Kernitsis gorge 1st attempt

The exit of Kernitsis gorge

TEAMadara's river calendar - part two

Tripotama, Arkadia. 4 Jan 2003.
Today, Konidis, Mpourlekas and I, after retreating Erymanthos again (running high at 125cm), decided to head back towards Dimitsana for some Upper Loussios creeking. But adventure was waitng just below Vytina.
Greco guidebook was reporting the gorge of Kernitsis monastery unrunnable, but we thought to check it out, just in case...

The fearless Terios

1 km above the take out at Kamenitsa, my fearless Terios crossed the river to lead the way up, to scout the river from above. What we saw for almost 1km, was crystal clear water flowing down 1-2m ledges, not more than grade IV(see photo on top). That was enough. We decided to forget about Loussios and check out the upper part.
At Kernitsis bridge the sight was overwhelming (bottom photo). Two grade IV drops at the first 20m, gave us an idea of what to expect. A quick scouting of the next river bend and we realised that even scouting would be difficult in this gorge.

The entrance of the gorge

You just don't get into an unknown, propably unrunable river, into a remote 5km gorge, with no support and only 4 hours of daylight ahead. You just don't!

Those would be the words of a sane paddler. Unfortunately there was no such man amongst us. So, we jumbed in!
The grade IV drops were followed by 100m of easy class III, in a very tight gorge, until we stopped to scout another IV rapid, in a blind left bend. After some scrabbling up the slope, we stood there looking at a hard IV+ ramp with a tree branch stuck in the middle. We could pass it if we would arrange safety, but that would mean rope works and belaying to the shore.
That scouting took almost an hour, so we finally realised that if that was the way it would go on, it would be better to leave it for another "earlier" day.
Hopefully paddling up and pulling our way to the put in, was easy and hauling up the boats to the arc bridge, gave us a chance to practise our z-drags.

We even reached Levidi in daylight for some extreme chicken-eating. Konidis as expected had the double portion!

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