Lets meet at the Gaden Hatchery at 12.30 on Saturday?It is only a short paddle of a few hours. How long do you think the Indi paddle would take on Sunday? A late morning start up there would give it a chance to warm up a bit…mabye 
I will ask around re a spare raft for your mate.
Steve
12:30 suits me well, might be able to sneak in a quick ski in the morning 
We can make the paddle on Sunday as short or as long as we want, so a late start time is fine. The river will always be liquid ice regardless of the time of day. A run from the top end of the picnic area down to the take out point would take 1.5 to 2hrs, so we could extend it if desired or do a couple of runs.
Are you guys planning on camping or staying in accommodation?
Sounds good, I think we should do the longer paddle on Sunday, start from the walk in point, if time allows we can slip in a second run or go a bit further. Lets see how cold we get on Saturdays paddle and base Sunday on that? Liquid ice is my favourite swimming temp…although Mathew has swum across lake Jinabyne in winter so he should be right
I don’t think we will camp as we are all too old and soft for cold climate camping, we might stay at a mates place or grab a van at Jindy, do you need accomadation too? It looks like there will be 5 of us all up. Did you manage to get a raft for your mate? I had no luck on the short call.
Steve
Agree that it’s better to decide on Sunday’s paddle after seeing how we perform on Saturday. The longer paddle appeals to me more, mainly because the walk in will warm up the wetsuit
If you’ve got a spare bit of floor area on Saturday night then I’m happy to stay with you guys, otherwise I’ll camp out or stay with friends in Jindabyne.
Thanks for your efforts in chasing up a raft, I didn’t have any luck either (as expected) so it’ll just be me coming across.
Craig, I sent you a PM with my mobile No.
Steve
Hangin for the TR lads…Howditgo???
Had a really fun weekend, 4 of us paddled lower Thredbo on Saturday arvo which was a bit of a dud paddle but still enjoyable, saw heaps of trout in the river. The lake was up so most of the better rapids were under water and it was a longer than expected lake paddle to the out point. Still a short gentle grade 1/almost 2 paddle worth a trip if your strapped for time or the sking is crap and you want a begginers paddle. Nothing challanging.
Saturday night we hit the bright lights of Jindy, had too many beers, some dodgy italian and heaps of laughs swapping adventure tales and generally goofing off.
Sunday we paddled the Indi, great little paddle with a very short car shuffle and lovely 2 km walk in. Continuous grade 1/2+ with one nice grade 3 drop over the 8 km stretch. A classic little packraft paddle worth doing on the snow melt. Would get too boney in summer but level was good with the melt. Bloody cold in the water (yes Mathew and I both took a swim). Thanks Craig for the pleasant company and excellent call and guidance on the river, really pleasant to meet up with one of the other forum paddlers. We should be doing more group paddles and sharing skills and tips.
Got hit with a very heavy snow storm coming back up and over Dead Horse Gap to Thredbo and ended up “parking” next to a creek in the middle of a snow field 80 meters off the road…no one hurt but a badly bruised ego for the driver, needless to say he stopped bagging us swimmers
Video will be up soonish.
Steve
Yep it was a great weekend, thanks for organising it Steve. It was good to meet some fellow packrafters in the wild, particularly such good company.
It was worth doing the lower Thredbo just to see the trout, the water was swarming with them! The Indi went well, the level was 0.9m at Biggara. Plenty of options there, as there are multiple access points we can utilise. I’d be happy to run another trip there sometime, maybe next winter.
Sorry to hear that the drive home was more adventurous than it should have been. The weather was fairly intense on the western side, even at low elevations, so can only imagine what it was like for you guys heading over the top.
Hopefully we can get a few others down for the Tooma or something similar in a month or so!
Thanks!
Sounds like a great trip and sorry I couldn’t make it. I was holding off due to being in snow mode for another month or so but look forward to some video action.
Glad to hear nobody was hurt while parking! Pretty gnarly conditions.
I reckon we should do the Tooma trip first or second weekend in October?? Wadayareckon? Could do it in a day or add another creek on and make a weekend of it?
Here is the Horses Gap carpark…
Steve
I’m keen for the Tooma. The road opens on October 3, so how does the 8th/9th sound? Spent a bit of time thinking about other rivers today, it really depends how far we want to drive. The Yarrangobilly and the Eucumbene are the closest two that come to mind. If there’s enough water I’d love to paddle the Yarrangobilly, apparently it’s only grade 2 but the scenery down in the gorge is spectacular, and it has the added benefit of the thermal pool at the end to warm up in
The weekend of the 22/23 is the only weekend I have available in October!! (I did not realise how booked up i was) but would love to do it then if possible. I have fished the Yarrangabilly a few times and it is a very scenic area, would be a pretty modest paddle as it is not much more than ankle to knee deep for much of the bubble sections. I reckon the Euc will be a goer by then. Perhaps we could walk to the first hut (forgot the name) on the Tooma track for the Saturday evening?
Steve
A bugger about the parking spot. How did you extract yourself from that?
We almost parked off the side of MT Hotham a few weeks ago. Slipped out on a corner at 10-15kph, and slid sidewards along the road for about 70m before straightening up. New trousers all round, as I presume it was in your car.
A
I’m out for the 22/23 Steve, got an engagement party that weekend. November is looking pretty full up for me too, so will have to let you blokes enjoy the snowmelt on your own.
