Depending on where you live, you may have noticed an increasing number of small colorful inflatable boats on your local waterways. “Packrafting,” as it is commonly called, is a growing sector of the outdoor industry, with new companies popping up and adventurers around the world finding increasingly novel ways to use these little, lightweight boats.
What’s a “Packraft”?
A simple (and accurate) description is that packrafts are ultralight, inflatable kayaks.
The paddler sits in the boat just like in a kayak, then controls and moves the boat using a 2-bladed kayak paddle.
Today, packrafts weigh between 5-13 lbs, and come with a variety of features (that I’ll outline below).
Because they are so lightweight and can be rolled up into a very compact bundle, these boats are ideal for hiking far from the road to access various forms of backcountry water.
For the skiers out there, I think a very apt analogy is that whitewater kayaks are like dedicated alpine ski gear (i.e., inbounds-only skis, boots, and bindings) while packrafts are like rando-race ski gear or lightweight backcountry touring gear.
A Brief History
There is a lot of great reading out there that involves packraft trips, but it’s worth starting with Dick Griffith’s “Canyons and Ice” where he describes using lightweight Army/Air Force surplus survival rafts to hike in and run rivers in Mexico in the 1950’s.
By the 70’s, there was a boat called the Sherpa that Dick Griffith embraced for various forms of wilderness adventure in Alaska. Another, Alaskan adventurer, Roman Dial, noticed Dick’s use of the boats in a wilderness race and started pursuing his own overland/water adventures, mostly in Alaska, which is a place that is quite well suited to long trips using these kinds of boats.
Concurrent with Roman’s interest in the boats, Thor Tingey used a Colorado College grant to traverse Alaska’s Brooks range with a few friends, utilizing cheap little inflatable rafts that he bought at Walmart.
When Thor got home from his trip, he said to his mom, Sheri, that they needed to talk.