Saturday was Tami's birthday and she wanted to celebrate by a paddle down Montana Creek in a pack raft. Pack rafting is a new Alaskan sport that involves packing a 3lb-5lb raft into the wilderness, inflating the raft then paddling like mad down the river. These lightweight kayaks make it possible to get to rivers not accessible by road. This first river adventure was just up the road from where Tami and Bruce live. Tami was dressed in her finest river attire. She is ready to rumble!
But first things first. The rafts have to be inflated by trapping air in the bright green bags and pushing the air into the raft. This first float was not going to be packed in on their backs. This was more of a trial run so we all drove to the put in and left a vehicle at the take out.
The weather was not very pleasant, but this has been a very cool and wet July, even by Alaskan standards. Sue and I wisely chose to skip this adventure and send Houston, Bruce, Tami and Cade on their merry way.
Cade has been on a few pack rafting trips so he was their fearless leader, teaching the others how to inflate the boats and techniques on paddling.
The raft all inflated and puffy. They remind me of those little yellow rubber duckies for kids. There is also an inflatable U-shaped cushion for your butt, much needed in case you hit a rock on the bottom.
Getting in took a bit of finesse.
But they were soon on their way....
...furiously paddling to ferry over to the other side so they wouldn't...
...hit this dead spruce. Three hours later, they were drenched, cold with icy Montana Creek water but happy that they had done their first pack raft trip. Next trip will be something like this.
Not. for. me.
ReplyDeleteGlad they had a nice time, though.