Packrafting rules. I was pretty certain it did, but now I know for certain.

I hiked up and ran the stretch of Rattlesnake Creek from Fraser Creek down to the parking area (where Woods Gulch comes in on this map). I was going to go a bit further, but could see three river wide logs above where I put in, and presumed that the straighter and calmer section right above would have more wood.

Rattlesnake is full just a bit beyond its banks, which made for fast fun boating and challenging entrances and exits. A few gravel bars aside, the banks are almost entirely willow thickets, and with the current washing out all functionally significant eddies extra attention needed to be paid.

A river-wide logjam was just below where I decided to put in, but the banks on my side were particularly steep, so I waded across to a flat bog to inflate the boat. No big deal, but the one waist deep channel on the far bank was pretty cold. It was pretty comical how my pack, full to the top with a poorly folded raft, paddle, PFD, helmet, fleece vest, and 3/2 farmer john, shrunk to almost empty once I was geared up. I need a better way to secure it so it doesn’t bounce when I hit bigger waves.

Once in the creek the ride was on! Big riffles and small wave trains were all but continuous, with a good number of small holes and bigger rocks to dodge, and lots of time spent taking the slow way around bends to have as much warning as possible should wood appear. As it was, I only had to take out and portage twice, and the second one was a downed pine sweeper that you could get around if you’re more confident in your precision handling than I am now. Numerous times I “eddied out” by ferrying over to the bank and holding onto a willow for a while, to confirm that no wood waited downstream, and to calm down a bit. The creek paddled like an hour-long technical singletrack descent, one right below the boundary where fun becomes hard.

I haven’t had that sort of bug-eyed, cackling newness since I discovered powder skiing last year. And even then, this was seriously fun.

The boat was just amazing. The massive float and the big rockered bow just mow over small waves and holes. I timed a few back-curlers poorly and got some good face shots. My wool hat was soaked by take out. The 200cm, 4 piece Aquabound Shred I got over 18 months ago seems thus far to be an ideal paddle. Any shorter and reaching over the tubes might get awkward, and I reckoned that the pivoty nature of the Yak would work well with a big surface area paddle. My non-existent paddling muscles, however, need some work.

One thing that worked quite poorly was my Stolquist PFD (similar to this one). The lower part of the back gets pushed up by the seat, rides up on my shoulder, and interferes with the back of the spray deck. It will need to be upgraded.

Speaking of which, I can’t imagine not having a spray deck. It worked very well, and would work even better with a different PFD.

In summary, I’m psyched.