Turkey 2006 - Getting to the River

In June this year Matt and I along with our father Al, headed to the northeast corner of Turkey to paddle the Coruh River and explore the creeks of the Black Sea coast. Matt had to be in France the last two weeks of May to attend a business school seminar the last requirement for his MBA and I was working in Kuwait. Turkey seemed like the perfect place to meet to go paddling. Coincidentally, after we started planning the trip my company assigned me to a project in Istanbul.

For Matt it was the most traveling he had had to do with his boat to get to a river. He had to fly with kayak to Paris, lug it across Paris and around Europe on train, bus and taxi, while he and the rest of his classmates attended the business seminars in Strasberg, France; Basel, Switzerland and Baden Baden, Germany. After the school work was over he had to get back to Paris, to catch a flight to Istanbul where he was linking up with Dad and me. Dad was bringing my boat in from Boston. We all linked up in the Istanbul Airport and flew out to Erzurum in Eastern Turkey.

While we were planning the trip we learned about an international Kayak race that was going to be held on the Coruh River by Dave Manby. I emailed Dave and signed Matt and I up for the event.















The "Risch boys" along with Dave and the van in Erzurum

When I was e-mailing Dave about the race and asking advice on the logistics of eastern Turkey. He told me not to rent a car as transport to and from the event was included in the entry fee, that there would be people headed to the Black Sea Coast afterwards, and that the Bus service in the region was great if it came to it. So when we arrived in Erzurum Dave was there with his Ford Transit Van and Amir Husain an Iranian Kayaker who he was also picking up for the event. As it would turn out the van would be our transport for the next two weeks up and down the river valleys of the Kackar Mountain Range. The whole trip there was only one scare with the van, when shortly after leaving Erzurum headed up the Euphrates Drainage on our way to the Coruh it overheated. It turns out that the mechanic who serviced it forgot to fully close the radiator cap and it had boiled dry. We were lucky to catch it before any permanent damage was done.

Over the next 16 days we would paddle amazing big water, great alpine style runs and explore committing gorges and creeks……………..