Category: Packrafting
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FAQ: so I want to start packrafting..
Another frequent question is how to get started packrafting. Due to right time, right place a decade ago, and the guidebook, I’ve become one of the promoters of packrafting in the lower 48, which is fine. Due to the slant of content here, the inquiries I receive are essentially always from someone with a backpacking/wilderness…
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FAQ: packrafting with kids
A number of years ago I removed the Contact button from the front page here, and hid my email link in the Fine Print. This has been effective, cutting out the overwhelming majority of the knucklehead emails (“Can you plan my whole Glacier backpack for me?”) which used to be almost daily, while not impacting…
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North Fork Falls Canyon
The lowest unroaded section of the North Fork of the Blackfoot is a proper packraft classic. You can packraft it at kayak flows (~600 cfs or more), but I much prefer the pure boulder garden aesthetics and utterly clear water of true summer levels, with 350 cfs being ideal. Casey and I got it, from…
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It
There is a meadow hidden below the center of the universe. Going north, towards the sawtoothed limestone knobs and canyons you might for the expanse of sky miss entirely, a burnt bog curves in unison with the river. To the eye water is held distinct from vegetation by a 10 foot band of cobbles. The…
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Evolution of the Tamarisk: Shoulder Straps
First: what the hell is happening with those packs, maan? A lot. Unfortunately, almost none of that is helping to get you a pack faster. While the pandemic hasn’t impacted our family as directly or egregiously as it could, or still might, it has made the world more complicated. I’ve been and remain on a…
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Creeks of fear
Several creeks from the golden age of my explorations in Glacier and the Bob stand out for their blankness, the extent to which specifics were and remain washed out by fear. I’ve begun revisiting some of them, haphazard fun which has self-organized into a project, to delve into how far modern boats, modern rigging, improved…
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Deep
3 years ago at the packraft roundup Kevin Colburn blew my mind. We had been emailing for years, about creeks and water levels, without having ever met and thus eagerly sat down to chat about packrafting. He showed me a gorgeous photo guide to creeks in western Montana he had put together for friends, and…
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Basal outdoor skills
A few days ago I was exploring some of the exceptional, hidden limestone cliffs we have locally, and following some mountain goat tracks up a scree slope led to option soloing up broken gullies and sticky slabs. While liebacking off crisp solution pockets and smearing floppy shoes up sharp corrugations my mind went backwards. To…
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2020 Bob Open report
Top photo by Mike Moore. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the mass start for the 2020 Open was cancelled, a decision I made not to avoid the modest social contact at the start point but rather to discourage the still inherently problematic matter of folks traveling to Montana from out of state. A still robust…
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Middle Fork Salmon debrief
After a day and a half of floating, and over 30 miles and 1500′ of vertical from our put in, Marble Creek felt comforting in it’s familiarity. We blew up and put in on a tiny side channel and were swept downstream, the thin eddies and beaver-cut willows a quick 30 feet apart. A mile…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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