Packrafting River Selection

[stephane]

I’ve been interesting in doing a backpack pack rafting trip. One of the spots I’ve hunted has some nice looking country that I’ve been into, but it’s just too far from the access point to realistically pack out an animal. There is a river that flows nearby all the way out to the access point, so I’ve been wondering about floating out with the meat. I don’t have any pictures of the river, but I found some photos on google that are very similar. Would these examples be something that could be floated down with a loaded pack raft (like an Alpacka Mule or Ranger raft)?

 

[JoshOR]

From the pics sure. Looks like some dragging will need to be done at low water but that’s all part of it. I would do some research on the stretch you want to do on some whitewater forums, make sure there’s not an impassable canyon or something in there though! Have fun!

 

[AKSandman]

Pack rafts take more water than you would think. Particularly when floating out game. Those look pretty shallow in the pictures, but with a riverbed that sees seasonal water fluctuations. The good news is that they look glaciated and the rocks on the bottom are probably pretty rounded…

Packrafts gets holes in them pretty easily from dragging on the bottom (depending of course on the type of bottom of the river and the thickness of the bottom of your packraft) shallow or narrow water isn’t your friend when packrafting because of this.

I learned a lot about packraft capability when I was starting out from taking a packraft specific swiftwater rescue course. Key takeaway: just because you can doesn’t mean it will be fun or safe, but it’s probably doable… packrafts in general will take care of you in rough water. Maybe too well, because people seem to get into situations with packrafts that are well above their skill level and survive to repeat the same dumb thing over again until their luck runs out or their skill improves.

Not to be a discouragement at all, just get out there and learn by doing. There are quite a few Facebook groups for packrafting and people are pretty willing to have others join them for floats if they have a swiftwater rescue class under their belt. It’s kind of like a pre screen to see if you are legit or a liability before they place their life in your hands on a river trip since the barrier to entry is so low to get into packrafting.

Best of luck!

 

[Luke S]

I'd highly suggest floating without a dead animal or hunting gear before the season opens just to be sure. I've nearly met my maker a few times on rivers.

Western rivers often change a lot depending on water level. A place that was scary earlier in the summer was a breeze later with less water. But by fall some creeks probably aren't floatable as snow melts dries up. If there is a Guage on your river I'd check it on all trips so you start getting an idea of how many cfps you need.

Hard to tell but that fall picture with the bridge is looking like legit rapids. There is a bit of a tricky spot with rocks and a lot of waves up stream. A lot of that would make the trip a hard "no" with a heavy load of meat. A few spots you could carefully work around.