Giang River- Kan Chen Section
Section Length: As high as you want to hike
Put In: Wherever you want to stop hiking Take Out: bridge near Pa Xua |
Difficulty: III - IV [low water] || IV - IV+ (V-) [high water]
Est. Flow: too low > 500 cfs > medium > 2,000 cfs > high Paddlers: Alfonso Perez, Timothy Bouch, Cuong Tran, Kit Davidson |
Upstream of the classic Lower Canyon section, the Song Giang travels many kilometers through a jungle-draped mountain gorge, packed full of big rapids. Unfortunately, the only access into the upper headwaters of this stream are on treacherous illegal mining tracks, and those areas are frequented by those illegal miners- not the kind of people you want to show up un-announced on with brightly colored rubber boats. But, for a large portion of the year, thanks to local paths that follow the river, you can hike upstream from the bottom of this section quite a ways, and then put in and launch and run back to the trailhead. It's a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it, as you get to run a number of bedrock rapids in a jungle canyon, that boats with a wide variety of flows. For now this guide only covers the lowest group of rapids, but stay tuned as more is added to this write up!
The lowest section of these rapids, called the Kan Chen Rapids, is a string of about 5 distinct rapids spaced over 1.5 kilometers of river, with large flat pools between them. It's a bummer this bottom section only has the number of rapids it does; if there were just 3 or 4 more rapids in this stretch it would be a fairly awesome stretch of river. Unfortunately, there is a long (> 1.5 km) flat stretch above this before the next rapids, so it is more of a fun, short "hike and huck". The one great thing about this section though, is the water: because of it's channelized bedrock nature, this section of river almost always has water, and as the flow increases the difficulty does too.
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The first two rapids at the start of this bottom section are boulder gardens, with multiple different lines of varying difficulty, all depending on flow. At higher flows there are multiple lines available that go, although some of these lines have more powerful holes while some are sneaks around the big stuff. The first one has two main lines, on the right, and in the center. The right side is a longer boulder jumble; at higher levels it goes but there are a number of holes to move around, while at low water the second half of the drop is quite ugly and may require portaging the rapid. In the center is a straightforward drop that is easily blasted through at high water, although low water may require leaning back hard or a timely boof stroke. The 2nd drop is much more straightforward, with a good line on the right (that has multiple lines at low water) and a technical line with some holes on river left. This left line dries up at low water. Gold mining on a small, individual scale takes place along a large length of this stream, and many of it's tributaries. You will likely see some locals in this area, so be friendly and smile if and when you meet them. The 3rd rapid is barely noticeable; at both high water and low water it is an easy melt down the left side, although at lower flows be aware of some shallow sleeper rocks hiding in the runout. |
After a flat but moving pool, the river falls over Kan Chen Falls itself. The river passes over a large ledge of limestone here, and there is a large chunk of bedrock in the middle of the river that divides the flow into two channels at most flows. If this bedrock is underwater then you probably know what you are doing and don't need to be reading this. The right side remains un-run, and is a messy rockpile. The left side has a short easy lead-in to a steep chute that goes better than it looks. It's easy to scout and there is a decent pool below for recovery. On our first mission here we had a friendly Co Tu local named Buu watching the show, and he is the one that let us know the name of the falls. He spoke decent Vietnamese (he is a Co Tu, so Vietnamese is not his primary language) so I was able to chat with him a little bit, and he was pretty stoked to see our boats, so he hung out and filmed the boating on his phone. The nice thing about Kan Chen Falls is that it goes at a variety of levels, and never seems to be "too" sticky or dangerous. Although the right side is a little manky, for the most part the drop is surprisingly big and bouncy and soft. Higher flows will mean even more cushion, while lower levels will offer up a technical line down through the crashing waves.
<- Left: Kan Chen Falls drops a surprising amount of vertical. |
Below this are the final rapids, which are straightforward and easy, mostly just some fun waves and mini holes. After these rapids, the river settles down big time, and it's but a two minute float down to the footbridge at the end of the road. The footbridge definitely spans the river as it passes through a narrow pinch, but there's no gradient so it is a flat channel through. The slopes of this narrow pinch showed evidence of the major flooding that affected Quang Nam in both 2017 and 2018, and the scour lines are pretty insane, almost 8 to 10 meters above the "normal" water line.
The Videos
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The Map
All photos and videos copyright Kit Davidson.
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