4 packrafts, 5 persons. 24:grensmaas (border Belgium/Holland)
Full report => http://dzjow.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/24-grensmaas-4-packrafts-5-people/
Please visit our blogs http://dzjow.wordpress.com and http://patagoniandreams.com/
Enjoy!
-JR
The Bob Marshall Wilderness extends for 60 miles along the Continental Divide that separates the Flathead and Sun River drainages. Starting on July 3, 2012 at the Benchmark Trailhead Tom Turiano, my six-month old border collie, and I spent five days connecting the two drainages in a grand 120-mile packrafting loop. White River Pass and a long hike over Silvertip Mountain allowed us to connect descents of the North Fork of the Sun River, the White River, the South Fork of the Flathead, and the North Fork of Flathead.
The Buffalo Fork drains the high plateau country of the southern end of the Absaroka Range within the Teton Wilderness. This high country provides enough lingering snowmelt to allow boating late into the summer. The Buffalo Fork, including both the North and South Forks, offers some of the best and most accessible wilderness packrafting in Jackson Hole and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
On July 21, 2012 Andy Tyson and I completed a hike-float-hike-float that included sections of both the North and South Forks. Starting in Turpin Meadows we walked 5 miles along the North Fork Trail to Soda Fork Meadows. From the confluence with the Soda Fork we paddled 5 rocky yet worthy miles to the confluence with the South Fork. After deflating our packrafts we hiked 3.5 miles to the bottom of the Class 5 gorge below Lower Pendergraft Meadows. We opted to portage several Class 5 drops. The lower gorge of the North Fork provided several miles of fun technical Class 4 whitewater. After returning to the confluence we enjoyed a splashy 5 miles (Class 3) back to the Turpin Meadows Trailhead. The gauge for the Buffalo Fork River reported just over 500cfs.
The Buffalo Fork River is a significant tributary of the Snake River Headwaters. In 2009, with the passage of the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act, the Buffalo Fork River’s outstanding remarkable values were forever honored and protected by being congressionally designated a Wild and Scenic River.
Sorry, I am too dense to embed the vid, but first (and solo wilderness whitewater) packraft trip in Alberta, Canada here: http://youtu.be/Mye6FUzpSk0
The massive 2.36 million acre Frank Church—River of No Return Wilderness Area is one of the largest protected wildlands in the contiguous United States. Combined with the adjacent Gospel Hump Wilderness and surrounding Forest Service roadless areas, it is the heart of a 3.3 million acre (13,000 km²) roadless wonderland. The Salmon River threads through its core.
Early trappers and explorers, including Lewis and Clark, feared and avoided the Salmon River and its deep canyons. It took the discovery of gold in the 1880s for westerners to fully navigate its turbulent waters. Thirty-foot flat-bottomed barges supplied mining activities. The Salmon River was too swift for these barges to return up-river, and hence the name “River of No Return.”
In September 2012, Mike Curiak, Jim Harris, Forrest McCarthy, Andrew McLean, Tom Turiano, and Moe Witschard utilized packrafts to challenge the century old idea that paddling is a one-way event in the Frank Church—River of No Return Wilderness. Starting near the confluence of the Middle and Main Forks of the Salmon, they descended 60 miles through the heart of the wilderness to the confluence with the South Fork.
After an out and back side trip up the South Fork they spent two and half days hiking roughly 35 miles over Horse Heaven Ridge and Chicken Peak to the confluence Big and Monument Creeks. Twenty-five miles of paddling on Big Creek, and 20 miles on the Middle Fork, returned them to where they started.
I hear folks are having trouble imbedding YouTube Videos. I’ve had trouble too. I’ve been doing the end run around this technical difficulty by going into edit mode of previous YouTube posts and copying the html YouTube code. I then replace the older YouTube link with the new one. I use the longer old style YouTube link (available as a YouTube Share option).
Below is the HTLML code you can use:
[youtube]cut+and paste+the+long+youtube+link+here[/youtube]
Four of us packrafted Moose Creek (near Palmer, AK) from the End of Buffalo Mine Rd. to the Glenn Hwy. at 225 cfs. Flooding from the week before added a substantial amount of channel-wide sweepers/strainers to the creek. We scouted most of the creek before we ran it adding several hours to a normally 2.5 hour float. Super fun creek!
Packrafting American Creek in Katmai N. Park. Bears Everywhere. We were not attacked, much.
Love this video Dave! One of the best I have seen on packrafting. Very engaging.
Trailer of my 4-month hiking/packrafting trip through Scandinavia last summer. I rafted about 600km of lakes and rivers (Susna, Rapadno, Divielva, Kautokeinoelva, Iesjohka, Karasjohka, Tana) in northern Scandinavia, keep an eye on my http://transscandinavia.wordpress.com blog the coming months for stories and more video footage!
A pretty funny video of some friends from the USYD Canoe club tackling the colo in $20 rafts:
A recent trip down the Wairaurahiri River in southern Fiordland NZ. Big first day but great paddle down.
Finally figured out how to embed a video, thanks to Forrest. This was my first time trying my new packraft on moving water. Now I’m hooked 
Cataract Canyon 4000cfs. A little cold this time of year but still fun.
Some footage from the Packrafting Skills Course with Jim Gonski on the Snowy River last November. River is around 1000 cfs.
Thanks a bunch to Jim for the training, Dale and Rob for organisation, Max for editing the footage and everyone who contributed to such an awesome 3 days!
A trip down the Colo River just out of Sydney, Australia, running at two metres on the Upper Colo gauge.
Put in at the bottom of Bob Turners Track and pulled out at the Upper Colo bridge.
A fun day playing in the rapids, with a laid back finish.
Duncan
Pelorus River/track loop (s) South Island, New Zealand
A good 20 km walk/packraft loop trip from the road end up to Captains Hut then back down through the Pelorus River gorge to the road end. Really lovely walking, river level was very low but still enough grade 2/3 in between the gorge pools to keep it fun. I did it as an overnighter but this could be done as a big day trip (for the fit & young), would be a great paddle with good water levels. A longer loop from Pelorus Bridge would be possible too and/or higher up the Pelorus track/river. Great loop country.
Steve
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The rest of the blog post is here: