The Book we've all been waiting for....The Packraft Handbook by Luc Mehl and Sarah Glaser

It’s difficult to imagine a better pair of people to put together a packrafting handbook than author Luc Mehl and illustrator Sarah Glaser. Both were raised in Alaska—prime packraft habitat—with wilderness literally out their backdoors. Each epitomizes the multisport, super-safe, modern adventurer who is self-propelled and self-reliant, good-natured, with broad smiles and welcoming, all-inclusive dispositions that come across clearly in this delightful and informative book.

While I have only a passing personal acquaintance with Sarah, I truly admire her work. My serious packrafting bias aside, this handbook looks like it presents her best, most extensive, and most important work so far, because much of it concerns safety and technique on moving water. MIT-educated Mehl writes brilliantly and thoroughly about the science of modern wilderness adventure. Of course, he’s also a terrific photographer, and so in the vein of a classic William Nealy cartoon text like Kayak, the book you wil certainly soon be reading brings life to packrafting “how-to” through its collaboration of word and image.

A mutual friend introduced Luc and me during the summer of 2009 when the three of us rode our mountain bikes loaded with skis, ropes, and ice-axes on an overnight science trip to a local glacier. Of course, Luc’s strength, speed, and endurance impressed me as did his revelation that he’d just that year won the obscure ski race I’d founded 20 years before. Charmed by his enthusiasm, and knowing that winning an Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic put him in a certain class of adventurer, I liked him instantly.

That summer, Luc and I collided again, this time as competitors in the summer Wilderness Classic across a 180-mile route through the Alaska Range. For those unfamiliar with the event, it’s a carry-all-your-gear-and-food-needed-to-cross-a-wild-landscape full of mountains, rivers, bogs, brush, boulders, and bears, with no roads, no motors, no pack animals, nor outside assistance allowed, while going as fast as you want or can. The only required gear is a satellite phone. But, truth is, without a packraft it’s pretty tough to finish.

While Luc and I only traveled a short distance together, he again demonstrated his positive attitude and persistence. It was clear that Luc’s endurance and skills would make him a valuable partner worth inviting along sometime. But skiing glaciers and racing the Classic, while important interests in my 20s, were no longer the priority that testing the limits of whitewater packrafting had become to me in my 40s.

Fall 2009 we bumped into one another as members of a big group on splashy Bird Creek, a local whitewater creek with lots of fun little falls. Ever since 2003 when Alpacka Raft first began putting effort into making boats whitewater-worthy, my paddling partners Thai Verzone, Brad Meiklejohn, Tim Johnson (author of our local whitewater guidebook), Paul Schauer (all of whom appear in the book's pages) and I had pushed packrafting into regular runs of low-water Class IV creeks in small stubby boats that most kayakers derided as “sh**ty little Iks that only pussies paddle.”

While Luc has become the familiar face of Alaskan packrafting, Brad Meiklejohn has been the true silent force behind the modern packrafting movement. He'd suggested that we run the epic Talkeetna River, a real river (not a low water creek) and a wilderness fly-in one at that. All of us on Bird Creek who’d be going to the Talkeetna the following weekend were impressed by Luc’s gung-ho attitude and perma-grin, especially after overheating in his brand-new red drysuit, when he cliff-jumped into a deep pool and swam to the other side to cool off. I asked Brad what he thought about Luc coming along. Given the go-ahead, I invited Luc to join us. In some ways, that trip brought Luc into the Alaskan whitewater packrafting fold.

It was a superlative weekend, with great weather (if frosty), great rapids, and great friends, like JT Lindholm Tony Perelli, and Becky King. At one point in the Talkeetna's Canyon, Brad commented, “We really need to roll these things like a kayak. That’ll take us to another level.”

Not a week later, I sold Tim Johnson my son’s old Alpacka. Tim promptly glued thigh-straps into the blue boat and as soon as the glue had dried, he took it out into an ice-encrusted stream and rolled it!

And that was it. We all glued thigh straps into our boats and went to the pool to learn our rolls. Thus began the Bronze Age of packrafting with Luc there from the beginning, taking what we’d been doing and following Tim Johnson to the next level of packrafting, just as Brad had predicted.

Over the following three years Tim and Paul Schauer, natural-born boaters, led Luc and the rest of us down southcentral Alaska’s classic runs pioneered by Andrew Embick as “Class V”, as well as the modern test-pieces of their generationand the one right before Tim and Paul (e.g., Montana Creek, Tin Can, Upper Willow, Upper Bird, Disappointment, East Fork Iron Creek, Ingram).

While the excitement of whitewater seemed necessary for Luc, it was certainly not sufficient. In a string of unprecedented adventures over three consecutive years (2011, 2012, and 2013), he assembled teams of eager participants to combine skis, boats, and even bikes for grand traverses across North America’s three tallest mountains using modified Wilderness Classic rules. Leaving the road, Luc lead his groups into, up, over, and down Alaska's Denali, Canada's Logan, and Mexico's Orizaba, in each case exiting back to near sea level via packraft.

This book, with its emphasis on a culture of safety and vigilance informed by a decade of experience during the steepest growth of whitewater packrafting development, marks the sport's entry into its true Golden Age. We are lucky that Luc pushed pause on hsi data science career to guide the packrafters of the world to yet another level.

So, read this great book, stare at the fantastic illustrations, and enjoy the writing, the art, the stories, the advice, and feel secure in the knowledge that Luc and Sarah have engaged over a dozen of the best packrafters and kayakers in Alaska to contribute and vette content that captures a wealth of knowledge and experience in simple prose, awesome call-outs, beautiful photography, and clear illustrations.

It’s the book we’ve all been waiting for.

Raftpacking is purposely carrying fewer rafts than the number of people on the trip.

If “packrafting” can be considered walk-assisted boating, then “raftpacking” can be considered boat-assisted walking.

Let’s say that you and your friends or family are making a wilderness traverse of a remote range without towns, roads, or even human-made trails. You have to carry all your food for a week or more, along with camping gear, warm clothes to deal with cold rivers and rain. Then there’s the boat, paddle, PFD, maybe a helmet, throw bag, etc. These also add to the load. Let’s further assume that you are there, not necessarily as a boater but as a wilderness traveler, using packrafts as tools and not the foci of the adventure.

Raftpacking Roots

That pretty much describes my original interest in packrafting during my twenties; a stint “hellbiking,” a wilderness predecessor of what’s become known as “bikepacking” in my thirties; and now again as a “Brooks Ranger” in my fifties.

I'm now just an old guy who just likes to follow wild-animal trails, cross tundra-clad passes, and paddle splashy Class II clear-water creeks and rivers while joined with a handful of other wilderness enthusiasts.

Early on, my wife and I could only afford a single packraft. On our “honeymoon” traverse of Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park in 1986, that’s all we carried.

Nevertheless, we rafted together—two in an open Sherpa packraft—down five rivers and streams: the North Fork of the Koyukuk, Anaktuvuk, John, Nahtuk, and Alatna Rivers. With sufficient flow we could both float together with all our gear. 

But at the headwaters of each of these, even though Peggy is petite, the creeks were too shallow for us both. So we “raftpacked:” Peggy walking with nothing but our bear protection, her rain-gear, and a few snacks while I carried everything else in the boat. That way she could move fast and light and I could get our gear downstream. We moved parallel, she enjoying what she likes most–wilderness walking unencumbered–and I what I like most–exploring a new landscape-crossing technique.

Later in September 1990,  on a traverse of the Talkeetna Mountains from Eureka Roadhouse to Gold Creek, my friend Mark Stoppel and I moved rapidly carrying a single Sherpa packraft down the upper Talkeetna River in the same way. But the Talkeetna River is bigger than the Brooks Range rivers that Peggy and I raftpacked, so Mark walked gravel bars separated by river braids that I ferried him across when they were too deep for him to ford. 

Most of our early hellbike trips carried only a single raft for three to five of us at a time, ferrying boats and bikes across big rivers and riding, pushing, or carrying the bikes otherwise. By splitting one raft and one paddle among the group we could travel much lighter, making for both more riding and more enjoyable riding.

Modern Raftpacking

In June 2019 I revisited raftpacking on a new scale during a 350-mile traverse following treeline on the south slope of the Brooks Range. 

On the first leg of the month long journey, five of us left the Dalton Highway with a raft and paddle each, covering about 110 miles split between two boating legs totaling 70 miles of paddling and two hiking legs totaling 40 miles of walking. 

Then for the second leg, we dropped three rafts, walked another 35 miles carrying just two boats—the Alpacka Raft Caribou and Scout models, both with cargo flies and cruiser-style spray decks—and two paddles among the five of us to raftpack 30 miles in a day, followed by a 45-mile walk. We then dropped another boat, leaving us with just the Scout for the next eighty miles.

The highlight of that trip following Alaska’s northern tree line was a beautiful, sunny, nearly bug-free day on the Junjik River, where three hikers carried little more than snacks and two raftpackers boated everyone's camping gear and food for five days down the fun, splashy Class II. 

Using Gaia GPS on our phones set to airplane mode, the raftpackers and hikers rendezvoused at pre-planned waypoints every five miles to swap out a boater with a hiker to maintain contact and safety.

Freedom and Care

It’s hard to over-emphasize how enjoyable and novel covering long distances in a single direction in true wilderness with a pack under ten pounds can be. 

On the Junjik we were 70 to 90 air miles (that is, a straight-line distance) from the Dalton Highway (the only road connected to Alaska’s road system north of the Yukon River) and 20-30 air miles from the nearest human settlement, Arctic Village. Outside of Alaska, the farthest you can get from a road is twenty air miles southeast of Yellowstone National Park. At our most remote while we "raftpacked treeline" we were nearly 100 miles from any village.

We used the Caribou and a Scout, both with cargo flies and loaded up with all the soft goods. Sharp-edged and hard objects were put in the bow bag, a pack tied on the bow, or inside my HMG pack with its stays removed (and secured with rubber Voile-type straps on the bow together with trekking poles and our stainless-steel bear protection), then turned inside out with the backpack’s padded back lining the bottom of my stern's tube as protection. 

Inside this inside-out backpack I put the one-gallon cook pots and other small but hard items that, if not carefully packed in a boat’s tubes, will pinch tube fabric between river rocks and the object leaving a hole. This happened to one of the four youngsters I traveled with who had not yet realized the importance of proper boat packing.

The Caribou held four people’s food and camping gear in its tubes; the Scout held one person’s. According to the four who did all the hiking that day, the raftpacking stretch of the trip was by far the most enjoyable, as would be expected hiking Brooks Range wilderness with a daypack.

Raftpacking Strategies

Consider raftpacking for your next long-distance wilderness adventure, when the three strategies to traveling light and comfortably are exercised as:

(1) Abstraction: that is, knowing which of your insecurities you don’t need to pack.

(2) Using light-weight materials: although 40 pounds of lightweight gear still weighs more than 30 pounds of heavy gear!

(3) Sharing: not just first-aid and repair kits, multi-tools, tents, stoves, cookpots, but rafts, and paddles and the time spent in them.

Among these strategies, raftpacking is my favorite for going light. It's smart and efficient packraft sharing.

Golden Age Nostalgia

After reading Luc Mehl's guest blog at the Alpacka web site I indulged in some nostalgia from 2009-2010.

If you're reading this, then you really should go read Luc's post. I found it flattering and a bit of a vignette of what I, self-centeredly, consider the Golden Age of packrafting.

Golden in that it was a big leap forward. Golden in that Brad Meiklejohn urged us into Embick's  Class IV and V creeks. Golden in that real boaters Tim Johnson, Paul Schauer, and Thai Verzone led us down and plucked us out. Golden in that I started hitting whitewater centers beyond Alaska with the boat born in Alaska and now ready for the world: NZ, Grand Canyon, Australia's Franklin, Appalachians.

But the world was not ready. Haters were everywhere and even Alpacka wanted nothing to do with thigh straps.

"Why would a packrafter being going down a class 3/4 river like this, ever? Not only that, these guys are wearing drysuits because the water is cold - and I can't imagine a lightweight hiker wanting to bring one along on his trip. 

Seriously, I think you've missed the point of this video completely. It's about paddling in big groups that have sufficient resources to perform a rescue and using the skills that are taught in whitewater rescue classes properly. It's not about boat design.

I've kayaked big water for years and backpack/hike and the combination of packrafts and big water is a bozo no-no in my opinion. It seems like the packraft community is rediscovering everything the ww kayak community has known for years about the dangers of ww kayaking. Please stick to class 1 rivers and ponds for your own safety, and don't paddle in cold water without the proper thermal protection."

And a kayaker's response to thigh straps and packrafts in 2009. 

 ‘In a packraft, at least IMO, they seem like more than is necessary even at the upper end of whitewater. IMHO if you feel you need thigh straps you should probably think about improving your technique or further developing your skills. Weather it be reading the water better and seeing the clean lines and hitting them or simply spending more time in the raft, one needs to have skills. Given their design, there are just certain things that will be difficult no matter what you do. eg big holes on big water. These things are already about as idiot proof as it gets. Don't get me wrong, there are probably a hand full of people that could really push what is possible in a packraft with thigh straps, but for most it will simply be a substitute for skill and ultimately not help them in the long run. In fact I'd be willing to bet that most packrafters would not be able to roll a raft even if they were glued into the thing. It is certainly more difficult than a kayak by a long shot. Not to mention much harder on one's shoulders as well.’

But maybe like bad brush and cold water, some of us just felt that these nasty-grams were challenges to overcome and now that they are overcome, I find myself sitting back, older, and trying to just get out of the way.

1. My Packrafting! book is out of print.
2. Falcon Guidebooks sells a new book about packrafting.
3. Thor and Sarah Tingey have transformed Alpacka with a boat for every kind of water and even a mountain bike boat.
4. There are maybe even a dozen other packraft manufacturers.
5. My testosterone has drained away leaving me somewhat flacid when it comes to whitewater.
6. But it doesn't matter because there are plenty of bad-asses out there, 
• including former kayakers and
• hard-core packrafters-first who now use kayaks to improve their packrafting.

It's been great to watch and even greater to be part of it.

My own history with whitewater in packrafts can be covered in six videos. The first couple of videos are sort of accidental. But starting at the end of  2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 I posted on You Tube the greatest hits I'd been involved with each year. 

2008 was the year of whitewater discovery. 
2009 was the year of whitewater exploration.
2010 was the year of thigh straps that made us feel like real boaters.
2011 was the year of extended sterns that felt like cheating.

(January 2000) Taking a Sherpa Packraft down a stream in Pumalin Park, Chile before I'd actually got my butt in an Alpacka.

(January 2008)  Hermit to Havasu with Gordy and Cody Roman in the Grand Canyon. Up to say 2008, Cody Roman and I going down Ship Creek's canyon repeatedly and sniffing out some other runs elsewhere, was about it for whitewater. Then I started paddling with Brad.

(2008)  was the year I finally found someone other than Cody Roman who wanted to do Ship Creek more than once. The music was Radiohead's National Anthem, a song and band Roman introduced to me and the song captured the hectic feel of the early days of whitewater in packrafts. But YouTube stripped the song....so now it's the canned version of what they offer.

(2009) By the Fall of  2009 the packrafting revolution was getting started with Brad, Thai, Luc, Gordy, Tony, Becky, JT and others hitting it hard in Southcentral AK. It was when Tim Johnson and Paul Schauer and Thai Verzone, Class V kayakers all, joined us.

These guys, as Mike Curiak recently wrote, made me feel as though they were "participating in an entirely different sport -- one filled with grace and control and poise, where by comparison I feel like I just bludgeon and hack my way through while trying to survive."

This one doesn't play on phones, I guess because nobody's made enough money yet off the half-century old Beatles classic, Revolution (although it plays on computers in the US). It's worth watching on a 'puter, by the way, with the sound track.

(2010) Ah yes, the struggle with Alpacka over thigh straps. We were the Devil:  dangerous, reckless, a real pain in the butt-boats of Alpacka, but in the end we were right. Maybe, just maybe, our devilish ways got the "Witchcraft" started, a black boat you might catch a glimpse of in this next video somewhere, and that is the ancestral boat of Alpacka's Lips and Gnarwall boats. Or maybe it was really the handful of "Media Feliz" paddlers down in CO that motivated the development. Still, I like to think it was us, the 20 or 30 people in Alaska packraft-paddling Six Mile and Little Su and Ship Creek and Bird that pushed whitewater boat development at Alpacka. But again, probably just my narcissism playing tricks on my ego!

(2011) With the new long stern boats of 2011 it was almost a new sport. It was like in the 1980s when sticky rubber (particularly the Fires) hit rock or when foot fangs and plastic boots hit ice, or when leashless tools hit both rock and ice, whenever that happened. We had the new longer stern boats that erased bandersnatching as a concept and instead launched us out of sticky holes, leaning forward into the modern boats we've known for years. It also ended my year-end video making recaps, as then Luc Mehl and Mike Curiak were there to pick up my stringy end of the tapestry and weave it with finer artistry.

And there we have it. Six footnotes to "Show up and Blow up: Alaska"!

Kanger-roo

Earlier this month I flew from Anchorage to Keflavik, Iceland and then on to Nuuk, Greenland.

I'd never been to either country but always wanted to go, of course. Many of you readers have likely been to both on much longer, gnarlier, or more in-depth or important trips, so please be patient with my rather shallow visits to each.

Greenland has always been too far for me, dollar-wise, and Iceland never seemed wild enough to warrant recreational/travel trips. But for like $800 I could get to Iceland and back from ANC. Greenland cost a bit more, maybe another $1000 from Keflavik.

I went there for the 7th annual Polar and Arctic Microbe Conference. There were about 50 people at the conference and from all over the world. Many Euros and UK-folk, a few Americans, even some Asians and a colorful character named Craig from New Zealand.

Ganey was presenting his recently completed masters thesis. We re-worked it and wrote a new paper we had published this week on line. It got some press that I keep telling Ganey about. He says maybe I should just get a Twitter account.

Maybe I should, but probably I won't, but I have been  psyched to have the recognition for our work.

Why? Well, first Ganey did a great job hiking up and down to the Harding Icefield and skiing in with APU ski-team members like every couple weeks a few summers back to manipulate snow algae and measure melt. He solved all kinds of problems and collected all kinds of data and used R and GIS and GPS and spectrometers and microscopes and satellite data to produce a super-neat, comprehensive project.

And second, the idea is about how red-snow algae melt snow and I have had the idea for many years, and always got pushback-smirks from earth scientists about the idea--which is common worldwide I learned at the conference from other biologists with the same idea.

So getting it published in Nature Geoscience gives the idea some credibility and maybe gives me some future traction in getting funding to continue doing glacier ecology with APU students, something I have been doing for about fifteen years now, including ice-worms and bacteria as well as red-snow algae.

So this Greenland conference was good excuse to go to Greenland and I brought my packraft, too, of course. Tom Diegle says I should write a book with the title "My Carry-on is a Packraft."

I overnighted in Iceland and rented a car for two days and drove around to see the Geyser Basin and the nearest super cool gigantic waterfall.

It felt like Europe--both the birds and the plants are European, even though Greenland is closer than Europe--plopped down on a big ole' Aleutian Island or like a Scandanavian version of New Zealand set in the North Atlantic instead of South Pacific. There were neat looking sheep and little horses and cows and the animals always hunkered together like they must in mid winter, staying warm, surviving gales.

At first I wasn't too thrilled about the place, but taking the car back to the airport I drove along the south coast and thought, "wow, what a cool place."

I want to go back with Peggy and hike tundra and float glacier rivers without bears, especially after about messing my pants in June when a burly grizz charged within thirty feet of me before turning when I threw a boulder at it to stop it.

The people in Iceland spoke English and had real Alaskan-like independence. There are more people in Anchorage than the whole country, but it was WAAYYY to expensive for me. I bought food to take to Greenland, thinking Greenland would be like the bush and Iceland like Anchorage, but no. I think food prices were actuall cheaper in Greenland's Nuuk.

The flight to Nuuk was three hours long in a little two engine Dash-8. I wanted at least four engines, since we were crossing hours of ocean and ice.

I'd intended to go farther north from Nuuk to do a little trip by Kangersuluuaq from the Greenland Ice Sheet to the ocean, but found out it'd cost me $1,000 more! So I balked.

Besides Nuuk and it surroundings were simply amazing.

Nuuk is the biggest city in Greenland. It has like half (so about 17,000 people) of countries 35,000 people. It sits on a wee craggy peninsula at the tip of a 100-mile peninsula in a deep complex of fiords on the west coast of Greenland.

It's about the same latitude as Fairbanks and Nome. It feels like Nome climate with Arrigetch Peaks on growth hormones set in Glacier Bay, if you'll indulge me in some mixed geographic Alaskana metaphors.

You can walk from one end of the road system to the other in like an hour. It has a wonderful sheltered port that's the central hub for shipping and ferries that go up and down the southern half of Greenland's west coast, from Disko Bay south really.

I only visited Nuuk and loved it's colorful houses and even the big appartment buildings. Lonely Planet online pans the place, but I was utterly fascinated. Utterly!

Most of the people I saw as I walked the streets in, by turns, windy drizzle or crisp blue sunshine, were Greenlandic People. They don't call themselves Inuit or Innupiaq. They said they were Greenlandic People and even the high school kids I met spoke Greenlandic, Danish, and English. They were beautiful people and I loved the feel of northern Alaska in a European urban-like environment. Easily the neatest place I went in the last 18 months of my extended sabbatical.

Ganey and I ate at a Thai restaurant where you could have whale sushi made from narwhal. I bougth musk-ox sausage I took on my "Kanger-roo Tour".

No, that's no typo (I know how to spell kangaroo -- the coolest animal I saw this sabbatical -- maybe the second after the Peruvian jaguar on the banks of Madre de Dios River -- was a tree kangaroo sliding down a tree-fern bole like a fireman on alarm at the station).

"Kanger" is Greenlandic for fjord and paddling a packraft with the winds and tides then hiking over the intervening passes between fjords in Greenland--fjord hopping--is a kanger-roo tour.

There are two hut to hut peninsula walks that I know of. One on Nuuk's peninsula from Nuuk to Kapisillit and the other between Kangersuluuaq and Sisimiut (which you can get to by ferry from Nuuk). Boats go to Kapisillit on thursday.

I only had 4 days left before the conference after spending 3 writing a paper in a wonderful hostel. I found an outdoor store in Nuuk that sold topo maps at my favorite scale (1:250,000) and fuel although I had an alcohol stove and just bought the Danish/Greenland version of Heet.

I hiked across town, over a mountain, and stayed in a couple huts, even camped out with a white Arctic fox visiting my mid in the full moon night. Paddled up one fiord with a tail wind on an incoming tide and out another with a down-fjord wind on an outgoing tide.

Saw an Ivory gull in the fjord with icebergs and a white gyrfalcon soaring above Nuuk. Watched a peregrine chase a huge white-tailed eagle and followed eiders who dove under the water en mass. The eagle was huge, bigger than bald or golden eagles with deep wings and a short broad tail.

Ravens were everywhere. A group of eight young ones followed me along in my boat. I watched one carrying a sea urchin in its bill, then drop it to break and eat it, solving the mystery of how all the sea urchin shells had got up on the tundra.

Like Iceland, there're no grizzly bears, or bears of any kind deep in the fjords of the south. I think the polar bears are out on the ocean coast, near ice mostly, hunting seals. The reindeer are smaller than our caribou and rarer, small herds, and sparse.

Greenland in September felt a bit emptier than Alaska's arctic with its blueberries, growing on acidic granite derived soil, not as sweet.

But I am saving my money to go back. And I am hoping that Alpacka puts together a pointy-bowed, long and skinny, zipper boat with a whitewater deck -- maybe even call it the "Kanger-roo"?

So I can go back and paddle into the wind and surf like a Greenlandic Person in a skin boat qayak.

2011 Alpacka Llama -- Getting it wet and icy

My new Llama showed up on Thursday, just in time, as the AK Boating season is open – at least partially.

A bunch of us went down 6 Mile’s 2nd and 3rd Canyons yesterday (Paul Schauer, Timmy J, John Combs, Travis Spalding, Jeff Shelton). Running at 250 cfs or so, it felt like an exploratory creeking first descent a week earlier than we went last year.

As usual, the high competence, calm demeanor, yet humor and positive enthusiasm of Timmy J and Paul Schauer made the trip outstanding. Young Travis Spaulding and Jeff Shelton, second generation Alaskan adventurers, added to the spirit of exploration, especially with Jeff playboating in the icy stream, doing flips and tricks while wearing no shoes and only fleece socks. And of course, helicopter pilot Johnny "Carnage" added to the pile of smiles. It was one of the best days I have had paddling with a band of hardshells, mostly because of who filled those plastic boats. Paul posted photos, words and video on his blog.

Every corner was spooky as the creek flowed through a sub-canyon of sheer ice walls 3-10 feet high. We eddy-hopped much of the way down, often climbing 5-7 foot ice ledges to scout, then seal launching off those same ledges if clear ahead, or portaging and crossing ice bridges to seal launch below the ice dam. This doubled the time of the run -- a big group, many scouts and portages -- and worried the rest of our crew. They'd opted out of the Third Canyon due to winter play injuries and, fretting at our late arrival time, drove up and down the Hope Road looking for our bodies below.

Yea, the Third Canyon was pretty choked-up with potentially lethal ice bridges at every major rapid (top of Staircase, Suck Hole, Merry Go Round, Jaws, Junkyard Dog, and several more). In another couple weeks it should be clear, says Tim, who notes this was one of the earliest runs he's made. At one point, Johnny was scouting on river left when a dam partially collapsed, leaving a tunnel under the ice bridge on river right that we all then ducked under. It was magic.

But the big news is that the new boat is simply amazing. Best of last year's Witchcraft (i.e. long stern, pointy bow) w/best of old style boats (i.e. big tubes, bright colors, high volume, room for gear with attachment points). The Llama is super long, like 7 feet almost, but nearly as nimble as the old stubbies, and so much faster, straighter and more stable.

Old habits die slowly, and I had to take a blow to the ribs from an overhanging ice ledge to learn that I can’t do last second pirouettes to avoid things. But the speed, tracking, and especially wave ferrying and surfing are worth every micro-second loss of quick handling.

I’d like an even pointier bow, and have moved myself more central in the boat with old seats (old being pre-sewn-in, when they were just loose in the boat maybe vintage 2002-2004). I like the bow and stern to be level, and I like the high volume Llama (but am 5’ 11” and 170, so official Yak-size), so I attached my seat as far forward as I could. That means I took the back tabs on the seat and lashed them to the front tabs on the boat. I am eager to hear what the posse of new-style boat owners do with their seats.

Running Class III in the new design almost feels like cheating, it’s so stable. Luc once emailed me that a kayak was easier than a packraft, and I think the new bow and stern make it more kayak-like – it punches waves far better than a stubby and has more for-aft stability. Like a classic packraft (mine's a Llama) it retains its awesome lateral stability, something the Witchcraft of 2010 lacked.

I had Sheri put on a custom skirt which is super dry. It's a heavier fabric, almost like a tube fabric. I also had her make me a very short center opening, which is not something many would feel comfortable in, but I had no problem doing a wet exit followed by a self rescue and wet re-entry after a surfing flip. My boat's custom opening is about as big as a kayak cockpit. It’s a very short center opening with 4 inches of Velcro. But with the heavy fabric, short opening, and mando Velcro, even without thigh straps I could brace my knees on the deck. It worked so well I am considering glueing knee cups in as well as thigh straps.

The opening is so narrow that I can no longer swing my legs out to the side to get out. I also have to step right between the two lobes of the seat to get in. Like a kayak, I can not just hop in this boat. But the new cone-head butt is so stable that I just slide backwards and out onto it, then pull my legs out. To get in, I need a calm eddy, or a good platform to seal launch.

We did like ten seal entries yesterday, at least one that was about as tall as my paddle is long, and poised just 10 yards above an undercut ice wall. The new design pierced the water well, especially compared to an old stubby’s blunt entry, and its length and pointy stern gives it superb ferry ability. The long stern makes backwards boating much more consistent.

Like thigh straps and spray decks before it, the new design eases me in to another whitewater class (calling + and - classes) by technology alone. I think this year I'll be a solid Class IV boater, moving out of my solid Class III+ standing currently.

What’s even more exciting is the number of people here in ANC (maybe the center of the world for whitewater packrafting) who will have new boats and solid skills. Many of these new owners are kayakers looking at an upcoming low water season. They now have a new tool to match the conditions, a way to turn butt-scraping runs into something fun, and a way to ferret out some FD steep runs, as well.

Post Script: My second bike purchased in a year (and the second since my Mountain Klein purchase in 1986) is a 2x10, aluminum 9-Zero-7, and 80 mm Fat bike. This new bike and new boat are meant to match one another for some new "wild rides", the kind pioneered by Eric Parsons and Dylan Kentch. The fat bike is awesome and helping my rehab from ankle surgery. Wish that I'd bought one years ago although it would likely have interfered with my whitewater development.

Alpacka WitchCraft

This is the boat in April and early May -- first peek, if you will.

Alpacka WitchCraft

Brad and I hit Eagle River today and I paddled the Witchcraft fully outfitted with its ensemble X-Ray, foot bed and back rest. It was the first time I had dared all three components at once. And the first time I'd seen how they all work together.

An act of genius this boat is.

My earlier stints in the boat had either not fully inflated or not included all the pieces. That was clearly a mistake. The back rest makes me sit up straighter than my mother ever could. The foot bed offers a secure and familiar but much, much improved pushing platform common to non-thigh strap packrafts. And the X-ray, while a bit scary in concept and images, clearly adds benefits I have not seen with thigh straps, namely the "knee-cup" effect that so many kayakers would like in a packraft. I was able to role over and over and over and over (sweep rolls not C to C) in the icy cold river today and surfed more waves and play-holes than ever before. It's a joy to paddle.

The boat is faster forward than a conventional Alpacka but just as nimble. While tippier, the added control afforded by the X-Ray more than compensates for the tip and gives an incredible oneness/snugness with the craft. In fact it's neat to work on bracing out on the edge and sculling to keep it.

The boat was so much fun that I couldn't bring myself to accompany Brad back to the car below Campground Rapid and joined a trio of passing packrafters for an extended float down to the play hole on Base and beyond.

Thanks Alpacka for another great idea: a class V packraft. Now I just have to become a class V boater.

Alpacka WitchCraft

Seen this yet?

Looks pretty cool but also looks sort of ....



In a word, hmmm....

The x-across the top of the legs looks more binding than what I'm using now....but that's the key word -- "LOOKS".





What do you think, besides that Andy Skurka is a stud?

Tingey's Take on Thigh Straps

This from the former Alpacka Web Site Forum now moved to its own http://www.packrafting.org/forums/:

From the designer of Alpacka herself:
"Hi Everyone,

I think it is time I checked in concerning both new developments at Alpacka and aftermarket modifications. I am excited for those of you that are doing mods, many of them are good. However, there a couple modifications that I feel I need to address. More important, I need to address how they’re presented. I’m getting flooded with calls from customers, both old and new wondering what they should be adding to their boats for C-II and C-III water. This concerns me. Most of the whitewater mods I’m aware of don’t have much relevance until you get into Class IV water, or very big Class III. In more normal whitewater, they add weight to the boat, may endanger the boater, and may compromise general boating. I need to call a spade a spade: the boats have been running Class III (and some IV) since 2002 without mods. If you’re running Class II and III water, you honestly don’t need to mod your boat to get reasonable performance.

I will address each of the specific issues individually.

1. Moving your seat forward: This is more applicable with the older boats. The boats that Roman did this with are all model year 2005 or older. Since that time we’ve enlarged and lengthened the stern of the rafts twice, which improves trim and alleviates the need to move forward in the boat . Personally, I don’t see a need to move your seat forward in any of the newer models. If you do want to move your seat, I’d say Velcro is not the solution of choice. It will wear out quickly in that application. I know this because I tried it several years ago. Also, the possibility of sand getting into the velcro in the bottom of the raft where the seat is pretty substantial. With the current thread-in seats, there are much better ways to temporarily move or install a seat.

2. Moving your spraydeck forward: I don’t recommend this. When we have had decks moved forward even a little bit, when the paddler wants to stretch out their legs a large hole is formed between the paddlers waist and the spraydeck. This also tends to pull the deck waist Velcro open. In my experience, it is better to move forward against your deck to get tight in your boat than to have you spraydeck altered forward and never be able to straighten your legs without problems.

3. Thigh Straps: They’re potentially very dangerous. In a word: “entrapment.” Alpacka will not put them in for people, and does NOT recommend them. You can all do this if you choose, but please be aware that there is a very real possibility of entrapment. Reading Tim’s account of getting out of thigh straps drove this home for me. This should not be taken lightly. Packs under a deck can cause entrapment hazard too. I feel we need to caution people that they need to be aware of the risk that they are putting themselves in. Even worse, putting a pack under your knees and then putting your legs into the thigh straps is adding more of an entrapment possibility.

An Alpacka Raft is like a Volkswagon Beetle. The beetle was a magnificent little car that did what it was designed to do. An Alpacka does a terrific job at what it is supposed to do: be a wilderness water access tool. It was never designed to withstand the stresses of rolling and class 5 whitewater. You can put all the attachments on it you want, and as the designer, I’d say you still have a Beetle with forty attachments. It’s not that much closer to the Porsche than it was. A side effect is that you have a 7+ lb. boat. When you need a Porsche, start with a Porche base. Don't destroy your Beetle!
For Class IV and higher whitewater, the kind you’d really want to mod an Alpacka for, I’d say you have two reasonable options: the new boat we’re working on (working title “Witchcraft”) and the a hardshell kayak.

I’ve been mentally designing the Witchcraft for over five years. Everything about it is different and designed to do one thing better: run more difficult whitewater. It’s not a good general trip boat, and isn’t designed to carry weight. This is more of a day creek boat, or a boat for those who want hike in with the objective of hitting a particularly prize piece of water.

Getting back to the kayak point: the Witch will never be as good as a hard shell kayak for high-performance, hard whitewater boating. For that, a molded-hull kayak is the best vehicle. An inflatable improves your portability but doesn’t have the capability to do all the things that a hard shell can. There is a boat for every kind of water, we need to respect and acknowledge how each craft fits into the scheme of the total water picture.

That said, this new boat is addressing many of things that modifications address on older boats.

Design: This boat is designed to be trim with just the paddler in it. The stern has been elongated another 4 inches. The bow tubes have been shrunk down as well. Result: the boat runs really well without a pack and holds its line better than the standard boat, but does NOT carry a pack well. This is much more of a day boat.

Fabric: The entire boat is made of floor fabric to better withstand more serious creek bashing. This throws the weight up to around 8 pounds, maybe more, much more bulky than a classic Alpacka.

Spraydeck: The new spraydeck is drier than the standard one. Several factors are in play here, and be aware that this deck doesn’t work on the regular boats: it does some things that work because of the different hull design. The deck is also glued on, like the floor, and built of much heavier fabric.

Thigh support system: The thigh support system comes from above and when the deck cord is pulled the whole system releases, allowing the paddler to slide out of the boat. What I’m attempting to do with it is create a support system that addresses the dangers I see of thigh straps in the boat.

So far everyone has been very pleased with the new boat, but we are still testing it, and obviously arduous testing is very important for something like this. I’m hoping to make it available sometime in May on a limited basis. We will be taking orders and making the boats up custom for this season. These boats are quite time consuming and difficult for us to produce, so be forewarned that the costs will be higher. I have not costed them out fully because we are still getting our processes worked out but be prepared that the boats will probably be around $300 more than a regular decked Alpacka Raft. I think it will be a great addition to the Alpacka line, but not a replacement in any way for your standard Alpacka, and not a beginner’s boat. This boat is another arrow in your quiver, designed for those of are willing to sacrifice general purpose boating qualities to focus on whitewater. And it still won't do everything that a hardshell can.

Know your limits!
Cheers everyone,

Sheri
My posts are personal opinions only (not an official statement or policy by Alpacka Raft, although I may allude to existing Alpacka policies).
sheri"

Media Feliz Vid of Alpacka Prototype

Vids of the Month

Yes it's time for the best packrafting vids of the month, this month being now and the best vids being these three:

Ganey's greatest hits from a Vermont Autumn mostly:



Forrest's cool Ski Raftineering trip in Wyoming with his wife Amy and the guy with really wild hair:




And this! A new raft design from Alpacka -- the WitchCraft (which craft?) -- being rolled without thighstraps:



Here's what Sheri of Alpacka Raft has to say about this new amazing boat:

"I have 3 of these in testing at the moment. After two salt trips this next week I suspect we will be ready to say "go for it". The suspension system is actually from above and is very firm. It has more grip and leverage on the thighs than the thigh straps do and there does not seem to be any entanglement issues with it. When the deck is pulled the system comes loose with the deck. I won't go into any more detail on that at the moment til the two Salt trips are completed and I am sure I am satisfied. That said, at this point it is looking really good. The stern on this boat has been elongated even further, another four inches, and the bow tubes are quite a bit smaller. The end result is the boat is trim with a person in it with no added weight. This boat is not intended to carry big loads, that is what the regular Alpacas are for. This boat is really designed to be trim and balanced in the water with just a person. This boat is being made with all floor fabric and a very beefed up deck that is actually glued on like the floor. Everything about this boat is aimed at being a more aggressive whitewater capability item. The weight looks like it will be around 8.5 lbs. So this isn't the long distance trip boat, it is meant to be the more day hike/trip front country mud truck white water oriented beast."

Can't wait to get my butt in that boat!