HI,
I am preparing for a a late September trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. My two companions have boats with the rear zipper cargo space know as a Cargo net. I want to know if people are happy with this arrangement or not. The idea of having a zipper that can fail in the middle of Idaho is not too comforting. I want to know what fellow paddlers think.
I worried about the same thing and eventually succumbed to the allure of internal storage which is a massive advantage, especially in whitewater like you will find on the MFS. No problems after 33 river days and haven’t heard of any really serious problems, but I’m super careful about keeping it clean and zipping it open and closed carefully.
I’ve had a Denali Llama with the Cargo Fly for 2.5 years and probably 30 nights or so of camping with the system… No problems whatsoever. I would recommend keeping the zipper lubricated whenever it feels stiff or hard to close. I use an Alpacka Bow Bag for stuff I need during a paddle.
I have several Alpackas without the cargo fly that I purchased for a Wilderness Biology class with a limited budget. At the end of each course the main comment by students relates to upgrading the boats so that they could store gear internally. I can’t imagine buying a personal boat without the Cargo Fly.
Howard Snell
I had the very first cargo fly prototype back in (I think) 2012.
I’ve logged 200+ days/nights of use with them since then. They completely changed the game of multi-day packrafting.
Keep it clean, keep it lubed, and treat it with respect and you’ll get many years of use out of it.