https://bedrockandparadox.com/2020/08/12/faq-so-i-want-to-start-packrafting/
- Obsess. Read lots of stuff, watch lots of videos.
Check
- Get your boat, paddle, PFD, and drysuit.
- boat ✅ 2024-01-04
- paddle ✅ 2024-02-21
- pfd ✅ 2024-01-04
- drysuit ✅ 2024-02-21
- Go out on local lakes and slow rivers. Practice paddling. Practice launching your boat. Do a whole lot of practice flips and reentries in water deep enough you can’t touch bottom. Then practice a whole lot of reentries in moving water.
- practice flips and re-entries in flat water ✅ 2024-02-21
- practice flips and re-entries in moving water
- several class II paddles
- So some local hike or bike rafting trips, both day and overnight. Practice organizing, packing, and transitioning. Figure out how to balance your boat, what dry bags you’ll want and how you will use them. Maybe buy a new pack to fit all your toys. Get creative with familiar landscapes.
- packraft overnighter local, class II+
- local multi-day with multiple transitions
- Plan a big trip out west. A two trip trip, with one easier, shorter, less committing hike and float first, to get things further dialed, is a good way to go. In Montana, doing a few days on the North Fork of the Flathead or Dearborn before hiking in and floating the South Fork of the Flathead is a logical progression. In Utah, doing a stretch of the Green or San Juan before the Escalante makes sense.
- something in the Bob?
- Take a packraft-specific Swiftwater Rescue class.
- do it!
- Decide where you want to expand your skills. Take a whitewater specific trip to seek out difficult day and overnight runs. Go on a big water trip, like the Salmon or Grand Canyon. Do a spring skirafting trip, or a fall bikerafting trip.
- Definately the bob, maybe the Bob Open here
- Go to Alaska, and float something that puts you 50+ miles from the road in any direction, on a wholly trail-less route.
- Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic