First Paddle

Last weekend I had my first paddle with my Yukon-Yak raft from Alpacka rafts.  Out at my folks place in the country we have a small river that twists and winds its way thru farmland for 20-30 kilometers before finally linking up with the much larger North Saskatchewan river. 

Packed down to the river

First thing I must note is how small and easy to carry the alpacka rafts are.  Even with my relatively small maxpedition backpack I am still able to fit the raft, paddles, and all my camping gear for a 2 day outing.  The only real bulky hard to pack bit of gear is the lifevest.  This river is quite small, moves slow and is very shallow but I still feel the need to wear a lifevest.  I'm a strong swimmer and feel very comfortable in the water but most accidents aren't planned...so lifevest it is.

Inflating

During this test outing my parents walked down to the river (with dogs in tow) to help me with some photo taking and filming.  I had practiced inflating the raft a few times at my apartment in the city and find it easy to get the boat inflated in about 3 minutes.  The silnylon inflation bag is pure genius!  It works amazingly well and lets you transfer a massive quantity of air without becoming light headed.

Topping it off 

  Once the bulk of the filling is done it takes about half a dozen breaths to fill the raft up nice and tight.  Everything on this raft feels very solid and of high quality, the inflation valve is also quick to open and close.

"Tempering" the raft

Once I had fully inflated the yak I let the boat sit on the cold water to help cool the air inside (under the watchful eyes of our labs).  Since the water is still very cold this time of year I thought I would need to add quite a bit more air once the temperatures normalized but I only needed about 1-2 breaths before I was ready to paddle off.

Since I dont plan on running any whitewater with this raft I decided to forgo the skirt to save some $$ and weight.  I stepped into the raft, sat down, placed my backpack in between my legs and "schootched" off the shore.  If I was packing more gear I may have to lash the back to the bow of the boat but with my usual 1-2 day loadout I can easily place the back where it sits in the above photo.

The new hull designs of the rafts track quite well for a flat bottom boat.  Under very hard upstream paddling the boat yaws from side to side but still makes good forward speed.  The sawyer paddle is VERY nice to paddle with and quite adjustable.  For most of my paddling I will keep it quite extended and seem to prefer a 15-20 degree difference between the blades.  Much to my amazement very little water gets into the boat during normal paddling.  The hard upstream paddles would sling a few droplets onto my pack but nothing I would worry about.

Silently floating along

Once I was comfortable with the raft I set out on a 2km float downstream.  From that point I could pack up and make a relatively short hike back home due to the bends in the river.  During my float you could hear the large chunks of ice bump into one another as they passed making a very nice "wind chime" kind of sound.  Floating along with the current silently was nice and relaxing.  The small inflatable seat on the packraft kept me far enough off the water to not notice how cold it was (although the icebergs were constant reminders).

The river is sitting about 2-3 feet above its normal water level which let me float over areas where I would normally have to portage (like the 2 beaver dams I could effortlessly float over).  Its amazing how the photo opportunities change when your sitting on the water moving silently, I'm very much looking forward to some early morning coffee's aboard the raft.

Once I made it to the end of my little adventure I deflated the raft and made the short hike home.  The temperature was sitting at about 5C to 10C with a moderate wind which made fiddling with the silnylon stuff sack a little cold for the fingers but will be a non-issue once the temps climb a little higher.  The next packrafting adventure (while I wait for the lakes ice to melt) will be a longer 2 day paddle along this river...which could possibly be quite a bit more lively that I had planned due to the massive quantity of snow we accumulated this winter!

Kifaru Paratrap

During the winter I realized that while my go-lite SL3 is great in the winter its almost a little too large for my needs.  Next winter I will be experimenting with some smaller tyvek tents like I have posted in the past.  However for the summer I wanted a very light and waterproof shelter to hang over my head.  I very much liked the idea of tarp camping so I set out to find something I liked.

I've always been a fan of Kifaru gear and settled on a paratarp for the warmer seasons.  To keep the cost down I order the tent without the door with the intent to fabricate my own if I feel the need for one.

This tent is the smallest one they sell and I find it quite well sized for me plus gear.  It needs about 5-6 stakes at the min to get a real solid pitch.  In this quick test setup I used 6 DAC aluminum stakes from go-lite and 2 extra sticks to help pin the mid point of the sides down.  If you really wanted to nail this thing down you could go crazy and use all 14 stake loops but its more then solid enough with the 6 or 8 main points...anything more is overkill, but I do very much like the fact that there is more then I need which may be helpful in howling winds.

The tent requires 2 sticks or trekking poles to erect.  When I use this during the summer I will most likely be paddling around with my packraft and dont really plan on bringing along my trekking poles.  This leaves me with the option of either using sticks or, as I have in the above photo, use the 2 lengths from my carbon sawyer paddle.  The two poles are just a little to small to pitch this at its optimum height but that is the beauty of tarp shelters, there is no set it stone size they need to be.
Inside I have laid out my tyvek ground sheet (AMK bivy bag) my new go-lite quilt and tossed my pack with packraft on the side (didn't lay out the sleeping pad for this picture).  As you can see there is still plenty of room inside to sleep quite comfortably.  During nasty rain or wind I might sleep diagonally to move closer to the back of the tent to keep my feet further under the overhang.

The weight breakdowns are as follows:

Kifaru Paratarp - 390g
Sawyer Carbon Poles - 384g

I am super impressed with the weight of the tent and considering I have to carry the paddles regardless I cant complain about their weight either.  Its hard to see from the photos but the tarp does have 2 hypalon sections where the poles rest to keep them from tearing thru during heavy winds.  As expected from kifaru this thing is very light yet extremely strong!  The only compaint I have, or the only negative point I can comment on right now is that the label on the integrated stuff sack seems to have been poorly stitched on...every single other stitch on the entire tent is flawless but the one none essential stitch is less then perfect...must have let the new guy attach all the labels to the stuff sacks ;).

Reviews To Come

Well, these last few weeks have been a whirlwind of projects and shipments!  As promised I plan to run a few initial reviews of the many things I have purchased to ready for the spring/summer/fall camping season.  This last week we were hit with a very late snow storm which pushed some of my plans back a bit but none the less I was able to get out on this beautiful weekend and enjoy the warmer weather.

Unpacked and ready to play