Packrafting Pacific Creek in the Teton Wilderness

Nice write up, Luke. You have a knack for adventure, as in Yvon Chouinard’s formulation – adventure is when everything goes wrong. I’m half joking but your piece got me thinking about my recent trip to Teton Wilderness, which also did not end up as “planned.” The thing was, I let others do the planning and they did not do it as I would have. That frustrated me at the time, but the more I think about it, my kind of planning can suck the adventure right out of trip. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. It’s just not as interesting, I guess.

Luke,

Thanks for the great trip report!

Regarding packrafting shoes, what will you use for your next trip and what rank order selection criteria do you use to select your packrafting shoes?

My criteria in rank order are: backpacking comfort, sticky rubber soles for wet river rock traction, partial mesh uppers to allow my feet to dry quickly, and minimal weight.

Richard my criteria is the same for shoes. I have wide feet so options are limited.

At this point the best shoe I can find is the new Altra Lone Peak 3.0. Merrell doesn’t seem to make a rugged minimalist shoe anymore. I miss their old Bare Access shoes. I bought a pair after the Pacific Creek trip and used them a ton. The uppers held up surprisingly well and the outsole was good. They survived all the bushwhacking on the Wood River plus several other trips.

Looks like you got a new boat there Luke.  Nice write up, stoked to see more from you in that zone now that you are a lot closer.

The souls for the new Lone Peak 3.0 are competly changed over the older versions. They are suppose to do much better on wet rocks. I really like mine so far but have not used them on wet rocks yet.

Dan that is my old raft actually.

Jeff I ran the Snake this past weekend in the Lone Peak 3.0.They aren’t a water shoe but the traction is okay on wet rocks. No trail shoes are great but they are okay.