was being challenged, it was. Today the rapid may have been more aptly named "Oar-buster", as five out of the six boats would have similar difficulties, including one broken oar. The river was sympathetic to our cause, however, and we gratefully gathered our wits on the downstream side of the wall, which had escaped un-banged.

With the worst of the rapids behind us, we were able to relax and focus on the next big challenge on our schedule: the final evening's talent show. Throughout the day impromptu dance duos, barbershop quartets, and performance art ensembles had gathered whenever there was a lull in the rapids, to whisper and plot for the evening's presentation. After dinner we assembled under the lukewarm glow of two dozen headlamps for a cross-cultural Sino-American Idol variety show, to officially seal our newfound friendships with silliness.

Communication between Americans and Chinese had definitely improved throughout the journey, as we grew patient and learned to interpret each others' accents, but here was a way to share a bit of ourselves without stumbling over precise meaning. It would be difficult to misunderstand the trip's youngest participant dancing to a cell-phone ringtone - everyone was delighted. Other acts like a bizarre faux-Kabuki theatre and an amateur magic show just made us laugh.

The show's highlight was a Broadway-worthy rendering of the Yangtze River song by three Chinese men, including one who had been present on the disastrous 1986 first descent. Thirty years later he delighted in the opportunity to update his perspective on river sports, reflecting after the trip, "for me rafting has generally been a time of hardship and loss, so it has been wonderful to enjoy the river." As a priviliged Californian, rafting has primarily been about enjoyment for me, and this trip was no exception, though the specter of hardship and loss hangs heavy over the Yangtze.