What level of hardcore is this group?

I might be interested but I tend more towards the casual than the type IV...

I guess I should define "good rafting" then. For me, good rafting means some bumps and mild whitewater. Nothing that requires too much skill or ability. But also not too flat and slow. If you're at all interested in real whitewater then there's nothing on these rivers at all. But I enjoyed rafting t...

Thanks for the tip, I may drop you a line when there's more water in Cache Creek. I've finally arrived in the Sacramento area and have been scouting for rivers. Cache Creek was running around 5 cfs when I went and looked at it so not raftable at all at this time of year. :) However, the Middle Fork ...

After 3 years of trying to find places to packraft in Belgium... I've finally moved back to the US. Should anyone ever find themselves in Belgium with a packraft and some time to kill... you're basically out of luck. :) In addition to the two floats mentioned above, you can play around in the Lesse ...

Our second raft was written on by a whole bunch of different people using a black Sharpie. It has held up for years and not had any effect on the fabric.

I know Hig and Erin have a good one about chasing a windblown packraft across a iceberg filled lake but I'll let them share that. I had an interesting one where I got to the the river (class I-II) with a couple of friends who had never been packrafting and discovered that while I had brought two boa...

Another perspective... I've had a boat without a spray deck since 2003 and I've never wished for a deck. I've used it for fishing, ocean play, river crossings, some whitewater, hunting, and as a shelter. :) I prefer the open space, the ease of getting in an out, and not feeling trapped. But it's a p...

Floating the Amazon from source to sea in a packraft sounds cool and an epic adventure.

*Walking* seems just unnecessarily painful.

Great pictures.

I can second the recommendation for visiting Norway with a packraft.... a couple of summers ago I did some wandering around the fjords and fishing with my Alpacka and had a blast.

I have a similar sort of question, but not for flatwater. I want the boat to track more or less straight while *drifting* down a gentle river. The two ways I've thought of doing this are to drag maybe 20' of rope behind the boat or a shorter rope with a small bucket or something similar. Has anyone ...

Greetings all,

In a few months my family and our packrafts will be moving to Davis CA (near Sacramento). Anyone have any experience or recommendations regarding packrafting in this area? Any packrafters in the area that might be interesting in getting together?


Cheers...

I'm sold on the concept, I just need to sell some gear to finance my Packraft. :) Do they do well in shallow, rocky water? I'm assuming they probably will because of the shallow draft, but wonder how tough they are. I'm also wondering about spray skirt vs. not. I'd like to be able to jump in/out an...

Yup, I've got the yellow tape. That repair does sound fairly scary though. Maybe I'll wait until I'm back in the States and see if Shaggy can help me fix it.

Then again if it's the weekend warrior crowd, which is likely the fastest growing facet of packrafting, maybe it's a necessary evil. Which is the evil? A book aimed at more casual users or the more casual users themselves (such as myself)? The way I see it, the more people involved in packrafting t...

I had this exact same problem in a circa 2004 boat in 8 of the seams on the bottom. I just smeared aquaseal all over each of the junctions and called it good. So I don't really have a basis for comparison but it seems to be working fine.

I wanted to thank both the original poster and turk for this discussion. I was rafting a large river here in Belgium this last weekend and I came to a ~2-meter concrete dam similar to the ones described here. I studied it for awhile, but thinking of this discussion I decided to just portage it. Howe...

I don't know that you need a custom mod for that. I've slept on the packraft as a groundcloth several times and Hig and Erin have used them as shelters/groundcloths for years.

Try it and let us know?


I've often wondered the same thing...

I can't speak as to the Big Island itself but I had good time floating some of the rivers on Kauai if you make it up there...

I would also consider whether you're going to spend a lot of time with a pack in the boat... if so, I'd take the larger boat regardless. IMHO.

Okay, I did my part. I joined the Facebook group and added "packrafting" to my interests.

Great pics but where are the fish?

Well I'm not from the UK, nor do I have a raft for sale... but if you buy one and find a nice place to raft in Scotland let me know and I'll come up from Belgium and join you.

My wife and I fish from our Llama occasionally and we've found that splitting the paddle in half and paddling like a canoe actually works fairly well. Both people kneeling and facing forward.

While I have nothing to add to your detailed and useful post... I just wanted to say it's good to finally see you guys here on the forums.

So we have a 1-year old daughter... a bit too young for packrafting yet. But by how much? I'm curious about the following two questions for those of you with children: How young before you put them in the packraft at all (I'm thinking of a calm lake with a lifejacket)? How long before they had their...

Probably not what you had in mind but when I was in Norway with my Alpacka (near Tromso), I had a blast fishing out in the fjords. You can catch Atlantic cod so big that they pull your raft.

Well I can't go... but I sure as hell wish I could.


Sounds like an awesome trip.

Hey, I am currently waiting for my raft (being shipped from Norway...) and was just curious what lakes and rivers you been to in Sweden? Well I didn't do any rivers while in Sweden, it was pretty flat in the region we were backpacking. I couldn't remember name of the area where we were so I e-maile...

I'll preface my opinion by stating I'm a pretty casual rafter and don't do anything hardcore. My wife and I have two rafts, one with and one without a spray skirt. I feel really uncomfortable doing rapids in the one with the spray skirt because I feel trapped. I know it's a totally irrational feelin...

Although I should mention that even after being stepped on and cracked by a bear, their paddle was still usable with a bit of field repair. Not much you can do about that unless you want to hang your paddle in a tree every night.

I just came back from a normal (i.e. non-packrafting) vacation in the Italian Alps but of course I took my raft just in case. Should you find yourself visiting the Val d'Aosta in the Italian Alps (French/Italian bilingual, amazing mountains, great trekking with really nice mountain chalets, and awes...

Here's another nice (but urban) float in Belgium... The river Dyle flows right through the historic city of Leuven (only 15 minutes from Brussels by train). If you put in a couple miles upstream of the city you get to float past a 17th century waterwheel, an impressive castle, a nice park, and then ...

Yeah, I heard that Hig and Erin also had one stepped on and broken by a bear as well...

So I have used my Alpacka Llama for Duck hunting on a few occasions with fair success. I've chosen a river in WA that is too small for normal boats and is on public land. I float down the river in total silence and then when birds fly I am able to generally shoot them down into the water and retriev...

For discussing the use of packrafts in hunting, both as an actual tool or as a way to carry out meat...

Hi Arturgreen, I'm a newbie to packrafting located in the central US, but I am also an international flight attendant who spends a lot of time in Brussels. One of the reasons I got a Yak was to bring it on trips with me, to use on layovers. Are there any good places to raft around Bruxells? Or, say...

If you should find yourself in Belgium with an Alpacka looking for a fairly casual river trip I would recommend the Semois, near the border with France. It's class II max, mostly class one, but through some very pretty country. It has the advantage of snaking more than any river I've ever seen which...

As the almost drowned buddy described in the first topic post I would support the safety measures outlined above... as well as add the detail that going out into the Pacific surf at night was really a dumb idea. :) That being said, I'd love to try it again under the following conditions: Buddy syste...

Any packrafters in Central Europe? I'm currently located in Belgium and haven't had a whole lot of luck making converts here...

Well I can't say that I took a pack rafting trip, so much as a long backpacking trip with Alpackas but close enough right? :) Anyway, a group of 4 of us (two rafts) went on a fishing trip in Lapland and the Alpackas were just awesome. They allowed us to get out into deeper water in the lakes and cat...

Well, I'm still stuck in Belgium (which is flat!) for another year plus... however when we return to Washington State in summer 2009, I would love to join the packrafter community that you will have developed by then.

People have used the shaft from Aquabound paddles for walking sticks. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with these new paddles. You can protect the end with rubber floor protector made for a chair leg. You can get them at your local hardware store. Sounds like the new paddles are success. I will nee...

I've had a lot of problems with stuck paddles and have found the breaking them down ASAP after being out the water makes my life a whole lot easier than waiting until the next morning (or worse, weeks later in the garage).

The one place I highly recommend a lanyard is on open water . Out in the big blue, even just a hundred feet offshore, you can spill out, the wind can grab your boat, and it's gone forever - leaving you in the icy-cold drink. That's where having it anchored to a paddle-in-hand is a lifesaver, just a...

I have done a fair amount of ocean, lake, and river fishing with my Alpacka. Bigger fish in a lake or ocean aren't a problem, as long as they don't have big spines... I know that Hig and Erin have punched more than one rockfish spine hole in their boats. One of the issues that I have is the lack of ...