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RomanDial

Another trip that took decades for me to get around to. From Deering get an ATV ride as far as Hanum River. Then hike some tussocks until you can escape to the limestone around Crossfox Butte and Asses Ears. The worst tussocks in my forty years of low arctic travel between Cloud Lake and Salix Bay. ...

RomanDial

The Grand Canyon of the Noatak is neither, but nearby is Sapun Creek which is a day's walk from Kobuk drainages. Brad Meiklejohn and I walked over the divide and by noon the next day were paddling the headwaters of the Salmon River in Kobuk Valley National Park. The river got bigger and bigger abd i...

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The "Haul Road" is what I grew up calling the "Dalton Highway." It crosses the Brooks Range at Atigun Pass, just beyond Chandalar Shelf. Right off the road at Chandalar Shelf is a large tributary of the North Fork of the Chandalar River. For a couple decades I have wanted to reach Arctic Village by ...

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This route is mostly outside the parklands, except the float down the Agagashok. We took a week or ten days (don't recall) in 2018 walking amazing caribou trails across the southeastern Baird Mountains and then floating the crystalline Agashashashok ("Aggie") to the Noatak (= "Sloatak"). The Lower N...

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This is a good route, in my opinion. It took a group of five of us, including my wife Peggy and me together in an Alpacka 42 ten days to make the 200 or so miles. There area bunch of beautiful steep Class IV-looking creeks between Walker Lake and Angiaak Pass, some pool-drop schist, some boulder-gar...

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Hi Mat, Got your message. Ten days to Walker Lake from Anaktuvuk Pass is doable, but seems fast to me, especially in August when it can get cold, dark, and rainy and at my age (58). I think it took Andrew Skurka and me five days to get to Circle Lake from Anaktuvuk Pass in 2010. When I was 18 (young...

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Yo, For anybody who'd like to see what the author (me) of the first packrafting book (now down to the last 75 copies) took on his latest and perhaps greatest wilderness trip for gear, food and boat stuff, have a gander at http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2017/07/arctic-alaska-packrafting-gear.html Of...

RomanDial

Not sure I should even post this here, and it's not meant to sandbag anybody, but Upper Willow is my favorite packrafting creek -- in the world (sorry Ship). It feels like Ship Creek did in the early 2000's: right at the confluence of terror and control, and so improbable that when you do it (and I ...

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I'd say it's the perfect family and wife packraft. If I'd had one thirty years ago, my wife would like the water. Instead I tortured her in wee boats where she froze. Amazing we are still together. I think the high pressure GNU in vectran is the best family packraft out there. Buy it then get a card...

RomanDial

Best class III in the Anchorage Bowl when Eagle River reads 4 feet or less. No wood to speak of (a little piece here or there), nice and clean and beautiful with the beautiful green and snowy mountains and no bugs. We floated down to Albert Loop Trail and had to squeeze past a little sweeper activit...

RomanDial

The Llama sold in hours.

RomanDial

Extended stern, yellow Llama, thigh strap ready, whitewater deck.

$800

RomanDial

I have been using the backband and foot block for most of my trips now that are anything Class III+ and under and leave the thigh straps off as thigh straps make my old creaky hip joints ache. With a seat moved forward and back back on the back rest attached to the thigh strap D-rings and feet pushe...

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The APU packrafting class put in right below the straining, lower moraine at Eagle Lake on Wednesday, Sept 4 when Ship was running at 5.8. One of the party of 12 even ran the first drop out of Eagle lake into the little pond below, then portaged the straining moraine and continued. Super fun amuseme...

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An obvious and attractive line across the narrow Kenai isthmus, it took eleven of us only five hours in wind and rain to go from Whittier to the Seward Highway by way of Portage Pass, Portage Lake and Portage Creek. While I am sure it has been done many times, I post it here as it is an excellent be...

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We have a swiftwater rescue course with Eric Riley and there is space for more.

It's a three day course and packrafting specific.

Let me know here if you are interested or call my office at APU 907-564-8296. It'll likely be at Eagle River.

RomanDial

Kirk, That looks super light weight and clever. Nice job and thanks for showing us.

I like that minicell -- I'll try one of those lightweight backbands you showed for wilderness travel.

RomanDial

Alpacka has a clever way to get a boat to fit: wedge your feet into the narrow bow space and push your back against the back tube. However I am a Yak size by that method, yet I prefer a Llama's stability and high volume. So I stuff a 3" thick semicircle of minifoam (http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/produc...

RomanDial

Besides coming back from Mexico last winter with big drop inspiration, Luc showed me this: http://www.kayakshed.com/jackson-kayaks/surelock-backband-kit It's a whitewater kayak backband. You clip it in with locking carabiners to your metal D-ring set up and you are locked in. Combine it with a 4" th...

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The Gilahena on the north side and the Klu on the south side of the Chitina are two of the few clearwater creeks in the Chitina Valley that have been run in packrafts. For years I've looked at the lower Gilahena downstream of the Trestle on the drive in and thought, nah, looks too woody and shallow....

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Nathan. We walked up the Pingaluk in empty water conditions in August and it looks super. If I had the time I'd put in as high as possible on the Pingaluk. I was a timid Class III boater with Peggy (A timid Class II boater). The Nahtuk had the worst brush I have seen in the Brooks Range and a deep a...

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Coordinates are Google Earth-able: (maybe you need to change your preferences to decimal degrees? maybe not?)

N 62.6190
W 149.34297

And yep, that lake is 3 miles or so south of the upper Clear (Chunilna) Creek

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More pictures and text and a video slide show at http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2012/08 ... range.html

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Many of us have a tail trailing off a rear grab loop ( a stern line) and tie a "chicken line" to the front four grab loops. I go so far as to use one piece of poly-pro to tie all four forward grab loops together (I like throw rope thickness but many others go with skinny parachute cord) by threading...

RomanDial

I have been using the Hyperlight Mountain Gear packs this summer and find them ideal. Curiously, the "Expedition Pack" http://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/packs/expedition.html is my new day-tripping, sport-boating pack for walking in to packraft down. Its big volume (4400 cu in) allows me to put i...

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For a number of years I have wanted to fly into the Alatna Valley with a basecamp and big group to explore the many creeks that radiate out from the Arrigetch Creek area. In a 20 mile stretch of the Alatna there are four creeks on the river left bank (Nahtuk, Pingaluk, Kutuk, Unakserak) and another ...

RomanDial

Ok so this really doesn't start in Valdez, but rather at the elbow on the Richardson Highway at Thompson Pass. And it doesn't finish in McCarthy either, but rather at the Lakina Bridge, 15 miles west of McCarthy. As a 130-135 mile traverse of the Eastern Chugach in the Wrangell St. Elias National Pa...

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We found info on the American Whitewater Page.

But it's a really neat canyon and you could likely scramble along it to get a feel for it. It'd be an all day scramble but never cliffs out.

RomanDial

That's a real Tassie adventure!

RomanDial

Give it a go. I'd ride down the Kennicott bar maybe a ways as I recall it being bony in May and maybe not so easy with bike on board. The Nizina and Chitina should be no problem. Watch after noon winds can bring you to stand still in sand storm. If you flip, get on top of upside down boat to calmer ...

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Luc has attached the Baylee backband to his thigh strap D rings.

I have an old pillow-style seat I use with two inch velcro to keep it vertical behind my back.

Tim says Alpacka has been working on a Baylee-style backband.

RomanDial

Luc Mehl, Tim Johnson and I spent a week and a half in the SE. We went to the SE over January instead of New Zealand and it was GREAT! Great packrafting in that you can easily fly down with all your gear and go roadside boating. The steep clean drops are great for working on your boof strokes and th...

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Here's my 2011 Compilation:

all the packrafts in here are Alpackas and some show how well the 2011 models handle big drops and kill bandersnatches

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Bird from the usual upstream put in is clean of wood except the place it's had a big wood portage for the last few years. That's still there, a few corners down from the put-in and where you eddy out river right. Overall the recent highwater has left the run in good shape and it's fun, especially in...

RomanDial

That was a custom boat. I will measure its dimensions, but on that Canyonlands trip there was another couple, Forrest and Amy, I recall, who were in the Explorer. Inside the boat, it's quite narrow in the bow and stern. The boat we used is much more rounded inside. The idea was to make a boat big en...

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Three trips with Thai: (1) Upper Willow, with and without thigh straps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncLhNaS_I-I Thai Verzone in the stubby yellow boat with orange deck has no thigh straps and an old, long sea kayak paddle. Keeps up and shines. (2) Aniakchak, too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJM...

RomanDial

bummer. i have put thigh straps on five boats now and never had failure.....maybe I left something out of the video? MEK x 3 each side mix Stabond w/hardener till amber colored one coat, let dry, second let dry, third coat dry to touch and I just heat up one side with low heat then put together and ...

RomanDial

wow that big rig is NICE! would like to paddle it.

RomanDial

Granite Creek on the Kenai at Turnagain Pass from Lyon Creek to Highway and then below to E Fork Six Mile is a good beginner/intermediate run. Did it yesterday with a bunch of APU students and it was great practice and they loved it. Lots of sweepers (we likely portaged about a half dozen times) but...

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Any more details than that?

RomanDial

The Meili Mtns of this part of China are super beautiful -- there's one peak (Mianzimu 6054 m) that is so attractive it makes me want to become a climber as it's unclimbed looks and looks a little like Alpamayo, and another like Amadablam (also unclimbed) and then some that look like Torres del Pain...

RomanDial

awesome.

RomanDial

Should be good. More water generally in September than October. How long is your Otter? September can also be high if lots of rain. Kennicott is only a few miles long and Nizina is good and deep. The kennicott is the smallest of those rivers. There is an ATV trail down to the nizina somewhere out th...

RomanDial

Eric Parsons, Dylan Kentch, Mike Curiak, Steve "Doom" Fassbinder and I fat bike and packrafted the 225 miles down the wildest part of the Lost Coast in 10 days of late June. Gordy and Thai even left us a note at the outlet of the lake draining Grand Plateau Glacier. This trip showed me the value of ...

RomanDial

I agree, John, the new longer boats the 450 cfs water runs cleaner and easier.

RomanDial

We have flipped and it is ugly. On the upper Talkeetna I fell in a hole and got flipped. Tried hanging on for a minute to get my breath and found that the paddle was stuck through the fork so could not right the boat. Pulled paddle out (challenge). Still couldn't right the boat. Heavy current, cold ...

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@ Raven,

By mouth.

Would like to use bicycle pump but my son has it; made up a little giszmo to finish off the boats with bike pump but need a little bike pump again.

RomanDial

Over on Hedrik Morkel's blog I posted a trip report of the Anaktuvuk-John-Wolverine Cr-Nahtuk-Pingaluk-Alatna trip with Andrew Skurka from last August (2010). It's about 120 miles and a week would be leisurely. The John is a great float as far as Wolverine Creek and Wolverine Creek is surprisingly g...

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nathanm About 1 minute into this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1knHmqDrPeM) you'll see what I use. Like you, I used those Kelty straps for years. Now I get what Hig calls "ladder lock" straps at REI they call them accessory straps. I do not use fastex buckles (http://www.rei.com/product/813836/rei...

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John N. We just ran the lower canyon. Hike in from the big elbow at Yoder (or drive in 4 WD) to the enormous mud pit. The mud pit's really wide, as 4-wheelers have been going in many different directions -- like five lanes wide. To get here you go to the big elbow in Yoder and take ATV trail left al...

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