Guest Post- PJ Orsi: Packrafting North Fork Blackfoot River

     This account of a packrafting trip on Montana's North Fork of the Blackfoot River was forwarded to me by a good buddy.  They entered via Dry Creek TH, hiked trail 483 and 481. They paddled from Camp Creek to North Fork Falls, portaging to the pack bridge. Then they floated out to the car bridge below North Fork TH. I asked for and received permission to publish it here. The author is PJ Orsi of Great Falls, MT. I just met and chatted with him for a while. He allowed me to snap a few photos of his newly customized packrafting backpack. Enclosed are those images.





Written by PJ Orsi-

     So the idea was... me and a buddy get a couple of packrafts (ultra-lite inflatables that are rated for whitewater)... backpack into the back country and shoot some elk, butcher said elk, tie them onto our rafts, and ride the river out to glory... this was our dry run:

     What we didn't consider? If we climbed 2700 feet to put into the river... the river then had to drop 2700 feet before we got back to the truck.

     Well, we left at 4:30PM on Friday, backpacked 11 miles/climbed 2700ft over Red Mountain and into the Scapegoat Wilderness. Then, we inflated our rafts floated 1.5 miles through an alpine meadow where we saw a bunch of harlequin ducks, and caught some fish for dinner... after that we ran into log jams, and after 6 hours of going around a log jam, then wading 30 yards and going over the next one, we deflated our rafts and bushwhacked a quarter mile to the trail (everything is wet at this point so I am wearing water shoes instead of soaked hiking boots)... and then we hiked 5ish miles until it got dark.

     In the morning, we were studying the river ahead of us, when we noticed an area of the topographic map where a couple 100ft elevation lines ran together and through the river in front of us. After examining the map, we inflated our rafts and floated a mile downstream until we hit the gorge we saw on the map... we fished there, caught two more trout, and cooked them for lunch... then we climbed out of the canyon and hiked another 5-ish miles along the rim of the gorge. We confirmed our suspicions about the gorge when we looked over the edge at one point to see a 100+ ft waterfall midway through the gorge. After the gorge we came to a back country ranger station; upon our arrival,  some old guy who happened to be there informed us that "Boys, there is significant river ahead of you... but who knows, you might live.”

     So we inflated our rafts and started to float... only thing was, the next 10 miles of river was one huge cascade of class 4-5 whitewater with virtually no breaks. We saw a bunch more harlequin ducks, and almost died multiple times. Both rafts flipped at different points, we lost some gear, and at one point my boat became lodged between two rocks on the edge of a 6 ft waterfall, my only option: jump over the edge holding onto a tie strap attaching my pack to the boat. Luckily I am heavy enough that the boat dislodged and followed me into the pool beneath. I had enough time to scramble back onto the boat in time to hit the next drop.  At first we were careful, scouting each curve of the river ahead, but  at some point we stopped scouting ahead since we were running out of daylight and all our gear was soaked. Another night in the mountains would have been very cold. All our gear getting wet included my dry bag, which failed at some point leaving my gps and 1911 in a bag of water, which also meant that we lost some ability to track our progress.

     Eventually we saw a fisherman on the shore and asked how much further to the bridge (our takeout where my truck was waiting),  the guy got confused and pointed around the bend in the river,  about 100 yards away… was the bridge. We got home at on Sunday night  around 9:30PM. We covered 32 miles as the bird flies, and I have no idea how far we actually went between the river bends and the switchbacks, all in two days and two nights.

Underwater shot from mounted camera when PJ's raft flipped!

     We saw an elk as well as a ton of bear and wolf tracks... and alot of harlequin ducks too... but this probably isn’t a feasible way/area to hunt elk.

Scopa modeling the "Orsi-Pack"

Note the room on bottom to mount the packraft for hiking.

The use of zip-ties allows for attachment of alternative dry sacks.

Double tied at higher stress points.

Use of the sack's buckle for additional reinforcement.