National Rafting Championship

I am Anu Shrestha, working as a rafting guide since 2008. I have been involved many times in different white water challenges as well. In 2017 International rafting federation brought judge training to Nepal. I was the only woman who did training with 32 men guides. I was very grateful to IRF for giving us training as an internationally certified general judge.

Since then, I have volunteered as a judge at every national rafting championship. Unfortunately, so sad that we never had a women’s rafting team in the competition. For many years I have been thinking about how to build a women’s rafting team and, at the same time, want how to inspire more females to join the water sport. 

One day I decided to start anyway. I started with funding to begin the rafting education training. I am thankful to all my friends and family who believed in me and directly and indirectly supported the project. This way, able to open Project Lifetrek (Women Outdoor Education Nepal). I still need more help with the training because I don’t have any gear. I contact many rating companies for gear support and am happy to hear a positive response. I called four girls who had already guided and chose four new for the training. 

Before the National rafting championship, we had two months, so we decided to work hard and participate in the competition. We have two teams, one senior and one junior, and the senior team outsets with physical strength. Junior trained with basic river knowledge and safety. After a month of hard work, we were preparing for the competition.

After two months of training, we were finally on the national rafting championship platform. We all were very excited and nervous. So many senior people and nine male teams participated in the competition. The championship starts with a sprint, which is a short distant challenge, and the team that reaches the goal in the shortest time will win. There were also other races, such as head-to-head, slalom, and a downriver race. Both our teams participated in all the different categories. I am so proud that both of our teams perform very well. 

Today we are so glad to share our happiness. We are the first female rafting team to participate in the national rafting championship of Nepal 2022. We hope this happy history inspires more people to join the white water adventure. From now on, we would like to see rafting-related people, companies, and organizations make a more female team in the future.