Packraft Routes

[steve]

It's pretty heavy. Depending on your boat, it's going to be:
4.5-7 lbs for your boat (depending on features/size)
~2 lbs for your paddle
0.2-2lbs for your pfd

Keep in mind I have ZERO experience with packrafting. I'm a noob trying to figure it all out. This is all my opinion based on what I have read, and I could be WAY off. I think there are two perspectives on packrafting:

1) You hike in order to be able to paddle some really cool terrain or...
2) you paddle in order to be able to hike some really cool terrain

It sounds like semantics, but option 1 focuses on paddling. Option 2 focuses on hiking.

I bought a packraft for three reasons:

#1 (see #1 above)
#2 I'm addicted to gear
#3 so I could create new trips with mixed adventure along the way, and explore new places where rivers shut me out before.

Mainly, I got a packraft so I could paddle cool places that I can't get to in my IK. In other words, the paddling is the focus, not the hiking.

 

[steve]

The way I see it, an extra 10-30 lbs in your boat is nothing. An extra 10 lbs on your back is significant. So it all comes down to the balance of paddling and hiking. If you're doing a 30 mile hike with a 1 mile packraft section, It may not be worth carrying 10 lbs of gear just for that short section of river. If you're going to hike 5 miles to packraft 60, then the 10 lbs really only needs to be carried for 5 miles, then it becomes less important.

The idea of accessing the maze via needles for a quick 2-3 day trip is super appealing to me. As @Kullaberg63 has demonstrated, he can zip down there, launch, cross the colorado, and get into the maze in an hour or two from needles. That sure beats a 12 hour bumpy car ride back in there.

I think the weight of the packraft will take its toll on long hikes. The goal for me is to not have to hike super long distances with the packraft gear in tow, as it's pretty heavy.

Basically, the packraft opens up a lot of doors that weren't possible to me before. For most trips, I'm going to have to think long and hard about how much I want to carry 10 lbs of boat and gear for the water. In some cases it'll be a no-brainer. In other cases, it'll be left at home.

 

[Nick]

Interesting. My vision of a packraft's purpose is just to tie points together that you couldn't otherwise, and also to float otherwise unfloatable waters.

Some of his routes seem to have longer approaches and exits just because they can when it might actually be a lot easier and probably more pleasant to do it as a regular float trip with side hikes. Like that Bowknot Bend route - I'd much rather just float Ruby to Mineral and hike each of those canyons. All that hiking with 10 pounds of river gear just to float Bowknot Bend seems kind of pointless to me.

 

[steve]

Some of his routes seem to have longer approaches and exits just because they can when it might actually be a lot easier and probably more pleasant to do it as a regular float trip with side hikes. Like that Bowknot Bend route - I'd much rather just float Ruby to Mineral and hike each of those canyons. All that hiking with 10 pounds of river gear just to float Bowknot Bend seems kind of pointless to me.

Agreed. I wonder if you'd be able to complete it quicker by doing his intended route, or if it'd still be a 3-5 day trip anyway. I'm at the point where I can only take a couple 5+ day trips each year, so a 3 day sampling is better than nothing.

I can imagine there being an added thrill and sense of adventure when you have two modes of travel. I see it as the cousin to splitboarding. Sure, you could just get a pass at a resort, but the journey up there makes it different, and you can access places you can't otherwise access.

I think a 3 day float in a packraft would probably be quite uncomfortable. I'll post my thoughts as I learn more from my experiences.

 

[Nick]

To me, the appeal with splitboarding is much more to do with the ability to have solitude and explore more than the same few runs over and over rather than just having a different mode of getting around. But I see exactly what you mean. It's kinda like those dudes who did the fat bike+packraft+backpacking trip posted earlier. In reality, those fat bikes were probably not at all needed, but they're gear junkies and it's fun to combine different things.

I've yet to sit in a packraft, but yeah, 3 days in one sounds miserable. I'm sure you could do what they did in 3 days in a regular kayak on the river. Probably wouldn't be worth it to hike all the way out to their entrance and exits but totally possible to explore 'the goods' in those canyons in that time if you paddled fast and made good use of time.

 

[steve]

Has anyone here done muddy creek (Fremont river)? I want to do it this year.

 

[Ben]

i don't have a packraft yet. but my tax return will cover it and then some.

 

[steve]

I found this great site that tells the river flows for your area.

http://www.eddyflower.com/river.php#na/USA/UT

 

[BJett]

Has anyone here done muddy creek (Fremont river)? I want to do it this year.

The Chute of Muddy Creek in the Swell? I've run it 4 times. Always late May/early June. One year we had weeks with enough flow, some years it never runs. Irrigation upstream sucks it dry, need big snowmelt years to catch it.
http://backcountrypost.com/threads/kayaking-the-chute-of-muddy-creek.2146/#post-23846

Every boater has AW bookmarked...Eddyflower is good but doesn't always update...
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/state-summary/state/UT/

 

[steve]

Thanks BJett, I'm new to the paddling thing and I really appreciate the resources.

 

[BJett]

I just hope you all get some more snow and all the classic desert runs go, I'll be living vicariously through your trip reports. My 2 week trip in April/May will be showing some canyon noobies around the Escalante area. no boating unfortunately. Muddy Creek is about as good as it gets, keep snow dancin'.

 

[Kullaberg63]

If it was my Bowknot packraft trip you guys referred to earlier, then it was a little more than an afternoon car to car. Took about as much planning as doing the Slickrock Trail. Floating from Ruby to Mineral is a major expedition in comparison!

That said, I definitely excell in doing absolutely pointless trips just for the hell of it.

 

[steve]

We were referring to Forrest's route. If you can do bowknot in a day, that's very appealing.

 

[Nick]

A couple things to consider when planning packrafting trips involving Lake Powell: log jams and quicksand/mud. Both can be a serious problem, or no problem at all. I think that the quicksand is worse when water levels are declining (most of the year except mid-April through mid-June or July, depending on runoff), but it could be a problem anytime. It really just depends. Sometimes it is so bad that you seriously risk getting trapped. Like no messing around - really, really stuck. Remember the NOLS group that had to call SAR to extract the hiker from the quicksand in the roost? Like that! Other times you have easy work arounds. It's almost never a clean transition from lake to canyon though. Best case scenario, prepare to get messy.

This quicksand/mud problem is particularly bad for heavier folks and people with heavy packs. I had to turn back in lower Fiftymile because I feared that I was going to sink beyond the point that my trip mate could rescue me. My friend on that one was @colefeet who is a very petite female and she did not struggle as much, although she still had issues. I've been thinking of ways to get around this problem. The first obvious thought is snowshoes. It sounds ridiculous, but they would work great. Probably overkill though and only feasible for boat-accessed explorations. Carrying them on backpacking trips would be awful. A lighter/cheaper/easier alternative could be something like large squares of thin, hard plastic. Put a couple small holes for a strap to go through to attach them to your feet, thus making a sort of ultralight snowshoe with no traction. It would probably be enough to get through without sinking, I think. I'd like to make a pair or two and try them this year while I'm out exploring by boat, but I haven't figured out what plastic to use yet. I'd love to hear any suggestions or ideas if anyone has them.

This is where we finally turned around in Fiftymile due to the wall-to-wall quickmud. It doesn't look bad, but it is.


Then the log jams. At the backs of some canyons, you may run into vast patches of floating driftwood that can make travel difficult, if not impossible. These too are hit and miss, although I suspect certain canyons are more prone to them due to the general SW wind pattern that Glen Canyon experiences. The recent frequency and intensity of flash floods would also play a big part. I've run into some pretty big log jams while canyoneering, and I can say they are sort of terrifying to get through when they are bad. It's like you swim and swim and get nowhere. But I've never seen anything like some of the photos of log jams I've seen at Lake Powell.

Check out this thread by Alex on Expedition Utah: http://www.expeditionutah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=831

Aside from all the amazing waterfalls that will have you dreaming about renting a houseboat, about 2/3 of the way down, there are some photos of log jams they encountered while trying to paddle up into Bishop Creek (a tributary of Willow Gulch that I hope to visit this year). He mentions that Kelsey specifically said there are floating logs in Bishop in his LP book, so maybe it is more prone than other canyons.

This photo in particular:

If you hit that in packrafts, you might be totally screwed. I wouldn't even know how to start getting through that. We hit a pretty nasty patch of debris at the top of Moqui Canyon when we yakpacked it, but there were clear-ish parts that made it possible to paddle through. I was still getting nailed by branches in my hard shell though. A couple pics of that:

Anyway, just something that I'd want to be aware of if I were planning packraft trips in and around Lake Powell. Hope that helps someone.

 

[steve]

good info nick. It sounds like quicksand/mud could be an issue in our fiftymile/Davis trip

 

[Nick]

It certainly could be. The lake level will likely still be dropping, but not very fast (if at all), which may be on your side. Two pairs of some sort of makeshift floats on your shoes would be enough to shuttle a whole group through that short sticky zone if it is a problem.

Or maybe you'll be fine without. If you sink bad, don't forget it's better to just get really messy and try to lay out of the hole to spread your weight out. Kinda like my awesome form in the Lower Black Box.

 

[steve]

Has anyone run the dirty devil before? I think I may run it this spring, especially since it's supposedly at 125% snowpack.

 

[Nick]

There's an awesome trip report in the 'on the water' section from @mattvogt7 from his Dirty Devil run last year.

 

[steve]

Cool, thanks. Found it here:
http://backcountrypost.com/threads/packrafting-the-dirty-devil-march-2014.3183/

 

[kayakdave]

It's pretty heavy. Depending on your boat, it's going to be:
4.5-7 lbs for your boat (depending on features/size)
~2 lbs for your paddle
0.2-2lbs for your pfd

Keep in mind I have ZERO experience with packrafting. I'm a noob trying to figure it all out. This is all my opinion based on what I have read, and I could be WAY off. I think there are two perspectives on packrafting:

1) You hike in order to be able to paddle some really cool terrain or...
2) you paddle in order to be able to hike some really cool terrain

It sounds like semantics, but option 1 focuses on paddling. Option 2 focuses on hiking.

I bought a packraft for three reasons:

#1 (see #1 above)
#2 I'm addicted to gear
#3 so I could create new trips with mixed adventure along the way, and explore new places where rivers shut me out before.

Mainly, I got a packraft so I could paddle cool places that I can't get to in my IK. In other words, the paddling is the focus, not the hiking.

10 pounds? the new Alpacka Scout weighs 2.5 pounds My old Scout weighs 3.5 pounds. My Advanced Elements Ultralight Pack Paddle weighs 23 oz (and only cost $35) and my Onyx PFD MoveVent Curve ($54) about a pound after I cut off some buckles. 5 or 6 pounds without a mini repair kit!