Obligatory “Why am I starting a blog” post...

Stopping to fish on the Upper Colorado River.

If I learned anything from the roncom’s of the early 2000’s, it’s that every 32-year-old going through a period of great change and mental crisis needs a blog. And every good blog starts with the obligatory why am I starting a blog? post. This blog is no different, and here is that (short) post.  

It’s simple, I am starting this blog because very little resources are out there for packrafting, and almost none for someone who isn’t already water savvy.  My journey with packrafting started a little over 3 years ago when I came across a trip report about packrafting Labyrinth Canyon on The Green River using these cool rafts with zippers. As a long time backpacker, I was fascinated, “So our gear goes inside the raft, and we just unzip it when we get there? What?”. It was the start of my 3rd season in Colorado and my days of backpacking to remote places in the PNW were long gone. To me, the possibilities were endless, we could literally hike upriver and float our way down. But I knew absolutely nothing about rafting, navigating moving water like rivers, or anything about packrafting in general. 

This was about 2017, and at the time I learned packrafting had already hit the scene in Europe and Alaska, but not many of those athletes focused on multiday overnight trips. My dream for packrafting had always been the concept of a loop trip, hiking in and floating out. I expected to find a plethora of beta about river trips near me in Colorado, with everything laid out and calculated, like the majority of hiking or climbing beta available online today. To my surprise, besides some “classic” packraft trips like Labyrinth Canyon and Bob Marshall Wilderness, there still isn’t a lot of information or trips reports for loop or hike-in, float-out backpack packrafting trips. So here’s my blog. Hopefully it saves you some time and inspires you to get out there and start paddling!