HI! I just moved to Fairbanks from Georgia in April. Never heard of packrafting until I got up here. One of my friends who has been up here for a few years introduced me to this wonderful invention. He was up at the Atigun River crossing a few years ago on the Dalton and ran into Roman floating down, of all people, he was amazed! He never ended up getting a packraft. I got a copy of Roman’s book and was sold. So I rented a packraft two weekends ago from Northern Alaska Packrafts and used it to fish for trout at Dune Lake. I practiced flipping it, getting in/out, and different paddling techniques. Technically that was my first packraft but I’ll tell you about my experience yesterday in Montana Creek.
So, I bought a new blue Yak from Northern Alaska Packrafts. I was planning on floating the Chena this weekend, take it easy, and ease into it. Well, my friends decided they wanted to head to Montana Creek near Talkeetna and I was down for the trip. We camped off Yoder by the bridge. Saturday morning we walked up the trail to the waterfall, which was so cool. I was thinking about putting in at the base of the waterfall but felt it was too much for me. I went down a little bit past the drops and put in. I was wearing breakup boots, a rain jacket, neoprene gloves, and a PFD. “No way I’m getting wet!” I set off into some minor rapids and turned the bend. Oh crap! Rapids and a sweeper half way across! It seemed overwhelming. I’m not sure what happened but I got bumped around a bit and then I was upside down underwater. I held onto my paddle and grabbed my raft as the river took me though the rest of the rapids. I washed up on shore and looked at the situation. I was packrafting for about 30 seconds and wad already soaked!
I saw another sweeper further down so I portaged around and set in again. I was going good for a few minutes, some rapids (class?), a bend, and then another sweeper. So I should have checked it out first before turning the bend but it was too late. I thought I would just push off it but it started to suck my raft under with me in it (I think I read about this)! I got out and managed to get my raft out. “Mental note, avoid those suckers.” The rest of the trip was great. From then on when I came across a bend I could not see around I got out and checked it out. This saved my butt a few times as there were quite a few sweepers around the bends. Lots of portaging.
It was a great trip and lots of fun! I made some dumb mistakes like not checking out the river beyond bends and hitting a sweeper, but I learned a great deal through the experience.
If anyone around Fairbanks wants to float let me know! It would be great to float with other people.
Colin