Category: Packrafting
-
Things I’ve Seen
I can’t tell you about the things I’ve seen. Peaks stretching to all horizons, matching clouds step for step, recollections hidden in each valley. Each memory fits with one next drainage over, be they years apart or decades. Sit on a ridge another minute and more details come out of the shadows. Names match to…
-
2013 Bob Marshall Wilderness Open: the officially unofficial report
Compiled by Dave Chenault; links to individual reports at the bottom. The 2013 Bob Open ran from the Benchmark trailhead in the southeast Bob to the Bear Creek trailhead where Highway 2 meets the Middle Fork of the Flathead. 11 people, including the first woman in the events short history, took the start. Kind weather…
-
The Utah Canyons Classic
A Colorado Plateau-based wilderness event in the Wilderness Classic/Bob Open mold needs to happen. The possibilities are just too great. My problem is that reasonably extensive though my travels there have been, they all took place a while ago, before I had the eyes I do now. I need your help. A course, and by…
-
A noble and valid pursuit
I just finished updating the Glacier and Bob Marshall packrafting guidebook with the last few months of explorations. Some of the waters I had hoped would prove worthwhile didn’t pan out, but there have also been some truly outstanding floats done. The possibilities for quality packrafting trips in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem (i.e.…
-
Upper level stream and river crossings
Right at the lower level of upper. In August this crossing in hardly ankle deep. Upper level stream crossings can mean two different, but not mutually exclusive things: moving water crossings higher than the knee of the person walking, and crossings far from the assistance of others. Discussed below are several levels of analysis one…
-
2013 Bob Marshall Wilderness Open report
Almost eight years ago I made my first visit to Glacier as an adult. M and I were a few weeks into a period of living out of our truck, and made the all day drive from Theodore Roosevelt National Park anticipating the mountains. It was early November, cold and rainy, so we did what…
-
The Flathead at Flood
All three forks of the Flathead have been setting all time records for five straight days, after the warm snap from last week built to a crescendo of melt over the weekend. It’s a remarkable thing to see, the relatively placid river M and I floated at around 3000 cfs 10 days ago swollen eight…
-
The Breaks
I took my own advice this weekend, sucked it up, didn’t go to the Bob, and instead made the long drive to somewhere totally unfamiliar: The Missouri River Breaks National Monument. It was good to be hiking in cactus country again. Befitting the desert, water was a problem on my route. The idea was to…
-
Local contempt
We humans are lazy creatures, by which I mean complacent in the face of habit. We do not need any particular reason to keep doing what we do on a regular basis, we need a rather particular reason to do anything else. Which is why it makes sense that Ryan got there first. I’ve driven…
Bedrock & Paradox 
You must be logged in to post a comment.