Packrafting Triumph – My Crazy Adventure Begins! You in?

Part 1 of My Packrafting Journey – We’re Doin’ This!

I spent a lot of time in November and December of last year looking into packrafts and the whole sport of packrafting. Alpackarafts clearly made the packrafts I wanted and as their sale end date neared, I became a little frantic. My wife gave me the post-Christmas thumbs up and rather than examine my good fortune, the order was placed. I chose the magenta (not pink!) and black version of the Gnarwhal and some gear to go with it and this whole adventure commenced.

I chose the Gnarwhal in a self-bailing configuration. My logic was that there would be zero chance of me learning to do a combat roll in my first season. In fact, when it comes to packrafts, rolling really isn’t a truly reliable way of attacking a river for any but the best experts. With that decision made, the Gnarwhal gave me the greatest stability in an athletic self-bailer. The self-bailing floor I felt was a must if I was going to do anything above Class II rapids, and a spray skirt just was too much complexity for me in my first boat. Done!

Step 1 –Packrafting Research

Step 1 for me was to do oodles of research. I nearly reached the end of the internet (or at least YouTube) on the subject of packrafting. I watched Class V action all the way down to flatwater trips. There were folks challenging some of the most epic spring run creeks, huge rivers like the Colorado at high flow, and many flatwater adventures. The ones that really capture my imagination were rivers like the Escalante, Owyhee, and Bruneau as the adventure in these wildernesses seems extreme. But I also loved the classics like Middle Fork of the Salmon, Selway, and other Idaho trips.

From this video binging, I began to paint a mental model of what I might be able to do. I also found two incredible books (Packrafting: Exploring the Wilderness by Portable Boat and The Packraft Handbook: An Instructional Guide for the Curious), but the one by Luc Mehl has to be one of the greatest instructional manuals I’ve ever read. His emphasis on safety improved my perspective. Reading these books further whetted my appetite and my upcoming East Fork Owyhee River trip further spurred me to understand as much about rivers as I could.

Step 2 – Packraft Ingress Drills

Skipping the unpacking, June found me on Little Payette Lake rolling out of the packraft in deep water. Tammy and I had just completed our East Fork Owyhee River adventure with Ken, and I was signed on with friends to join their Middle Fork Salmon River trip in July! The drill was simply to retrieve my paddle and swim/lunge back into the boat from the water. I confidently made my first lunge…and the packraft flipped over on me. Huh…well, let’s try again. To my surprise, the second try gave me the same result. Just barely able to catch my breath, some 20-30 tries later, I finally had success…to much applause from the shore. Very embarrassing.

I found that I absolutely had to kick my feet very hard as I climbed onto the packraft. That became the key and soon I could reenter the boat from the water three out of four times or so. Further embarrassment did ensue when all of the 20-somethings in our crew wanted to try it out. Each and every one of them entered the boat on their first try. Maybe I should lose a few pounds….

Step 3 – Get some Packrafting Experience

My wife and I agreed I couldn’t go on the Middle Fork Salmon trip until I’d put some miles in on real rivers. I thought this would be easy, targeting the south fork of the Boise River to give me both class II and class III experience. Two weeks before the Salmon trip, I still hadn’t gained a single river mile in the packraft and I was beginning to feel I really wouldn’t be going. I reached out to my daughter one last time to see if we could at least get out on the Boise in downtown for some class II experience. Luckily for me, her friend Mark agreed to take me out on the river.

Mark provided me with considerable up-front instruction and also insisted that we begin my experience on the main Payette River. This part of the Payette is relatively big water and has a number of class II and class III hits along about a 7 mile half-day trip. As we loaded gear and began the journey up to the river my nerves started jangling just a bit. I suddenly realized this was really on. Even though the boat launch was sparsely populated, I had a serious bout of anxiety over both “performing in public” and just not drowning.

Main Payette

Mark presented me with a number of lessons about entering and exiting current, eddy lines, and about a million other things I can’t easily recall. At some point before I launched from the bank I just simply felt calm. Suddenly the anxiety turned to excitement and then to handling the business in front of me. I can’t describe it but it felt really good. Really good. I don’t remember exactly what we hit first, but I think it was Whitewater 101 and 102 rapids, and I was super excited to stay squared-up and shoot right through both.

After that warmup, we entered the Class III Go Left, and Mark showed the line he wanted me to take. Once again, I squared up and followed and the whole thing was a splashy and wet ride through the lower wave train. Now I was beginning to really amp up on the excitement. Somewhere in there, my daughter and wife joined us from the shore and we visited. Imagine my surprise when I peeled out into the current and immediately had my first flip of the packraft in front of them!!

Humbled but Ready for More

That was a bit of a humbling experience. No real rapids, just an eddy line that caught me with my thumb up my butt. I later found out on the Middle Fork that eddy lines are for real. I don’t remember all of the rapids as I encountered them, but the map tells me we made it through Lunch Counter (II), Bennnett’s Rock (III), Killer Surf Wave (II), Mike’s Hole (III) before we got to Mixmaster and AMF (Adios My Friend? or Adios something something), both killer class III rapids.

Mark let me take my own line through about 4 or 5 of the middle sets of rapids, but as we came to Mixmaster and AMF, I chose to follow. Mixmaster was super splashy and fun and I felt really good that I was following and not picking my own line. As we reached AMF, I could tell that this wouldn’t be anything like the rest of the rapids by my teammate’s demeanor. This turned out to be a really fun rapid and at mid-July flow had a lot of character. I had to work fairly hard to keep squared up and avoid a flip, but I sure as hell did it!

Retrospective on the Payette

I’m eternally thankful to Amanda and Mark for getting me the lessons and river time I needed to just get some understanding of what the packrafting experience would be like. Mark led or trailed in his kayak, tutoring practically non-stop. I’m here to tell you that anytime a kayaker will provide you with free advice on what you need to do, what you are doing wrong, or what you are doing right you simply have to listen. This is how you advance in fast-forward without having to learn every lesson the hard way.

The Payette is an exceptional river for this. A mixture of swift but flat water along with manageable class II and class III rapids makes for a big confidence boost. This river could be rerun a million times with incredible fun each time, I can see now. Far from a beginner run, it has nuance and challenge around most corners. At the same time, a beginner can make it through and gain confidence. Finally, flipping in this river is not the most dangerous swimming experience. All water is to be respected, but this is one river that can forgive a mistake or two.

Where Next in the Packrafting Adventure?

With 7 miles on the Payette and 30 or so ingress/egress drills under my belt, did this make me ready for anything (at all)? This was the question in my head, but I had my ticket punched for the Middle Fork of the Salmon River at the end of July. I now had just enough experience under my belt to make a low-water attempt there. I knew my safety net was to roll up an stow my packraft and become a passenger in a big boat. With that in mind, I decided to buck up and go for this bucket-list item. How many chances would I get?

One thing I noticed about the Payette…the water was warm and the 90-degree day was more than warm. Despite that, in an athletic T-shirt and board shorts, I was shivering and cold at the end of the run. This gave me enough insight into what it might be like on a colder Middle Fork with 7 days of changing weather. I knew board shorts and a T-shirt would never cut it and possibly my hydroskin wouldn’t completely get it done either. Off to REI to pick up a paddle jacket and I’ll tell you more in the Middle Fork story about the validity of that plan!!

Oh and don’t forget to check out www.recreation.gov for some exceptional permits and lotteries for epic trips!!! More on that in the Middle Fork journey….