Section Name: “Rags to Riches”

River: Nyamindi

Rating: 9/10

Country: Kenya

Length: 3.8miles/6km

Difficulty: 4.3

Mandatory Portages: 0

Style: Tight sections, clean drops, water boofs

Time: 1hr from Savage Wilderness, 35min on water minimum, 20min shuttle back to top.

Put In: https://goo.gl/maps/rTcSpXBrg7dpQ2qR6

Put In Style: Short Trail [5minutes]

Take Out: https://goo.gl/maps/QJKLAV4WCjyM9g2v8

Take Out Style: Bridge

Gauge: 5ft drop underneath takeout bridge should be scrapey at the lip on river right. If it’s healthy flow, it is likely too high unless you know it well. Anything below that will be perfect.

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO89U2UZhV8 

Overview

Although there are many incredible joy sections in the world, Rags to Riches holds its own. It’s short but packed full of beautiful pieces of whitewater. While we don't want to take you off your guard, it is astounding how clean and nice the rapids and waterfalls are on this section. When you bomb top to bottom, it takes 35 minutes, with no portages, and no shit rapids. It is a must do if you come to Kenya.

Description:

At the put in, you will park at the park entrance, and pay 250 Kenyan shillings per person to enter. From the gate walk 150ft up the road and take the nice trail to the right. Follow that trail til you get to a walking bridge, cross the bridge and find a nice trail to the water from there. Hike shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes from gate to on the water. Once you are on the water it will be a few minutes of class 2, before getting to the first good section.

You will start getting a few smaller water boofs as the section begins. Then when you come to your first tallerr horizon, go middle right and boof, its about 8ft (2.5M) tall. After that you get another water boof under a log before getting two back to back 11ft (3.5M) drops. First one enter middle right and take a fat lefty boof, you will land in some spray and come flying out. There is a slight pocket on the right side but at normal flows it’s easy to paddle in and out, lots of space. Around the corner is the 2nd one, which you can enter anywhere middle, and boof with whichever blade feels better. Both are scoutable from river right. It will chill out for a little bit with a few fun rapids and smaller boofs.

As the river gets narrower, you will hit a nice water boof before going under a bridge. The boof after the bridge is very tight, but goes well. Move right to left in the right channel, and boof straight down the middle. [Danes top tip: If you get some of the small flake on the left it helps you boof through.]. You can scout this from the big boulder in the middle of the river.

The next boof is a hard left turn. Enter the rapid above in the middle, follow the flow around and then do a big lefty boof turning hard left as you go off. Around the corner you will get to the best and last sequence of the run.

It’s a double boof into a perfect 30ft(10meter) drop back to back. You can scout easily on river right, there is a trail going along the river and down around the waterfall. The line is enter the double boof middle or middle left, take a big long boof, as you land the first boof it will then launch you off the second boof. Then for the big drop enter anywhere down the middle, and enjoy. From there you will paddle for a chill few minutes before getting to the bridge for the take out.

It takes only 20 minutes from the take out bridge, to being back on the water at the put it, so we highly recommend heading back up for another lap!

You can also continue kayaking downstream where there is another 30fter(10M) waterfall. On the first descent with lower water, only Dane fired up a super tight entry into the waterfall. At higher flows the whole crew sent a really cool left to right boof line. Further downstream there is another waterfall under a bridge that to our knowledge remains un-run and a perfect 50fter just below that.