An Early Season Packrafting Trip

So I received my Alpacka raft a couple of weeks ago, and have been itching to get out and use it.

I finally got the opportunity for a one night solo blast through the backcountry this weekend. Here's the report!

The raft was awesome, and is definitely pretty much indestructible -- I didn't even bother deflating it for bush-bashing sections, although I probably should have to make the bashing easier and protect the boat from sharp branches etc.. It's pretty dirty now (I'll wash it today), but only has some mild scuffing.

Stats from the route:

Distance: 25.6km

Moving time: 9 hours

Ascent: 631m

Descent: 626m
Average Speed: 3km/hr


Trip Planning Resources:
Topo Map: 031D15 (link to pdf download, courtesy of the Canadian Government)
A Google Map of many resources in the park (courtesy of Stajanleafs on myccr.com): explorethebackcountry.com
GPX File of the trip Resources: link
Trails Map from the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Background document: link

Friday night, I got to the site just as the sun went down -- got the tent set up with my paddle as the pole, and started boiling some water on the BushBuddy -- then heard something I haven't heard in years .. wolves howling! They serenaded me all night, it was awesome.

I actually only took the fly of the tent, and left both the nest and bathtub floor at home. I wasn't expecting bugs, and wanted this to be a truly ultralight trip -- but was expecting cold, so didn't want the exposure of a tarp. It worked really well, and was almost as light as my tarp shelter by itself.

Saturday morning, I woke up to a freezing cold tent (ice on the packraft and frost on the inside of the tent) My pot which I had left water in the night before had 1cm of ice floating on the surface. I would estimate that it went down to about -5. I was up and moving around by about 7:30-7:45

Made some coffee and oatmeal, and packed up while the water was boiling.

I was on the water by around 8:15, knowing I had to be at the pickup site by 4 -- my girlfriend was coming to get me so we could have a family birthday dinner at the cottage.

The first portage looked like it was going to be a simple carry down a stream bed .. of broken rocks, then launch in the stream at the bottom.

Turns out the stream at the bottom was too shallow, so I ended up carrying all the way to the Ganaraska trail (about 1km) then a 2400m portage along the trail to the next lake - I did all of that in about an hour and a quarter - it probably would have been 3-4 hours or more with a canoe.

Scrabble lake was really nice. I'd like to camp there sometime, but I was in a rush to get miles under my belt.

The exit from scrabble lake was not nice -- I lifted over a beaver dam into a marshy stream, but the water level is pretty low so i couldn't make any headway. I spent about half an hour trying to find a way through the marsh, only to give up and bush bash for 10 minutes to get to Clear Lake.

The rest was fairly easy --- atv trail portages or recently cleared tracks.

All in all, a fantastic trip! It was really nice to get out on a solo trip once again.

Next time, I'll explore the more remote west end of the park -- It's been proving to be harder to find information about that area. Probably because not very many people head out there. It doesn't look very canoe-friendly.

Packrafting the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands

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Packing List:

Gear:

1. Generic emergency kit (see contents)
2. Alpacka Packraft (www.alpackaraft.com) with Cruiser Spraydeck
3. Aqua Bound Manta Ray Fiberglass Paddle - 210cm (www.alpackaraft.com)
4. Serratus PFD
5. Petzl Tikka Plus headlamp (amazon)
6. UCO Candle Lantern (amazon)
7. BushBuddy Ultra (www.bushbuddy.ca)
8. Snow Peak Trek 900 Titanium Pot (amazon)
9. Homemade Pot Cozies (see how!)
10. Golite Shangri-La 3 tent fly 
11. Cilogear 60L Worksack
12. Optimus Titanium Long Handled Spoon (amazon)
13. Knife (generic folding)
14. Garmin eTrex Legend HCx GPS with the free ibycus Canadian topo maps (amazon)
15. NTS Topo of the area (031d15 - link to pdf download, courtesy of the Canadian Government)
16. Seal-Line Map Case
17. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 Camera 
18. BIC Lighter
19. Guyot Designs Firefly light (basegear.com) and Nalgene 1.5L HDPE bottle
20. -10 Sleeping bag (mine's nothing special -- and about 15 years old)
21. Suunto MC-2 Global Compass (amazon)

Clothing:

1. MEC Merino T-shirt
2. Icebreaker merino 200 long sleeve shirt
3. MEC Thermal Hoodie (mec)
4. Patagonia Down Sweater (patagonia.com)
5. Patagonia Flippin' Beanie (patagonia.com)
6. MEC Windstopper Gloves
7. A Vintage MEC Heater Top - I wish they still made these
8. Wool Socks (x2)
9. Prana Stretch Zion Pants (mec) 

Food:

Eaten:

1. Natural High Chili Mac with Beef (amazon)
2. 4 Packages Quaker Instant Oatmeal (Maple Brown Sugar)
3. 1 Clif Builder's Bar
4. 1 Clif Bar (Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch)
5. Coffee (ground at home)

Carried for Emergency Backup:

1. Backpacker's Pantry Chana Masala (amazon)
2. 2 x Lipton's Cup of soup chicken noodle

Packed Weight: ~20lbs

A Generic Emergency Kit

Just a quick post.

Here are the contents of my generic emergency kit.

It's all stored in an extra-small GSI Lexan Box

The list:

1. Extra-Small GSI Lexan Box (amazon)
2. Small first aid kit (with extra alcohol swabs and band-aids)
3. SPOT II Satellite Messenger (findmespot.com)
4. 10M of 1mm cord
5. Whistle
6. McNett Aquaseal Urethane Sealant (usable for packraft and tent repair) (amazon)
7. small strip of sticky-backed nylon fabric for tent/garment repair
8. swiss army knife
9. compass/thermometer/ruler
10. stormproof matches (amazon)
11. firesteel (dealextreme.com)
12. wetfire tinder (amazon)
13. Coghlan's Fuel Tablets (canadian tire)

There's a little extra space in there, and i modify as necessary for the trip at hand.

Making a Thermal Pot Cozy

Pot Cozies are an easy to make addition to your camping gear arsenal that will provide you with major benefits in terms of lightness of gear carried, and increased ability to cook multi-pot meals over a single burner.

The best part is, they weigh in at almost nothing and are extremely cheap to make (you may be able to make them out of materials that you have on hand, or if you do need to buy the materials they will come in handy around the home or you can split the minimal cost with your friends).

Materials Needed:
- reflectix foil insulation (On Amazon: Reflectix ST16025)
- foil duct tape - (On Amazon: Scotch 3311 Foil Tape)

both of these items should also be readily available from your neighbourhood home improvement store.

Process:
1. Cut out a circular piece of reflectix the size of your pot's bottom
2. Cut out a circular piece of reflectix the size of the top of your pot's lid
3. Cut a piece of reflectix long enough to wrap around your pot, and tall enough to cover the entire side of the pot
4. Tape the long piece of reflectix to the circular piece from step 1- so you end up with a sleeve that will fit snugly around your pot
5. Cut a piece of reflectix long enough to wrap around the outside of your pot when it's in the reflectix sleeve, and about 2" wide.
6. Tape the piece from step 5 to the circular piece from step 2 - so you end up with a lid that fits snugly over your pot's lid and then over the pot with cozy

Using your pot cozy:
Your pot cozy is useful in many ways. In the simplest case, it can keep water warmer for longer - which reduces your need to reheat water if you're making hot drinks or want to keep some warm water for cleaning dishes.

Even better though, if you are making a recipe that requires simmering (i.e. Rice or reconstituting freeze-dried foods), you can use the heat retention of the cozy to act like simmering so you are not using valuable fuel to simply keep the water warm enough to cook. Along these lines, meals that are more complicated and have need of multiple pots become much easier to prepare on a single burner stove as you can remove items without worrying that they will cool down too fast.

The ever useful cozy also proves itself invaluable when you are camping in colder weather, and prevents foods from dropping in temperature too much before they are eaten.

BushBuddy Stove

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The single most useful piece of equipment that I own is by far the BushBuddy. It is a small wood burning stove, that burns incredibly efficiently and relatively smoke-free due to its efficiency.

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Nested with the Snow Peak Trek 900 Titanium Pot, this becomes the ultimate single-person cookset that is usable anywhere naturally combustible materials (wood, pinecones, ...) can be found.

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With a little bit of practice, you can build an amazingly hot fire that will boil water in just a few minutes - without having to carry any heavy fuel or deal with the incessant roaring of a gas stove.

I carry this stove with me everywhere. It even makes a fantastic low impact fireplace for lounging around when you're out and about - there's nothing quite like stopping to make a cup of tea or soup halfway through a bike tour and having a crackling little fire to have a conversation around while you eat.

Truly, the BushBuddy is a backcountry necessity, it will make your time out there significantly more enjoyable.

I'll post soon about bushbuddy usage and my full fire starting kit.

They're made by hand in northern British Columbia, Canada - you can order one yourself or get some more info at http://www.bushbuddy.ca/

You can see some more photos in my Picasa Album

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I have decided to create this site to share newly learned information and tips and tricks from my various outdoor activities with the world. I hope you find it useful!