Packrafting education

I have recently finished a two week packrafting trip with a wilderness school. I fell in love with it immediately and I am currently planning another trip in august with a few of my friends who were also part of Montana Wilderness school. I am also a high school student and we were assigned a paper in which we analyze a community that we were interested in. Naturally, I chose the pack rafting community. I am very interested in how people learn to pack raft as well as the importance of nature to members of the community. If anyone has an experience or information on how they learned how to pack raft, how they discovered pack rafting, or what nature means to them as a member of this community and they would be willing to share that with me for my paper I would be very interested and very grateful.

My buddy Jeff put me, my girl, my dog, and himself on his pr49 on sergeant creek in kodiak, alaska. I fell in love in 20 minutes. Jeff got a couple alpackas that we romped on rivers in kodiak a few times and I fell deeper in love. It’s been a melt season in kodiak since I’ve been in a raft. Just bought myself an Alpacka 42 explorer and I can’t wait for spring in AK. I am an avid hiker and outdoorsman. There is just something about having the satisfaction of carrying with you an extra 10lbs and being able to go that much further or faster. Packrats as light and durable as alpackas extend outdoorsman range so much further or longer. It’s truly revolutionary.

I’ll be happy to share my story.
Should we post it here ?

Me and 5 friends tried hauling 3 canoes and grossly overweight cheap backpacking gear 3 miles down a hiking trail in the mccormick wilderness in michigan. The canoes never made it. After returning home i googled inflatable boats and discovered packrafting. 4 years 4 boats and thousands of dollars later my girlfriend stil gives me dirty looks everytime she catches me on alpackas website, but ive found a hobby i love. Also ive never meant another packrafter or seen a boat i didnt buy, no in michigam seems to have an interest in it despite the ample amount of backcountry water we have to use them. From fishing at reid lake to hiking and floating chapel rock in piro to creeking in the porkies. Michigans upper peninsula is an awesome place to own an alpacka

Just love reading these stories. I’ll be able to add mine soon. :slight_smile:

Having only used my packraft twice, I can’t say a whole lot. But while working in the tetons this past summer, a friend of mine hiked up to an alpine lake with his inflatable kayak (k1 challenger) and how he wished he had a packraft. Having been a kayaker, inflatable tubes scare me a bit so swapping over to a packraft (no more roof rack on the truck, long story) a few months later was weird. But now having the ability to pack a boat on my back to run rivers and paddle beautiful hidden lakes, I’m super excited to get more into the sport! Have fun on your trips, hope you learn something from it!