"Rafting the Poe Tsangpo"

By Michael McRae
April 2000
(First Descent)

Trip Note: The first descent of the Po Tsangpo chronicled below was a success and a commercial trip was planned for the following year.  Unfortunately, later that year, a massive landslide took out the access road to the put in forcing us to cancel the trip. It was years before the road was repaired and we never had the chance to bring another group down this remarkable strtch of river. 

Since 1992, when the Chinese began admitting foreign adventurers to Tibet’s “Great Canyon.” The chasm’s whitewater rivers have acquired a sinister reputation. The Yarlung Tsangpo has so far claimed the lives of two kayakers attempting first descents: Yoshitaka Takei, a Japanese man who vanished in a monstrous rapid in 1993, and Doug Gordon, a virtuoso former U.S. Team member who disappeared under similar circumstances in October 1998. Other world- class paddlers who’ve challenged the lethal currents of the Tsangpo (in the upper gorge) and its tributary, the Po Tsangpo, have come away humbled, and some have declared the rivers all but unboatable. But this same river system that is only now revealing its dangerous power is also, incongruously, giving hints of what some believe to be enormous recreational potential. Last October, after two years of scouting, an international team led Earth River Expeditions safely completed a four- day, first rafting descent on the upper Po Tsangpo. Afterwards, the expedition leaders announced that they believe the stretch of the Po Tsangpo they had completed is viable for commercial led rafting trips.