Ryan Jordan

Gear List – Bob Marshall Wilderness Packrafting / Trekking

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

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