Category: Packrafting
-
Bob Open survey update
The initial 6 days of responses display a clear trend. With the mean response to question 3 being well below 1, and the slim majority of responses to question 2 amounting to “thought about doing it but don’t have the skills/experience”, it seems clear that there are lots of folks, both past starters/finishers and aspirants,…
-
Planning the 2019 Bob Open
It’s time to start planning the 2019 Bob Open. If you want to cut to the chase, click here to take a 1 minute survey. Until recently the process of picking a route across the Bob has been simple; I pick out a few places I haven’t been and want to go (often this had…
-
Slough Creek packraft and bison scout
There are bison in Slough Creek. This did not surprise, the whole premise of my coveted tag this year is mostly older bulls who spend the summer and early fall up on the verge of the subalpine. The bison in Slough Creek are very large, also not a surprise, but a pleasure and something of…
-
New eyes
The line of my paddling “career” has been an idiosyncratic one, such that it has only been recently and occasionally that I’ve had cause to see it as such. Late in 2011 I sat down with a pile of maps and a laptop and made a spreadsheet of all the waterways in Glacier and the…
-
Somewhere else in Montana
I rode my bike up the hill, slowly, and down the hill, not as fast as expected. The 3/4 mile of creek upstream of where we put in last year contained a surprisingly sustained gorge. With respect to challenge and beauty it recalled lower Youngs, and the larger drop towards the end was walled in…
-
2018 Bob Open unofficially official report
The 2018 Open took place on a long course, and during extraordinary conditions. A record winter saw the entire Bob complex at over 150% of normal snowfall, with certain areas in the Scapegoat exceeding 200%. At 2.5 weeks until the start the road to the scheduled start at the Indian Meadows TH was still snowed…
-
Bob Open 2018; what is the point
This is how all those other people experience backpacking. A thought that echoed through my skull with each step, achilles and calves and quads miles beyond tender and enduring the powdery downhills, sprinked with edged loose running rocks only because of the trailhead and car and beer and fast way out waiting, 3 miles further.…
-
Boycott Colorado?
Boaters, fisherfolks, and anyone interested in the subtleties of US public land law will know that stream access laws in the western US vary enormously from state to state. It is worth considering, especially in the age when the “non-consumptive” side of the outdoor industry is finally flexing political muscle, why the issue of stream…
-
Holy snow
Central-western Montana has had an extraordinary winter, which is necessarily leading to an extraordinary spring. Massive amounts of snow means massive amounts of water, and in the last month temps have yet to get too warm (which is nice, as upper 60s feels stifling at the moment), and have been punctuated with big storms which…
-
The permit wall
Late in 2016, as I was packing my gear room, I can across a pile of backcountry permits stuffed toward the back of a low shelf. It was the sort of place which only gets organized during a big move, and is easy to put off. So I assembled them all and stuffed them in…
Bedrock & Paradox 
You must be logged in to post a comment.