White water, white knuckle

It is a question the young Scotswoman has asked herself quite often while careering down the most turbulent rivers in the world, but so far she has not come up with a sensible answer.

``I feel real fear when I'm doing these things,'' she says. ``It's not a pleasant feeling. I usually paddle on an empty stomach because of the nausea. I'm not sure why I do it really, but it feels good afterwards.''

It could be argued that one could achieve much the same effect by head-butting a brick wall. But that would be to miss an essential point, which is that white water rafting is one of those esoteric pursuits in which danger is part of the fun. Taken to extremes, gambling with death is its ultimate thrill. Assuming one survives, there is the satisfaction of knowing one has been tested at the limits of human skill and endurance and passed with flying paddles. There is also an enormous sense of relief.

Karen has recently returned from a remote region of central Chile, where she and a friend spent a month tumbling down what they call ``big volume'' rivers fed by snow melting from a volcano in the Andes. The idea was to hone their skills in preparation for an international race on the Zambezi, just below Victoria Falls, in October. There they will hurtle through thunderous sections of the river known as End of Civilization, Oblivion, and Devil's Toilet Bowl. There is another section called Lost Yak, which testifies to a kayak that sank and never reappeared (its owner, amazingly, was rescued). On the quieter stretches they will have the company of peckish crocodiles, and hippos who have an unfortunate tendency to overturn boats for the hell of it. This, according to Karen, is fun.

``I suppose it's the excitement, the buzz,'' she says. ``And there's a wonderful bond between people running difficult rivers, because at any moment our lives might depend on each other. Also it has opened up the world for me. It's been a passport to adventure.''

Happily, the Glasgow Parks Department, where she was working until recently as a recreations officer, was sympathetic to her periodic urge to disappear in search

``I've taken some big swims in the Zambezi,'' Karen admits. ``They've been the worst. When the water is initally quite light, then blue, then very dark, you know you're a long way down. Sometimes it seems to take an eternity to come back up.'' At times like these Karen tries to stay calm, and avoid getting snagged on the river bed. She also tries not to think of people who have been ``flushed out'' of the system lifeless. ``Even with maximum buoyancy, there have been people who didn't come up in time. Whirlpools drag you down, and boils spit you out. It's just your luck.''

The lexicon of hazards in the white water world includes such nasties as ``stoppers'', ``boils'' and ``pourovers'', not to mention 40-foot waterfalls. Then there are native charmers like piranha and crocodiles. It is not a sport for the faint of heart.

There are times, however, when even daredevils draw back. ``Sometimes you look at something, and decide you're not doing it. It just doesn't feel right. You walk away, and you feel as if you've let yourself down, but it's better than being dead.''

As in mountain climbing, rapids are graded in degrees of difficulty. In Scotland, most technically difficult rivers are classified three or four. In Chile, Karen and her friend concentrated on grade five sections, which means they are very dangerous, but negotiable. One stretch on the Rio Claro had 22 waterfalls, including a 40-footer with the wonderfully descriptive name of the Sona de Bomba. ``You are airborne for quite a while,'' Karen recalls. ``You just hope the pool at the bottom is deep.''

Then there is grade six which, according to the official definition, cannot be paddled without possible loss of life. ``This means there is a strong likelihood you will die,'' Karen says.

It does not mean, however, that it cannot be attempted. There is a grade six section on the Zambezi that is called Commercial Suicide, because no commercial rafting operation will tackle it. Karen says: ``I've looked at it so many times. It's less than 400 metres, but the pourovers and stoppers are terrible, and the line through them is minuscule and very difficult to find. It's never been done by a woman, which is an extra challenge. That's one that's sitting there waiting for me.''

The Zambezi holds a particular fascination for her. She was a member of the British women's team that won the International Challenge race on the river at their first attempt in 1994, and retained their title last year, beating several men's teams in the process. Leaving the Chilean men's team standing in the sprint event was a source of particular satisfaction. It's not all thrills and spills, of course. There are times when Karen and her chums relax, although perhaps not in a manner that the rest of us would find amusing or even sane. After last year's race, they went for a dip in eddies near the bank on the Zambian side - barely two feet from the main 1000-feet falls. If they had slipped into the main current, they would have been over the edge in a second. ``That was an exciting, fun thing to do,'' Karen recalls.

At the time of our interview, she was thinking about Bolivia. ``The country is a bit dodgy, but there are rivers there that have never been paddled.''

But the pull of the Zambezi has proved irresistible. Shortly after our interview, she called to say she had taken a job as a rafting guide in Zimbabwe. By now she will have taken another long, hard look at the grade six section that no woman has conquered - so far.

n Next week: The zoologist