Imagine a kayak that weighs less than 8lbs, rolls up to the size of a large water bottle, can carry enough gear for almost any type of adventure and is very easy for even the most novice of paddler to learn to use. That’s a packraft for you. It can take you to amazing places all on its own or can help extend a huge number of other outdoor pursuits.
The biggest advantage of a packraft is right in the name. The packability of a packraft is simply amazing. Even at their largest, rafts like the Alpacka Forager that will carry two people and 1000lbs of gear, they pack down to the size of a couple of rolls of paper towels and weigh only 14 pounds. For the long distance hikers and bike packers, there is the Kokopelli Hornet-Lite weighing in at only 4.7 lbs.
For such a lightweight and compact piece of equipment, you can carry almost anything you would need for any kind of adventure in any climate. Once inflated most packrafts are ready to carry anything from a basic day bag to your mountain bike lashed to the nose of the raft. For those out there looking to carry the gear for a multi-day trip, most packrafts offer a zipper option. This zipper allows you to open the tubes of the raft and load the gear you don’t need access to during the day inside of your boat. Not only does this allow you to carry a staggering amount of gear with you, but also increases the stability of the craft by lowering your center of gravity.
Last, but certainly not least, is how user-friendly packrafts are. We have no experience in kayaks or canoes, but we have been able to paddle class III whitewater while loaded down with backpacking gear for two people for a two to three-night trip that would have been impossible on a standup paddle board. Packrafts like the Alpacka Gnarwhal, Valkyrie or the Kokopelli Nirvana are ready to take on class IV and up white water if the paddlers skills and nerves are up for it. That stability transfers over to flatwater paddling as well and first time paddlers will feel very comfortable in any kind of packraft paddling around their local pond, lake or reservoir.
As you can see the packraft offers amazing versatility in a multitude of situations. It has allowed us to explore places we would have otherwise been unable to go and even go deeper into the wilderness we have gone before.
