Somehow I'd managed to never pay attention to water it was just off the
radar.
I got this boat and all of a sudden it's like every river, every blue line on the
map becomes a trail.
I had some friends with packrafts that were using them to sort of extend hiking
trips and that really appealed to me. What's so unique about these boats is
that they roll up into a volume about this large so maybe the size of a small
sleeping bag. So it's a real small weight penalty that gives you access to a ton
of terrain that you wouldn't have access to. I spent the summer working at a farm
out in Palmer and then used that, like basically an entire paycheck to buy my
first packraft.
The history is actually really interesting because it is this Alaskan
born sport and it's fully global now. I think most people that were getting into
packrafting, especially 10 years ago, 15 years ago we're doing it just to extend
hiking trips. They're like, I'm a hiker but I want to cross this river. I want to
float this river to continue my hike. For me absolutely it was getting in under
Roman's guidance. I knew who Roman Dial was. Like most people in Anchorage
that were doing outdoor sports, Roman was already working with the kayak community.
He knew that there was this huge white water potential. I think he really was
the pioneer, nationally pushing the packrafts into the white water. He was
pushing it, pushing hard and I was really lucky to get in on that effort from him
and that was the transition into seeking whitewater and that new
kind of chapter in packrafting for me.
What I love most is still the access. As much as I like the rapids and the white
water, being able to go deep into the Brooks Range of the Alaska Range or the
Wrangell's... I love that.
Just kind of collecting Alaska's amazing landscape.
Most of my motivation is to see as much of the state as possible.
(I think we might just start here!)
So I just I went through that progression like most of my peers that
were getting in to packrafting and then I lost a friend. A friend drowned in
the Wrangell's in 2014 and that was a huge eye-opener just about all of the
assumptions that we'd been making and how lucky we had been on a bunch of
these trips. So that is what motivated me to get into the swift water rescue
training. We spend two or three days on these courses and talking about the
boats and the equipment.
And just swimming, honestly, is one of the biggest things. Get in a river and swim
through some rapids. Are people willing to do this?
It'll help maybe to watch it once. I'm hopefully gonna make this look super
easy and comfortable. Even if it's not.
Oh this is so much fun! I had no idea! Especially up here, it's cold there's
glacial silt in the water, it's really intimidating until you do it and then
most people come out of that and they're like that was actually kind of fun... like a
little freaky but kind of fun. (Come to shore). I'm here with you I got you. I'm
here with you, you got this. I'm here with you, you got this. I'm here
with you, you got this. Yeah!
Good job!
It's Alaska born it's really cool. It fits Alaska so well. It's kind of a
misfit sport. It's like people that maybe don't fit into these other
categories. They're not cool enough to kayak or whatever and they're already good hikers
and it's just like, 'oh I think I could do that; I think I can float. That sounds
awesome.' And it gets you into all these places in the Anchorage area or
statewide that you might not have seen otherwise and I think that's really
valuable. See as much of the state as possible while it's still wild.