Sarayu ‘A Little BIG River’

The emerald green Sarayu is an ancient river that has been immortalized by its mention in Rig-Veda and the Ramayana. With awe-inspiring scenery that is largely untouched by kayakers, rafters and nature enthusiast, pounding rapids, lush green forests, wild life, fascinating tales from the bygone era and pristine campsites are what you can expect to find in the Kumaon region on the crown jewel of Eastern Uttarakhand, Sarayu – ‘A little Big River’.

I was luck to paddle the river with Emmon, in the fall of 2008. I was doing a freelance trip that got cancelled for a veteran to the white water community in India- Yusuf Zaheer. We decided to utilize the week to explore the Sarayu. YZ, was very supportive & provided the much required shuttle and funded the trip. Thanks to his pioneering spirit !!
Sarayu River always caught my attention as we drove along heading for the Kali trips by the sheer volume it carried. We did not get an opportunity to paddle the river before as it clashed with the busy river season and then later ran almost dry.
We had a beautiful view of the sunset over the Trishul massif, as we drove through Gwaldam. Next morning we set out early from Bhageshwar, so we had enough day light to take up the challenges the Sarayu had in store for us. We had no information or heard anyone who kayaked this stretch of the river …& no one later claimed it as well! Thanks to Google Earth, it had a good resolution over one third of the river that was good enough for us to go ahead. We started below the town on the emerald green waters of the Sarayu, with majestic view of Nanda Devi and few more peaks of the greater Himalayan range standing tall behind us.


The first section was easy with grade 2 to 3 paddle, perfect warm up that lead us straight into a narrow gorge with steep walls, no road access and bigger rapids. The next few hours we were pleasantly surprised with the awesome white water. We scouted a few rapids as the river turned sharply around the bends. There were no people or signs of them coming down to the valley floor. This was probably one the narrowest river I had paddled in Uttarakhand. I was really excited with the thoughts of rafting & sharing the enthralling experience with friends who were not kayakers. After a few more grade 4 rapids the valley opened up and we drifted absorbing the tranquillity to reach the first teahouse by a pedestrian bridge. The stretch below the bridge was pool drop with boulder gardens, bigger and more committing rapids in store before the river met the road at Sheraghat. We were elated by awesome river stretch we had paddled which possibly was the first descent as well!
We walked to the town to get food…(beer!) & were trying to gather information of the river stretch downstream. We learnt that the first 15 KM were relatively flat with fast moving water, some rapids and few villages along the high banks with no roads following the river and finally entering a gorge. We camped at Sheraghat for the night reelin with the excitement over the day’s events.

The next morning we started early to paddle till the road bridge at Pannar, where we were going to meet up with our shuttle. The first half of the river stretch was grade 3 to 4 rapid interspaced with the amazing views, passing through distant villages and experiencing the Himalaya’s at their best. We floated passed the last village into a gorge with magnificent granite walls, which rose 30 to 50 meters form the valley floor with thick vegetation covering the mountain slopes. The next few hours we negotiated over 10 to 15 committing grade 3 to 4 rapids at regular intervals. No tracks followed the river on either side as we ran through a remote wilderness valley. The verdant untouched beauty around was breathtaking with some challenging rapids and had us wishing for the day not to end…

A few week’s later in November, we rafted the stretch with few guides all the way till Pancheshwar, the confluence with the Kali. Everyone on the trip unanimously agreed that the Saryu, was a great find & was the ‘Crown Jewel’ of Uttarakhand.