I am not an equipment expert. I am a relative newcomer to packrafting. But what I do know is how my equipment performs during fairly tough expeditions.
The first time I posted a question on the BPL forum I was initially shot down, suspected of being a time-waster, a joker or, worse, a person who was not going to be backpacking light. My "crime" was to ask the incredibly passionate, knowledgeable community about a backpack capable of carrying 40 kilos of gear. Of course a 40-kilo backpack is hardly backpacking light. However, it was backpacking as light as was possible, which I believe is the true essence of this community. My pack was destined to weigh a crippling 40 kilos because I needed to carry all of the food, equipment, and camera gear necessary for carrying out and filming an unsupported coast-to-coast crossing of Iceland by foot and by packraft. In the end, I received lots of very helpful advice.
The journey across Iceland was a great success. My friend Chris and I encountered waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, rivers, volcanoes, and boiling hot springs during a difficult but delightful month in the high latitudes of an Icelandic summer.
My purpose with this article is twofold: to provide a skeleton of information for anyone considering a lengthy, unsupported packraft trip, and, hopefully, to spur all those many people in the BPL community who know much, much more than I about equipment details to add suggestions and improvements in the comments section below. I am only rarely going to mention specific brands as I am aware that each country has different good quality brands of equipment.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Introduction
- The Expedition
- ITEM OF KIT
# WORDS: 2040
# PHOTOS: 17
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Across Iceland by Packraft
A month unsupported, wow. Congratulations to you both!
Any opportunities with all that water, to supplement your diet with fish?
Thanks for the article and fine photos.
Cheers,
Rick
Fantastic photography and videography! Congrats on your journey!
Great pics. The video was fantastic. Good work!
Wow…enjoyed the video. Heck of a trip.
the video was well made and I'm sure what wasn't shown was even better
Your trip looks amazing. Congratulations for going out there and doing it. The video makes the country look surreal!
What an adventure! And so well documented. From the looks of your photos and video, the weight of your camera gear was well worth it.
Hello…how about a route map.
Soft Englishman? Not from what you've shown! Excellent adventure and a well told story. Your 5DII's served you well!
Bad ass!
I hope to work up to a journey just like this one day. Great job on the photos and video.
Is Greenland next? Terrific video– beautiful, fun, and inspiring– thanks!
WOW, I am not usually a jealous guy, but…… trip of a lifetime!!!
That was the coolest thing I've seen in a while.
Phenomenal…
The sheer beauty of the surroundings belies the hardship of the journey.
That's one hell of a test of mind and body… Which you clearly passed with flying colours!
Great write up and video, thanks for sharing your amazing adventure.
And very, very well done!
That picture of crossing the screaming-cold river was worth more than a thousand words.
You said: “In future trips I would be interested to try a tent or tarp system that uses the paddles and trekking poles for support”
Here is a very small, very expensive tent, you would need two: “Using ski poles for the vertical support creates an incredibly tight tent. It is really easy to create a ton of tension in the tent walls. Because this fabric has such high tensile strength, and all the stitching is well done, you can pull “hard” on all the tensioning systems.” (The Cuben fiber (metallic coated CTF-3) Rocket Tent by Brooks-Range Mountaineering is billed as able to handle all four seasons, weighs under 1 ½ lbs (620 g), and is reviewed with LOTS of pictures at: http://www.alpineambitions.com/Alpine_Ambitions/Rocket_Tent.html
Wow – thank you all for the really positive comments!
I was a little anxious doing this piece as I know that I am less of an expert than many of you guys on this forum.
So I'm glad you enjoyed the story!
Any advice on lightening my load gratefully received…
alastair@alastairhumphreys.com
First off, I wish to congratulate you on completing a fantastic, and fantastically difficlut, trip in excellent style. I am very impressed in every way. The photos and video are fantastic, and I would love to see a feature-length documentary.
A couple of comments on gear come to mind. I'm impressed that you got anywhere at all with 80kg of weight. I suspect that all of the gear trimming you could do would not seem that significant, but since this is BPL, here goes.
The heaviest thing you carry by far is food. I notice that you show a bunch of "cook in the bag" meals. Aside from issues of flavor I've always disliked how much packaging these involve. Carrying large volumes of trash later on is not pleasant, and if you could leave it all at home to begin with that would be better. Consider Re-packaging that sort of food into larger bags and than re-hydrating it in pot.
You used a white-gas MSR stove. This is a bit heavy in and of itself but mostly it makes a great deal of fuel to carry. It doesn't look like you had melt snow for water but still, 25 days of cooking is quite a bit of gas. This is one of the areas where an integrated system, such as an MSR Reactor, might work out to be lighter. Possibly the new Soto white gas stove combined with a heat exchanger pot might be a contender, but we don't have any info on it's efficiency yet.
Another idea would be to burn wood. It looks like you spent quite a bit of time in areas where there wasn't any fuel though. If you did spend time in places where natural fuel was plentiful than planning to build a fire might be a good fuel-saving strategy. Perhaps even carrying a small wood-burning stove as well as the other stove.
I suspect that far and away the best option of a backpack for carrying such large loads would be a custom-built Mchale "Bubble Pack." There are other options out there, including the new Kifaru packs (which might not be durable enough for this sort of trip), the Titanium Goat pack (which looks good, but I don't think has really been proven with nearly that much weight), and the Cilo Gear 75L. I suspect that a true custom-fitted suspension, with very strong stays and adequate hip-belt and shoulder-strap padding, attached to a big bag with very few features, will prove to be the best option.
As far as shelter goes. A small, but not too small, double-peaked pyramid with mosquito-netting skirt is probably the lightest reasonable possibility. A standard pyramid would be quite reasonable as well, although not quite as good in the wind. A Golite Shangri-la 2 or similar. Methinks one could be built out of .75oz cuben and weigh around a pound.
The camera gear is the big kicker. I'm not sure what can really be done to make it lighter. I suppose some MYOG experts around here could probably brew up a tripod using your trekking poles and one other poll (maybe your paddle shaft?) That is adequate for filming. I know some still photographers who consider a mono-pod adequate for serious backcountry photography. I guess the real hope is that the camera companies will continue to evolve smaller-lighter micro-four-thirds equipment so that it can serve for this sort of thing.
Once again, congratulations on an amazing trip.
Beautiful, audacious, captivating, humbling, epic, and bold!
I am taken by the video. Obviously you did some extra hiking to get the long shots of the two of you.
Just incredible stuff.
Thank You!
-Mark
As good as it all was the lip syncing was the best part
Awesome. Just awesome. Wonderful trip, and amazing wilderness. I call dibs on tagging along for the next trip you plan.
Fantastic trip & video! Thanks for sharing.
+1 on the route map, but with more detail than on your site… please.
I was actually on your web site months ago looking ( read: dreaming big…) over the trip, as well as Skurka's site who walked west-east.
Really interested in any planning tips, including basics on exactly which maps you used. I don't think I would packraft, but just walk instead. But the beautiful & eerie landscapes have sold me.
Thanks for posting!
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