packrafting.org

Charlie Woodruff enjoyed his first packraft experience on the North Fork of the Virgin in Zion National Park. Starting at the Temple of Sinawava we descended The North Fork through the Court of the Patriarchs and Satin’s Staircase. The Springdale Stream Gage recorded 280 cfs at the time of our descent. We portage Corral Falls.

My friend Diana and I took packrafts down to the Colorado in Canyonlands. We rafted about 10 miles of flat water, before The Confluence, and a few more miles of flatwater afterwards until we ran the first 8 rapids of Cataract Canyon. This was Diana's first overnight backcountry trip ever, she had fun and we are still friends.

A brief video from our 30 day trip on the Grand Canyon last month...
we had a few packrafts around, even though most of the video is canyons and
rafting...

http://vimeo.com/22309330

The Grand Canyon is an immense place, almost unfathomable in scale, and one of
the last places in the American West to be explored. John Wesley Powell called
it the "Great Unknown," having no idea what rapids, falls, or canyons awaited
him on his first descent of the river in 1869. In the decades since, the Canyon
has been a playground for dozens of explorers. River runners, backpackers,
routefinders, lithic hunters, and peakbaggers have all laid claim to the
Canyon's iconic landmarks, often seeking out the prestigious "firsts." While
many significant points of interest were being explored, there was one feature
that was left almost entirely ignored: the Canyon's innumerable technical slots.

Deep within this vast wilderness are secret and intimate tributaries rarely
visited by man, hiding some of the Canyon's most remarkable features. The
barrier to entry is steep. To explore them, one must have a knowledge of
backpacking, packrafting, rappeling, anchor building, and off-trail navigation.
The Last of the Great Unknown is the story of these slots, the canyoneers who
systematically explored their drainages, and the secrets hidden deep within
their walls.

In February 2011, a group of 16 set out to run the Grand Canyon and descend as
many slots as possible en route. The itinerary was ambitious. 280 miles of
whitewater, 30 days and 22 slots. The tally included 7 fully loaded boats, 5
rookie boatmen, 1400 packed meals, a steady flow around 20k cfs, and an ungodly
amount of 4 a.m. wakeup calls.

That video on the 30 days in the GC is so good, I think I am going to quit making videos.

Fall 2011? Does that mean Banff?

Decided to buy a new camera and try HD:

Montana Creek: May 14, 2011



Little Susitna: June 8, 2011



East Fork Iron Creek: July 9, 2011

Awesome HD video RomanDial...

Cant wait to get out this year and do some of that!!

a bit more packrafting footage from our trip on the grand canyon this past winter...

http://vimeo.com/24137742

These videos are great! Thanks for sharing, everyone! =D

A quick bikerafting trip for people in the Mat-Su Valley: park at Napa in Palmer, ride bike with raft to Sutton on the Matanuska Railroad trail, raft to the Matanuska bridge on Arctic, and ride bike back to Napa. If you like a challenge throw in a dog for good measure. Make sure it is a mushing dog so it can pull you home.

The final event of the 2011 Willow Creek Whitewater Festival put on by Susitna Sled and Kayak: teams of three race to be the first to get their beach ball from Redgate to the Shirleytown bridge using only paddles and boats (no hands or putting the ball on your boat).

The original agreement was not to mess with other teams beach balls...that agreement was quickly forgotten!

If you run whitewater in Alaska you will recognize many of the participants.

Patrick and I did the "not-so-cheap" version of Sheep Creek on Saturday. Willow Creek was at about 900 cfs and the class III on Sheep was great. I now understand why this is referred to as a "classic".

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 tidewater packrafting. I used an extended and spray decked 2011 Scout. It worked well for carrying a bike and weighed 4 lbs.

Here are some visual highlights of this incredible route, one of the most varied and interesting in the State, in my opinion.

Denali traverse by bike-ski-packraft!

http://thingstolucat.com/denali-traverse/

Luc's vid embedded.... but it really deserves a click though to his site above so you can watch the higher rez version.

The automated forum nazi won't let me embed a vid or even post a link to it, for fear of my newbness here meaning spam. Anyone care to embed it, please? Or give me a workaround? It's on vimeo, vid # 25943565.

Thanks,

MC

MikeC wrote:The automated forum nazi won't let me embed a vid or even post a link to it, for fear of my newbness here meaning spam. Anyone care to embed it, please? Or give me a workaround? It's on vimeo, vid # 25943565.

Thanks,

MC

Got the Vimeo embed working... but you should really jump to the page to watch it in higher def.

Mark Oathout and I made this run on July 23rd, 2011. This is a great packrafting creek!

Aniakchak Crater Video and photos.

Can't embed anything... here is the link:

http://thingstolucat.com/aniakchak-crater/

-Luc

August 2011 runs of Moose Creek near Palmer, Alaska. Video has a few shots of the Baylee self-bailer in action.

Video, photos, and beta from a September run on the Lakina:

http://thingstolucat.com/lakina-loop/

-Luc

Three trips with Thai:

(1) Upper Willow, with and without thigh straps:



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


and experimental video of Aniachak beach walk/packraft



(3) Mekong quickie in China

Four vids from our week on the Fitzroy in the Kimberley - September, 2011.

Chris

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

Globalization comes to packrafting... here we have a vid of packrafting the Hozu river in Japan (just outside of Kyoto). The music is the great Japanese punk band Hi-Standard playing an Elvis cover. Turn it up!

Upstream Paddling!

http://thingstolucat.com/upstream/

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk_ABPj6K-Q

Luc - too good ! That was absolutely fantastic, very nicely done.

Just made my very first multi-day solo trekking/packrafting trip in the French alps, here are some impressions:

Have loved all the videos everyone is putting out. Not sure if these will embed okay as haven't done it before but here are a couple of ones I have made of packrafting in Australia on the Franklin and Snowy Rivers:

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/embed/zdDXo3QG9SI [youtube]

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/embed/jW03e5P5FOk [youtube]

Cheers Mark

mark wrote:Have loved all the videos everyone is putting out. Not sure if these will embed okay as haven't done it before but here are a couple of ones I have made of packrafting in Australia on the Franklin and Snowy Rivers:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zdDXo3QG9SI"

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jW03e5P5FOk"

Cheers Mark

Wrap the youtube url with the following: [ youtube ] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDXo3QG9SI [ youtube ]

Mark - wow. Thanks a heap for posting.

Amazing videos Mark, great editing & tunes. I reckon your Snowy River excursion would have been the first ever ski-raftaneering trip in Australia!

YouTube is an integral part in the evolution of the sport of packrafting and is a place for the packrafting community to share experiences and inspire others. This playlist highlights some of the most influential and inspiring films of the last six years, IMHO.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL21ED8B03A7B761D9

I totally agree, Problem is, a lot of YT clips are banned in Germany for music rights and we cant even upload our videos with our choice of Music. That is why Vimeo is more popular overseas David from Gridnorth.blogspot.com created a similar chanel there:
http://vimeo.com/channels/gridnorth

Thanks!

Sven

Following on from my blog posts at viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1783

I uploaded a video now, check it out!

HD link at http://youtu.be/WvosdNO_vI4?hd=1 - remember to click the bottom right box to get it full screen...

http://youtu.be/PVhDZzurU38

Hi all - I've just returned from another epic jungle river expedition, this time to the extremely isolated Rewa River in the Guyana jungles. Here's some of the bizarre and beautiful wildlife I encountered during the 4-week journey. More vids to come! You can also find these videos (and those from previous journeys) on my website and on the Remote River Man fan page on Facebook.

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
http://www.remoteriverman.com

Another from down under, a few brief bits from a trip on the Indi back in early spring.



Steve

My companion on my journey to Rewa River in the Guyana jungles was a Makushi tribesman who fished with a primitive bow and arrow, made entirely from natural rainforest materials. His skill was freakish. He was also an exceptional animal tracker.

If you're planning to take your packraft to an extremely remote jungle one day, this might be useful...

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
www.remoteriverman.com

Though my definite preference is to conduct expeditions solo (and these days, with a packraft!), on my 2011 Guyana journey I had an indigenous companion, who helped me find drinkable water vines in the jungle (of course I had done this a lot myself, both in Borneo and West Africa on previous trips). This helps a lot, since you then don't have to carry a ton of water with you on long walks through such forests. By the way, these new Guyana vids are also viewable on the video page of www.remoteriverman.com and also on the Remote River Man fan page on Facebook. I hope to have the DVD "Rewa: Guyana's Primeval River" edited and out by March 2012.

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
www.remoteriverman

Don't think you'd want one of these landing in your packraft - they're the largest rodents on earth, and nearly as heavy as a person...

Cheers,
Kevin Casey
www.remoteriverman

Just a quick edit from various trips over the last 12 months or so. More of a how not to..... (tried to embed ????)
http://vimeo.com/35491615

Today our boat was baptised.

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/35834521

stevebehi wrote:Today our boat was baptised.

Grats! Mine has arrived two weeks ago, but rivers will break-up in April at the best...

Won't have any running water here for a while, but I couldn't wait. First time trying both a packraft and a drysuit.

http://youtu.be/9r8hJpgSMGo

I have quite a few videos posted on youtube and now Viemeo too check them out!
-JR

The easiest way is to just check out my channel @ http://www.youtube.com/user/Gilliland440/videos

here are the individual links..

https://vimeo.com/38543172

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzdeJ6zW ... 2JRLgGk%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAE8nu_H ... yxLYiuk%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9RmAWBf ... CVMP3DM%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_-JdOtD ... y8jx94g%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8w9G_d ... _P6V68Q%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qw6DBgN ... 3ywDMm0%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxNFmT4J ... kV7Jz5Q%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_gofYU6 ... 1mxgnO8%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl2eSqyA ... ErHqrRg%3D

First time trying out my Baylee in moving water. Jumped off a beaver dam and more

http://youtu.be/kdXsZJRPI3E

Hi Folks,

Have finally managed to put together a movie from one of our recent packrafting adventures. Hope to get more out soon. Have now moved to Vimeo rather than YouTube.

This HD video is of a 5 day packrafting and canyoning trip in January down the upper Mersey River close to the Overland Track in Tasmania.

Cheers Mark



Or follow this link: http://vimeo.com/40802765

Or this Vimeo Channel: https://vimeo.com/channels/wildoates

P.S. A huge thanks to Blue Man for teaching me how to embed after I initially had trouble. Much appreciated!