In a few hours I'll drive up to Great Falls, pick up my pals at the airport, and drive to a tiny community in the foothills of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem; from where we'll start a 120-mile circumnavigation of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex by foot and packraft (and only a little bit of cheating).
Here are the highlights from my gear list.
PACKRAFTING GEAR
I'll be packrafting in a number of major and minor drainages, ranging from easy going Class I rivers to (hopefully!) a few rumble-tumble PR4-5 creeks.
- Alpacka packraft w/spray deck (80 oz)
- Inflatable type III PFD (15 oz)
- 5-pc packraft paddle (30 oz)
- Helmet (9 oz)
TREKKING GEAR
- Dry bag backpack (40 oz incl. 65L dry bag)
- Woven nylon l/s trekking shirt and long pants (8 oz combined)
- Full zip hooded wind shirt (3.5 oz)
- Merino wool long johns and pullover hoody (11 oz)
- Waterproof-breathable anorak and knickers (10 oz)
- Inov-8 RocLite 320 Shoes
- Combination of Steri-Pen Adventurer and Aqua Mira ClO2 Tablets for treatment
CAMPING GEAR
- eVENT bivy sack
- synthetic fill quilt (prototype, 22.0 oz)
- no pad (use pack, packraft, other gear)
- no overhead shelter (use packraft, crawl in with friends, trees?)
- synthetic fill hoody (prototype, 7.5 oz)
- 750 ml ti pot, silicone muffin cup, ti spoon, firestarting kit, alcohol stove & windscreen, fuel bottle, ti grill, and fuel (14 oz)
OTHER GEAR
- Fly fishing gear (Tenkara rod-based kit, 6 oz)
- Small HD Video Cam, Sigma DP2, SPOT, GoPro Wide Helmet Cam, Iridium 9555 (gear for media journalism)
- and all the other usual assortment of little junk that goes into assorted kits like foot care, repair, toiletries, etc.
This, and about 20,000 calories of food.
I weighed my pack and it's 36 pounds (no water). Which has me a little worried since my gear list says it should weigh 38.6 lbs, so…what did I forget?
I guess we'll find out.
Talk to you (via Twitter and SPOT) tomorrow night, I suppose.
Godspeed / RJ
MORE:
- Follow the geolocation of this expedition on a SPOT map at ryanjordan.com/weblog/spot.html.
- Follow SMS updates send from sat phone at twitter.com/bigskyry.
- Stay tuned at ryanjordan.com for audioblog updates sent every day or two – or three.
