Recent Packrafting Links

Alastair Humphreys has a neat, short introductory piece on packrafts at a blog called Rohantime. It's probably the best brief introduction to what a packraft is and how to get into it that I have seen.

Meanwhile, there's Andy Skurka's big Alaska Trip in all its Ted Koeppel and Michael Brown glory in the March Issue of National Geographic Magazine and on-line here and a bit more here at NG Adventure on-line where Andy has a brief but interesting interview.

It's still winter here in AK, the time of map dreaming and scheming for the coming season of joy. So I'll leave you with these 1:200,000 Russian maps (free source) of an amazing corner of Tibet west of China, north of India and slightly NW of Myanmar, where I'd like to do a packraft loop and name it "Dharma Cycle".

This is not the Tibet of high, wind-blown plateaus and grasslands, but rather rivers and maritime glaciers with forests of spruce, pine, and what looks like cottonwood. It's a green and forested place, east of Namcha Barwa and the Tsangpo Gorge (headwaters of the Brahmaputra). It seems to be the most lush place in the Himalaya, perhaps because this elbow in the headwaters of the Brahmaputra are the nearest high peaks to the Indian Ocean and its summertime wet monsoon.