On Saturday, July 30, I teamed up with Tim Kelley and Trond Jensen to do the Winner Creek -> 20 Mile River packrafting route. This day trip is 'Packrafting 101,' its a good trip for adventurous people who are just getting into packrafting. For all th

The Winner Creek trail is very buffed out for the first couple of miles. Then, after that it was a patchy network of brand-new trail (seen here) and bushwhacking. And yes, those small packs each contain our rafts and all the neccessary packrafting gear.

Along the way we saw a lot of signs that clearly people were still working on this trail.

Near the top, after a mile or two of slow bushwhacking, we came across this machine and another section of freshly-dug trail. We were tempted to fire the beast up and finish the job. But its a good thing we didn't because a minute later we ran into the

Once down at the river (after another fit of bushwhacking on the descent), we pumped up the rafts and prepared to float.

This was the last picture I took because it was raining and I had to put the camera in a dry bag for the float. The float was a lot of fun. It took us about 3:15 to paddle all the way to the Seward Hwy and Turnagain Arm. The whole trip took about 7:45.

The next day, Linda and I headed to Turnagain Pass to do a short rollerski/packraft trip. We planned to rollerski/rollerblade up the bike path from the Hope Road junction to the Johnson Pass trailhead, then put in the packraft and float back down to the

But we only had one packraft. So first, I floated the river to see how difficult it was. It was mostly flat and easy. A few sweepers and log jams near the Granite Creek campground were a bit tricky.

It took me just over an hour to float from Granite Creek down to the take-out spot.

After my float, Linda and I packed up the raft and rollerbladed/rollerskied back up the bike path, so that she could have her turn on the river. I continued rollerskiing while she floated and we met back at the bottom.

Packrafting -> Uppper body work-out
Rollerskiing w/o poles -> lower body workout

Linda enjoys her float back down.

This was a short little trip, but a lot of fun. The rollerskiing is about 5 miles and the rafting is about 6 miles. Round trip time is about 1:30 to 2 hours.

Linda pulls the 4 pound packraft out of the water, while these other guys struggle to get their raft on a trailer. Man, its a cool little toy. Now we just have to get another one, so we can go together!