Packrafting possibilities in BC ?

Hi there,

I’m new on this forum (but following it for about a year now) and I hope someone around here can help me. Together with some friends we’re going to participate in a mountain bike race out of Vancouver in june. Afterwards we’re going to stay for another week and want to explore the country.
We had the idea of going on a 3-day rafting wilderness trip all together but were “surprised” when we got price quotes… pretty expensive… So now I’ve popped the idea of each buying his own packraft and taking it back to Europe with us afterwards. That would be cheaper then going on a catered 3-day rafting trip (!). And for me definitely more fun.

In order to “sell” this idea to my trip partners I need to find fun stuff to do with it in BC, with packrafts, beginning of july, with people with no to not-very-much wild water experience. I have kayakked quite a lot (20 years ago) and am more comfortable swimming wild water (15 years of professional canyoneering guide in wet canyons) then in a raft :blush:. But we can get some training, a few friends here in Belgium own Alpacka’s and we can go train an afternoon or two on an artificial WW course with the whole bunch if need be.
But anyway, I’d want to limit the WW to grade 2, max 3 if we can’t portage around.

So, is there someone on this forum who can suggest some fun/scenic ideas what to do with a flotilla of 4 to 7 packrafts, keeping the above in mind ? We would very much like to do a multi-day river float/descent, with 2 or max 3 days of camping on a quiet (as for other people) river. But a series of daytrips can also be considered if the scenery/wildlife/sense of adventure is nice. We have wheels (a minivan) and would drive a maximum of one full day out of Whistler to get somewhere - a longer drive would eat up too much of our week.

Thanks very much in advance for any ideas !

Conrad

The Nicola River to Spences Bridge is fun. Some 2+ waves, warmish water, and a semi-arid landscape, farms. We did day trips on it for guides training years ago. Might be able to start close to Merritt.

Closer to Whistler you have the Lilloet River above Pemberton. Probably lots of logjams the higher you go then flat water all the way to the lake.

Does anyone have experience on the Kootenay and/or White rivers ? I’ve been reading nice things about them but especially of the White there’s not much info to be had.
What would water levels be beginning of july: high, intermediate, already running low ?