June 18-25, 2025
This is a detailed account of our extensive traverse of the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex using on and off trail hiking and packrafting on Youngs Creek, the South Fork Flathead, and the Middle Fork Flathead to propel us 130 miles northward to the southern border of Glacier National Park 8 days later. Lodgepole trailhead to the Bear Creek boat launch on Hwy 2, for those keeping track.
We saw our only other packrafters of the trip, a group of 3 Montanans, at the Lodgepole trailhead the evening before Andrew and I started our hike. We had more boating skills and gear knowledge, they had significantly more beta on the current conditions in the Bob, including useful info on Youngs Creek we were grateful to have. We talked for an hour before they were packed up and into the woods.
Like many routes I’ve designed, the idea for this one started out very differently than the form in which it was ultimately executed. Starting as a 2023 Bob Open route, then morphing into a huge but unlikely packrafting tour of the whole Bob, then into a more realistic extended North-South Route, and finally, due to low water levels, found its current form just a few weeks before our planes took off for Bozeman. Props to T-Dawg Speaks for his excellent account of their similar trip back in 2016. Other than that, there isn’t much record of folks combining the South and Middle forks of the Flathead into a single packrafting trip. I hope that changes. With improvements in modern gear and technique, I think we’ll see more people able to complete longer trips like the Two Forks Traverse.
Like many backpackers, over the years I’ve gradually grown more dependent on GPS tech to navigate. I’ve noticed it’s removed almost all navigational uncertainty and sometimes makes being in the middle of the wilderness feel like walking down a city street. Andrew and I decided not to use GPS, and would rely on map and compass only. It made the wilderness feel a lot bigger, and is something I’m going to continue in the future.
Day 1
We awoke early, grabbed our food from our rented minivan, and eagerly started out northward from Lodgepole trailhead at 8 am. The hike on good trail up to the pass would end up being some of our easiest hiking miles of the trip. The views on this section were mostly looking back down at the valley as we climbed to the top of Youngs pass, which we reached at 10:30 am.
Full of 8 days of food and, wastefully, almost 3 liters of water, my pack weighed 46 lbs, and Andrew’s 51. We both carried 6-7 pound Refuge packrafts from Alpacka, as well as a (mostly) full complement of minimalist boating gear.
The sun escalated its warmth as we hiked down the valley, from hesitant to friendly to poundingly stern. The burned husks of thousands of trees refused us any shade for hours, and my legs got sunburned for the first time in many years. The sight lines allowed by the lack of vegetation afforded us frequent views of Youngs Creek, which we followed loosely as it meandered down the valley. Soon enough we were leapfrogging the other group of packrafters.
We were unaware of the two mini gorges upstream of the typical Youngs Creek put in at Hahn Creek, but stopped and took pictures of their beautiful Class IV-V(VI) waterfalls, vegetation, and strainers. 3/10 of a mile downstream of Babcock Creek, we reached boatable water levels. After 14 miles of hot hiking, we decided to inflate our Refuge packrafts and relax in the cool water as it carried us downstream.
From 1,400 miles away, I texted my wife from my inReach and she informed us that the South Fork Flathead was running at 2900 cfs at 7 pm as we put in. Youngs was flowing about 2 mph, and we made two to three easy miles before camp, if you don’t count the portages. Which you should, as the first one was a somewhat dangerous hike across 50 feet of downed tree trunks suspended over the water. Thankfully there were only a couple more, easier, portages after that. We soon found a suitable camp site for the night, in a riverside meadow with a beach, a bear hanging tree, a view, and a metric butt-load of mosquitos.
We were both thankful we were fast enough hikers to have reached Youngs and finished the day with rafting, as the heat had made it a hard day, and it’s always good to finish with a win.
South Fork: 2900 cfs
14 miles hiking, 3 miles boating
Day 2
This year was a low snow year for the Bob, and it was almost entirely melted by the time we arrived. Today was June 19th, 2025, but the water levels were more characteristic of a month or more later, on average.
Youngs was delightful to paddle. There were only a few more portages necessary, all upstream of the gorge section. The creek flowed at 2 mph as we wound our way down the gentle valley inexorably toward the imposing cliff faces below Jumbo Mountain, which provide the increased gradient and high walls of the short gorge section. In the gorge, there were 3 or so Class III rapids at our water level and each was scoutable and portageable on river left. We ran them using mostly Class II+ sneak routes on the left. I made a bad eddy turn and got pinned against a small rock for about 45 seconds before I was able to maneuver free. This was the longest pin I’ve experienced in a packraft, which typically wriggle free instead of pinning. We spent 20 minutes taping up a slice on the bow of my boat from the pin, and aquasealing a pinhole in Andrew’s boat before continuing downstream.
The gorge semi-continues through a series of fun Class II and II+ drops, punctuated with small, almost overhanging cliffsides that provide great eddies and beautiful photo opportunities. We cautiously picked our way through the rapids, hitting eddies to boat scout as often as possible. My Tyvek repair failed and I had to do 2 more repair jobs on the hole before the boat would hold air dependably.
The gorge reappeared for a short distance, then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the cliff walls faded behind us and we approached the confluence with Danaher Creek and the start of the South fork Flathead. At 2pm, we made the confluence, having covered the final 8 miles of Youngs unhurriedly in about 5 hours.
The South Fork Valley is beautiful, and we mostly floated without paddling in order to prolong our experience here. The rain that would follow us for days made itself known, turning the expansive views of the surrounding peaks into ghostly shapes mostly hidden by rolling clouds of mist. The paddling was easier as the rocks were covered with more water now. 3 hours later we had covered the 7 miles to Big Prairie, where we took an hour break to explore the area, and Andrew fixed a couple more pinholes in his Refuge. The rangers’ toolshed is an interesting anachronism, full of the same tools it must have held a hundred years ago, all in active use today due to the restrictions on motors and wheels in the Wilderness.
The river speeds up below Big Prairie, and we covered the next 6 miles to camp on a gravel bar in a bit under 2 hours. Andrew made a driftwood fire, I hung our food, and we got to bed late and tired from our 21 miles of paddling, but excited to see what the river had in store for us the next day.
South Fork cfs: 2800
21 miles boating
Day 3
After a good night’s sleep, we wasted no time getting back on the river. The sky vacillated between chilly showers and sunlight while we paddled the 3 remaining miles to the mouth of the White River. Guessing that it would take us an hour or more to find the trail up the river so we could boat back down it, we did the mental math and conservatively decided to pass it by to make sure we weren’t pressed for time on the Middle Fork later in the trip. The lower White is on my list of must paddle waterways, so I guess I have a great reason to come back another time to paddle it.
After the White River, we began to see quite a few more Class II sections with rocks that would flip inattentive paddlers. The crystal clear water allowed us to see the spectacular multi-colored riverbed speed by underneath us as the dreary drizzle intensified into full blown lightning and a thunderstorm. We considered waiting out the lightning, but decided to continue downstream by staying very near the trees on the shoreline.
The temperature was about 55 degrees, and I was just warm enough in my raingear, fleece gloves, rain gloves, and Alpha 60 and 90 layers on over my thin base layer. We paddled conservatively to avoid too many cold splashes. Just before 1pm we arrived at the bridge that marks the Black Bear ranger station. We took an hour break on the porch of the unmanned cabin to eat and warm up a bit.
After proceeding another few miles downstream, I had to fight back panic as my boat began to suddenly deflate in the middle of the river. I was able to quickly paddle to shore on river right and we discovered the repair I had made to my bow had blown open. I quickly fixed it and got back on the water, only to have it blow again after a few minutes. We were less than a mile from our mandatory portage takeout at Meadow Creek Gorge. It was raining steadily, so rather than try to dry the boat fabric to do yet another repair, we decided to pack up and find our way up the 200 feet of vertical to the nearby trail. It took about 2 hours to transition, scout, and make our way up the steep hillside to the trail, but soon we were hiking northward at 3mph.
As we looked down on the clouds next to Meadow Creek Gorge, we were occasionally rewarded with views down into it that reminded us of why we were portaging around it. We had planned to camp early tonight, but beyond the takeout there were only substandard campsites, so we ended up hiking for about 3 more hours as we made our way to the airstrip just outside the wilderness. As we approached it in the failing light, we passed by about 15 different gregarious people hiking in small groups. They told us they were coming from a wedding that had just finished on the airstrip. The next few miles of hiking had us questioning our sanity as we passed slightly drunken people with no headlamps miles from a parking lot, a very liminal airstrip out of a Wes Anderson movie with animals who fearlessly watched us, and a very friendly Montanan bride and groom at the end of the airstrip that fed us giant pieces of wedding cake with cream cheese icing. I’ve never seen a groom wearing a revolver and old-style coyboy suitcoat, but it was a sweet look. I’m still not sure whether it was a dream.
After covering 23 miles on the river and 7 on foot, we camped at an established campsite in the dark below the end of the runway, and I managed to pop my sleeping pad by shoving it into a stake as I sat on it. I repaired it with duct tape and hoped it would hold, as it was also my packraft seat. I dried my boat fabric but then forgot to repair it, distracted by my sleeping pad.
South Fork: 2700 cfs
23 miles boating, 6 miles hiking, and a wedding
Day 4
We turned the time saved from hiking extra miles last night into several extra hours of sleep in the morning. Before we set out I was able to apply a third coat of UV cure aqua seal over the tear in my boat, and then cover it with a strip of Patch n’ Go for my 5th repair attempt.
We followed the tributary creek westward , splitting our time between hiking in the creek bed and bushwhacking through the woods. After half an hour, we arrived back at the South Fork Flathead, downstream of the dangerous Meadow Creek Gorge.
With its frequent swift moving flat-water canyons and lush overhanging vegetation, the 10 or so miles of the South Fork between the airfield and Spotted Bear were my favorite miles of the river. Throughout our river travel on this trip, the river speed estimates in Dave’s guidebook had been dead-on, allowing us to predict our pace with reassuring accuracy. After 2 hours of paddling and a couple stops to fix pinholes in the lightweight fabric of Andrew’s Refuge, the Spotted Bear bridge appeared suddenly, disappointingly marking the end of our time on the South Fork. We transitioned to hiking mode, made our way through the populated Spotted Bear area, and set out eastward on the trail.
On long multi day trips like this, I’ve learned that fatigue from multiple long days of movement can accumulate, threatening further daily mileage goals and tearing down morale. To get ahead of it we decided to make this a shorter rest day. After a mile of wet brush, we camped in an open meadow on a small rise. We ate dinner in a field of wildflowers overlooking gloomy and mysterious peaks.
It had been raining on and off for much of the day and wasn’t about to stop just because we found camp, so we weren’t able to do much drying of our gear. We went to bed early and still a bit wet, looking forward to a long night of sleep and recovery.
South Fork: 2600 cfs
2 miles hiking, 9 miles boating
Day 5
Knowing we would need to make mileage today in order to stay on schedule, we woke up and got going relatively early. The miles hiked on the trail before the Spotted Bear River crossing were muddy and soaking wet. The rain came and went and came again, and the foliage overhanging the trail insisted on dumping buckets of water on us as we brushed passed. This is par for the Bob.
The mid-thigh level of the Spotted Bear River made crossing at the ford uneventful. As the trail transitioned to dirt road, my lack of hiking fitness started to show as Andrew had to repeatedly wait for me. Eventually, the gravel changed to dirt and then to grass, and the road peeled away to the south, leaving us headed north to our off trail activities. We planned to take a break before continuing upward toward our second pass of the trip. But before we could sit down, Andrew heard a low growl coming from the thick foliage 20 feet away from the trail, so we both drew our bear spray, yelled, and decided to continue upward without a break.
There are ways to connect the South Fork Flathead drainage to the Middle Fork drainage without leaving trail, but most of them involve quite a few extra miles and some circuitous routing. During the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open in 2019, myself and many others took an off trail shortcut over Gunsight Pass to save time, so Andrew and I planned to take that same shortcut in reverse. Not wanting to use GPS, I spent lots of time peering upward at the pass, trying to visually plan the best route up through the burn. The 2500 vertical feet of gain from the river to the pass would take a lot of energy, made considerably worse by the huge number of burned and fallen trees blocking the way on the steep hillside. We stayed east of the creek, but we regretted this as we thought we could see faint trails on the west side, and there didn’t appear to be too many downed trees over there. The regrowth cycle will make the east side ascent increasingly more difficult over time, so any repeating this route should consider ascending the west side of the creek.
The low grade anxiety that comes from navigating using only map and compass is a feeling I haven’t subjected myself to in years, but it kept me on my toes and paying more attention than I ever had to the surrounding terrain. With its unique shape, we were able to keep Gunsight Rock in our sights as a navigational aid. It took us 3 hours from the road, but as we gained the pass at 7pm it began to snow. There was still patchy spring snow lingering on the pass. We spent 10 minutes at the top before the cold had us bounding downward on the other side to easily pick up the extensive bear sign, from under which the trail quickly emerged. As we descended the sun came out for half an hour and greeted us for what seemed like the first time in days.
This section of trail does not have many campsite opportunities, so we took what we could find as the sun set on us, 2 small spots in the grass 10 feet from the trail. It took forever in the fading light to find a hanging spot for our food, a task made all the more important by the volume of bear footprints and poop we had just seen. We pitched our shelters, then cooked and ate silently, huddled outside in the cold and rain a few hundred feet away before diving under cover as it continued to dump on us. The temperature would drop below freezing that night, and with my wet clothes I would need to use every single piece of gear I could as insulation under my sleep system, including my pfd and maps. My wet 20 degree bag struggled with the accumulated moisture of the past few nights. Andrew would later aptly describe the ensuing dark hours as “desperate.”
But we had covered 15 miles, 2 or 3 of them off trail, and had finished almost all of our elevation gain for the trip. We had also set ourselves up to have plenty of time for the big unknown on our schedule: the Middle Fork Flathead.
15 miles hiking
Day 6
Despite the coldest night of the trip, we both managed to grab some decent sleep. After packing up camp we hiked 8 easy miles down to the Middle Fork Flathead on good trail, which was a relief. As we hiked the sun came out, this time decisively. The trademark cleft in the forest I’m calling the “Schafer Split” showed us the way toward the river, and allowed us to bask in the warmth of the sun as we hiked. It was nearly 70 degrees as we yard-saled at the river to dry our wet sleeping gear while transitioning to packrafting mode. The put in at Schafer Creek is 1100 feet higher than the takeout at Spotted bear, but requires 4800 feet of cumulative elevation gain to cover via our off-trail route. Finally standing on the banks of the Middle Fork with the sun overhead, we knew it was worth the effort.
The Middle Fork upstream of Schafer Meadows is usually too low to paddle when the downstream section is boatable. Sure enough, our boats scraped along a bit as we started down from Schafer Creek. The surprising sound of powerful engines moving overhead captured our attention as two planes came in for a landing at the nearby Wilderness airstrip, delivering monied clients with their full sized rafts, luxurious camping gear, and paid guides into a wilderness that would otherwise be inaccessible to them without the loopholed airstrip. I did not envy their big rafts as we gently moved downstream on narrow pathways, the shallow banks of the river often leaving only a few feet of channel deep enough to float. The water is normally much higher this early in the season. The two mile float was mellow and scenic, and a welcome change of pace from the previous two days of rain and high effort. Compass navigation was possible even without stopping the boats, and Andrew was able to lay back on his boat like a mattress much of the time, while I busied myself practicing eddy turns.
After much discussion, we guessed that the Three Forks Series of rapids just downstream would be at least Class III+ at our water level, and the topo suggests the possibility of difficult portages. Our Refuge packrafts handle like little Mazda Miatas, but struggle in bigger holes due to their lack of rocker and short stern. Uncertain about whether we would be able to make the required small portages in the canyon, we decided to walk around the whole section. Not getting more beta on the portageability of rapids in this “vague dirt canyon” section is one of my regrets in the planning of this trip. We conservatively took out and bushwhacked a hundred yards or so to find the trail. We struggled to peer down into the canyon as we hiked along the south side of it. We wished we had better beta, as that section may have been within our ability if given the option to portage the few drops likely above our skill.
The ensuing 4.5 mile hike was easy, on good trail, and went by quickly. As we came back down to the river at Brushshack Creek, we decided to blow up and paddle to a beautiful camping area that was visible on the other side. We both washed ourselves in the river, then had a fire and were able to dry some more gear before we lost the sun behind the western peaks. We fell asleep to the sound of the first real rapid a few yards away from our shelters. Tomorrow would be our crux day on the Middle Fork.
Middle Fork cfs: 3300
12 miles hiking, 2 miles boating
Day 7
We were eager to finally cover some miles on the water, and put on the river in the morning chill. Our Refuge packrafts carried us down several nice warmup rapids, until I misread an underwater rock for a pillow and took a swim on the third drop of the morning. Thankfully I executed what was probably my fastest wet re-entry yet, and was back in the boat before my active insulation had wetted completely through under my rain gear, and before Andrew needed to help out. We pulled over to temper our boats, and my Alpha 60 and 90 layers proved to be warm enough in the 60 degree sun, thankfully. Alpha Direct layers have so little actual fabric in them that they almost don’t absorb water. This allows for an absurdly fast effective dry time which offsets their poor durability when they can be hidden under a shell layer.
At our excellent water level, the section of the Middle Fork Flathead below 3 Forks starts out as fun and splashy Class II+, with plenty of swift Class I between drops. There are lots of underwater rocks capable of flipping a packraft, mandating decent boat handling skills. Like many rivers, the pattern soon became obvious: a drop leading into a bend, with the inside too shallow to paddle and the outside bordered by cliffs, with an occasional strainer placed dangerously against the outside cliffs. After the bend the drop would continue, with the main current rushing next to rocks protruding from the outside shore. Almost always, there was an eddy on the outside halfway down the drop.
Basic paddling technique here is to use boat angle to face the inside of the turn, then paddle like hell to the inside to avoid the cliffs and strainer halfway down, while hoping there’s nothing bad around the bend at the bottom. Mark Oates’ excellent “Boat, don’t Float” presentation was a great watch, and helped me move toward a better method for these drops: create outward momentum and hit the eddy halfway down the drop to easily miss the strainer, then read the rest of the rapid while sitting in the eddy. Ferry back out above the strainer and rejoin the current for a safer, and higher style, run.
Andrew’s cinematography background shone through in the footage he was able to capture with what little equipment he had. When we switched up the GoPro, even his helmet mounted shots were better somehow.
The lush forest often came down to meet us at the moss covered rocks. The gray, brown, and red cliff faces punctuated the riverside landscape, making each turn unique and memorable. Each drop was preceded by the thinning of the crystal clear water as it accelerated over the smooth multicolored bubblegum stones that make up the river bottom. I wished out loud that we had given ourselves multiple days to run this section of river.
There were also a lot of choose your own adventure boulder gardens, increasing a bit in difficulty to Class III- as we approached Twentyfive Mile Creek and the first two difficult rapids of the day.
The first is a Class II boulder garden that disguises the subtle transition into a Class IV- drop. This particular boulder garden looks out of place for the area. I almost missed the difficulty jump while shore scouting, and decided to look closer based only on instinct, otherwise I might have had us running the Class IV. Neither Andrew or myself felt that we had the boat control skills to run it upright, so we portaged on the right.
A short while later we came to the obvious drop of the micro gorge. From videos, this rapid seems to fluctuate a lot in difficulty based on water levels. We shore scouted on the right. At our level it was Class III- skill, but the outer wall is undercut in places, creating Class IV danger. We were both confident in our ability to stay off the wall and had a fun time filming each other running it from the rock platform. This place may also be the most scenic spot on the river.
Today we both had to stop for repairs multiple times; Andrew to fix more pinholes in his Refuge, and me to make the second repair each to both my sleeping pad/packraft seat and the crotch of my rain pants. We were running low on repair materials, and I found myself wondering if our equipment would last the whole trip. Thankfully that feeling of anxiety was offset by the presence of the sun and its warmth for what would prove to be the rest of the day.
The character of the river underwent subtle changes as we toured further. The wall shots and strainers gave way to plentiful boulder gardens with larger rocks that sometimes blocked the view downstream. We soon entered the delightful Lunch Creek series, a set of continuous Class II+ and III boogie water that contained the longest rapids we had yet run on the Middle Fork. 80% of my exclamatory celebratory whoops for this trip were whooped on this one stretch of water. Andrew led through this section, and we didn’t want it to end.
But soon enough it did. We caught a glimpse of the Spruce Park cabin, having nearly paddled past it without seeing it. Relatively sure we would want to hike the Dirtyface portage around the upcoming Spruce Park rapids, we took out on a gravel bar and made camp so we could delay the decision till the morning. We used the hour or so of remaining sunlight to dry our gear and hang our food, then hung out around the camp fire Andrew made until sleep made us retreat to our tarps. This day would prove to be the best of the trip. The next time I come back to the Bob Marshall, I hope it’s to run this river again.
Middle Fork cfs: 3100
16 miles boating
Day 8
In the morning we finalized our decision to walk around the Spruce Park rapids, but had camped on the opposite side of the river from the nearby trail. We packed up all but our boats and paddled across, transitioned, fought our way up a steep slope, then set out on a 3 mile hike down to Dirtyface Creek. The hike’s only memorable quality was as a harbinger of the end of our route and imminent return to civilization.
By this time our transitions were practiced and dialed in. After the hike, it took us about 25 minutes on the gravel bar before we were ready to paddle the final river segment of our trip, an easy 3 mile section featuring equal parts short Class II and sadness. After our 8 days spent crossing the Bob Marshall Wilderness, I feel like I can refer to it on a first-name basis. The Bob’s terrain became gentler on the return, with each subsequent corner turned revealing smaller and smaller hills beyond, until I could sense the end of our journey. As we turned the final corner and saw Highway 2 at Bear Creek, I cussed out loud and then procrastinated by hitting every eddy and doing every ferry until there was nothing left but to take out.
As we watched the raft crews at the parking lot gathering their gear for their own trips downstream, neither of us wanted to leave. We decided to run the Bear Creek rapid immediately downstream as a transition back to reality. It was a fittingly fun end to an incredibly memorable trip. Thanks Andrew, and thanks Bob.
Middle Fork cfs: 3000
3 miles hiking, 3 miles paddling
Gear Notes
As mentioned earlier, our pack weights started at about 45 to 50 pounds with a couple liters of water. This route is only 40% hiking by mileage, but there are some difficult miles involved, so we thought it wise to reduce gear weight as much as possible.
Boating Gear
We both chose to bring Alpacka Refuge packrafts, which are a great boat for this trip. In the Refuge, Alpacka have created the apotheosis of a backcountry packraft. Incredibly small and light in the backpack, with plenty of maneuverability and enough authority to handle most water below Class III+, this boat has quickly become my favorite lightwater packraft. My custom Refuge weighs in at 6.75 pounds, and my packrafting gear weighed 11 pounds in total. A boat designed for bigger whitewater (Expedition, Gnarwhal, Mage), coupled with the confidence and skills to boat through the Three Forks and Spruce Park rapids, would have saved time and energy overall by negating the need to walk around both sections separately. I estimate each of those portages cost two to four extra hours vs staying on the water. At significantly lower water, a boat with larger than our 8 inch side tubes (Expedition, Gnarwhal, Caribou, Classic) would be advantageous for avoiding scraping over shallow river bottoms. My fearful choice to order my Refuge with full strength fabric was vindicated as Andrew’s Refuge was plagued with 5-10 necessary pinhole repairs during the trip. This Custom Lab modification (210D LW to 210D fabric) adds a pound to the weight, but now seems prudent for a high-use whitewater boat.
We both used cut down 75 denier sleeping pads as packraft seats to save weight, which worked great until I sat on a tent stake with mine. We didn’t bring foot braces for the boats, we used lightweight Sockdolager Gear bow bags, and didn’t bring throw ropes or river knives. Andrew used his Bad Larry backpack hipbelt as a seat back, and its shoulder straps as two point thigh straps. I used an inflatable seat back and DIY 3-point thigh straps. Andrew brought an Astral V8 for flotation and I brought an MTI Journey but wished for a high-backed pfd like Andrew. We shared a single DIY SUL inflation bag. If you have a mouth, there is no reason to bring a pack-a-pump on this route.
We both brought WIP Wiflex paddling helmets, which may become the new standard for lightweight packrafting helmets. To save weight, they don’t have a hard outer shell, which is unusual for whitewater helmets, but seem to be sturdy enough in situations where many packrafters choose not to bring a helmet just to save weight. They weigh about 7 ounces, are EN1385 rated, and are plenty comfortable. I plan to write a review at some point.
I made 2 packrafting tube bags for the Refuge based off Landon’s plans. They’re each about 3 feet long and about 30 liters in size, and weigh 8.8 ounces together. They are made of Ultra 200 and hypalon and packed only with food and camping gear, they greatly sped up transitions as they can both be dropped into the backpack side by side without doing a complete yardsale.
Clothing
Andrew chose to bring a drysuit and I brought raingear. I swam once, but afterward my OR Echo hoody, Farpointe Gear Alpha Cruiser 60 and Alpha 90 hooded mid-layers, and rain jacket kept me warm enough in the 60 degree temps that I didn’t regret my raingear choice. We did need to take 3 or 4 twenty-minute stops on the river, mostly during chillier days, for me to dry out and warm up. With this route being 60% boating, though, Andrew also made a good choice with his drysuit. Our weather was frequently raining, overcast, and in the 50’s as we boated, which suggests a drysuit for comfort. If the weather had been 70 and sunny though, the drysuit would not have earned its way, even if we had accidentally spent some time swimming.
Good raingear offers a decisive advantage in the Bob Marshall. With the overhanging vegetation on many miles of trail, regular rain, and gymnastics required to cross the off trail deadfall, PCT-style 5 ounce jackets or ponchos are not the way here.
Camping Gear
The insect pressure was light, except for 2 or 3 nights when we were forced to wear headnets and cover all our skin from large amounts of mosquitos. We think we could have avoided this by better campsite selection, but weren’t familiar enough with the area to do that. The only insect protection I brought was a headnet, and I just covered up the rest of my body when the mosquitos were bad in camp at night. When I got into my sleeping quilt, the headnet covered the only exposed skin. I used a Neo-Air All Season sleeping pad cut down to head + torso length, which was plenty warm. I padded my backpack with extra gear and placed it under my legs for warmth, which worked on all but the coldest, sub-freezing night. That night I needed to place my PFD under my legs as well, which was then warm enough.
Andrew brought a Bonfus Middus (single wall DCF mid) with a bivy, and I brought an MLD Cricket (single wall beaked mid, no inner). Both of these were great choices. We both used our deflated packrafts as ground sheets, which worked well. It rained most nights it seemed, and both shelters offered us enough dry space to comfortably sleep and get chores done. The MLD Cricket weighs in at just over a pound with 6 stakes and guys, which is impressive for the amount of usable covered space it creates and the sub $200 price.
Hiking Gear
We both hiked (and paddled, and camped) in non-waterproof trail runners, which were necessary in order to finish before our food ran out. We carried trekking poles, and needed them often in the mud and while ascending the off trail route over the slippery dangerous deadfall up to the second pass.
We both brought modern big load hauling backpacks for the route. Andrew brought his Sockdolager Gear Bad Larry, and I have a Superior Wilderness Designs Rugged Big Wild 95L. Today’s packrafting backpacks owe a debt to the O.G. HMG Porter, but its inadequate suspension and lack of accessible pockets makes it obsolete compared to the well designed packs that are available to packrafters today. Despite our packs’ huge size, we both needed extra external storage at the beginning of the trip, and were happy to use our Sockdolager UL bow bags mounted externally on our packs. This gave us an extra easily accessible pocket while hiking.
The Cairn maps were crucial, as always. All other maps have trails listed incorrectly. I used a baseplate compass on a guyline worn around my neck like a purse for quick access.