Trip Prep: Mexican Hat

Prior to our Mexican Hat.- Clay Hills trip on the San Juan River, we had only done overnight trips in our packrafts. We had a number of logistical considerations we had not previously dealt with, like long term solid waste management and hauling 5 days of fresh water.

San Juan Permit Requirements (Packraft)

• Permits for campsites below Government Rapids (Mile 64)

• Fire Pan

• Solid Waste Disposal System

• First Aid Kit

• Repair Kit

• Air Pump/Inflation System

• Extra paddle (per 3 boats)

Additional Considerations

• How to carry 30L+ of freshwater

Permits

Permits are required on the San Juan River below Government Rapid (Mile 64), and can be obtained on recreation.gov. We allotted for 2 nights camping “above” Government Rapids, and 2 nights camping below. There are 9 designated campsites below Government Rapids, and we planned for 12 river miles a day, which worked out perfectly in a packraft, about 4-5 hours on the water everyday.

Fire Pan

A fire pan is a “durable metal and at least 12” in diameter with at least a 1.5” lip around its outer edge and sufficient to contain fire and remains”. After a little research, aka calling my best paddling buddy Sarah, we concluded we had several options: buy a fancy folding fire-pan online for $50-100, bring a large cast-iron skillet (which would only work on the outside of our boats), or bring a dirtbag turkey pan. We went with the turkey pan for $13, a large, aluminum pan that fit easily in our gear and fulfilled all requirements. Even though we were stove camping, a fire pan is still required.

Solid Waste Disposal System

So I will probably do a whole post about pooping on the river. Unlike standard LNT practice with appropriately dug catholes, all solid waste must be packed out on most rivers. For a larger raft, or hard-sided kayak, there are quite a few options of vault toilets. For a packraft, we needed something small and free of sharp edges (no groovers), so we opted for a home made pooptube of sorts + wag bag kits. We brought 2 pooptubes, 1 per person!

First Aid Kit

I’m a nurse, so I have a slightly overkill ultralight backpacking first aid kit that goes everywhere with us. Just make sure you always have the basics: bandaids, bandages, OCT medications for headache, stomach aches, antibiotic cream, anti fungal cream, allergies, water treatment (possibly Alum). Your kit it always going to be dependent on how many people and how far away is rescue.

Repair Kit

My repair kit includes:

• Tube Patch Material

• Floor Patch Material

• Extra Valve

• Tear-Aid©

• Gear Aid© Aquaseal FD Flexible Repair Adhesive for Outdoor Gear and Vinyl

• Alcohol prep pads

• Razor blade

Air Pump/Inflation System

The beauty of a packraft is you can inflate it yourself with a “billow bag” and a “blow tube”. I don’t know if those are the official names, but that’s what we call them! A billow bag uses volume to trap air, and then the user squeezes the trapped air into the raft. Once the raft is almost full, we can use a blow tube to finish the inflation to a decent PSI- you don’t want a limp packraft! You can also get a pocket-sized airpump for your packraft for around $50. We opted to just use the billow bags, its pretty fast when 1/3 of your volume is filled with gear!

Extra Paddle

Because the San Juan River in this segement was very low consequence, we did not worry about having a performace level replacement paddle. We brought an extra 4 piece off-brand aluminum/plastic paddle.

Water Storage

After a lot. of consideration to both products and budget, I decided to order industrial strength collapsible/freezable water bags. Each bag held 5L of water, and we brought a total of 30L inside our packrafts, plus 3L each on the day of launch, and 12 low alcohol seltzers for backup! These bags worked extremely well.