Packrafting the Upper Waiau in New Zealand
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2017
- Following the 2017 New Zealand Packraft Meet-Up at Boyle Village near Lewis Pass many packrafters headed off on a range of really cool trips. Jen and I were lucky enough to join a trip to the upper Waiau over the Opera Range that was organised by Daniel Clearwater and Jamie McAulay. We joined Ben Weigl and Clare McLennan and had an amazing time with brilliant weather and perfect river levels. A fantastic 4-day trip with an awesome group of people. Definitely one of the best walk-ins I have done and the continuous nature of this river at this level was fantastic. Very highly recommended. Unfortunately friends of ours who aimed to walk-in and paddle the lower half had an epic trip due to the high conditions - so be cautious at higher levels if you don't have a strong team.
Music courtesy of JinglePunks via GoPro Music and includes:
Missing 004 by Swami G
Primary Forest by Musicbox
Our Anthem by Musicbox
Super!!! Hello from Siberia!
Perfect video, this is the way how to use a packraft and enjoy paddling on very remote mountain rivers!
looks awesome! good job with the footage :)
Great video. I learned about these and found your video. Thanks for sharing.
hey, lovely vid
What a beautiful place
Auch ein sehr cooles Video. Ich finde auch eure Kameraperspektiven sehr gelungen.
Reminds me of packrafting Lower Clarks Fork Canyon out of the Beartooths.
Wow. Awesome stuff! Beautiful country too.
Fantastic footage as usual, really enjoyable to watch, what drone are you using?
Ben had a Mavic. Quite light and super compact. Super easy to set up and use. Perfect for such trip as super easy to carry. Ben simply carried it in the yellow drybag on top of his pack which you can see in the video. Unfortunately he did crash it into a cliff in the first of the gorges which is why we didn't get more footage of paddling. Fortunately it was repairable although not a cheap repair at $500! It only crashed due to a strong gust of wind in a narrow space when he was flying without GPS due to the canyon walls.
Ahaaa, thanks, I thought it may have been. I'm also using the Mavic and just used for a pack raft trip (a fair bit tamer than yours!) - it's the latest clip on my channel. Yes, I have also used mine in a gorge and experienced the loss of GPS too, puts it in ATTI mode which is still flyable but unstable in hover. Love the footage, the upper Wairau is an awesome river to fly fish as well, just made for fly fish up... and pack-raft down which is what we are using the Alpacka's for. Have you seen the crowd making them in Christchurch now? Self bailing copy called Koaro Packrafts, they look bloody good! Andrew
Met Sam from Koaro at the Meet-Up and thoroughly enjoyed chatting to him about boats and design etc. Definitely well made and am sure we will see lots of innovations from him in the future.
wow! great skills!
Are you running a self bailer here Mark? If so what's the stability like compared to a standard configuration? I've just hadthe Alpacka Self Bailer arrive from the US, initial thoughts are you get quite wet from sitting low.
Yes troutboynz I am in a 2017 Kokpelli self-bailer. You sit quite high in it (higher than any other packraft) as you have a seat on top of a full inflatable floor. This reduces your stability significantly but increases edging ability and forward power, improves stroke placements, posture, body rotation and vision. As a highly experienced paddler I love the extra height but many other less experienced paddlers really dislike it. I think it suits advanced paddlers well but is not as good for those who only paddle occasionally and want something super stable. I paddled a friend's 2018 Kokopelli self-bailer yesterday and it is a very different boat to the 2017 model and is incredibly stable, perhaps similar in stability to a Gnarwhal. They have gotten rid of the additional seat in the self-bailer and now have a one-piece floor that is also the seat. Their new boat doesn't suit me at all but others may appreciate these changes. Even with the higher seating position of my current boat I still often get a wet bottom but I am almost always in a drysuit so it doesn't bother me. My experience is that you get wetter and colder in an Alpacka (than a 2017 Kokopelli self-bailer) as your feet are not sitting on top of the floor as they are in front of a 3/4 floor but the reality is that you get wet in any self-bailer. If you don't like getting wet don't get a self-bailer. :)
Thanks for the reply Mark, yes I noticed you sit much higher and get a wet arse! I'm mostly Grade 2 and under for the purposes of fly fishing travel back down rivers are a day's fishing. I really like the higher seating position as well, didn't notice any difference in stability however compared to the standard Alpacka, I did ditch the foot pillow however, just didn't feel necessary, so feet are much lower than knees, I do like the thigh strap attachments points though, seem very strong!
En el momento que pinchas....se acabo!!