Mom's First Packrafting Trip

My mom came to visit this past weekend with the goal of getting out in a packraft for the first time. Turns out she couldn't have picked a better weekend for it! On Saturday it was 103 degrees -- oof. I was originally planning on racing the Swan Island Crit on Saturday, but with the temperatures so high Thor & my Mom decided to go packrafting and threatened to leave me to battle the high temperatures with no cheering squad - so I did what any disciplined, committed bike racer would do and bailed on the crit.

We headed out towards Estacada to take my mom down the Clackamas River for her first float. We put in at Fish Creek and took out after Big Eddy. I would say the entire float took about 3 hours.

Here's a picture of my mom before she got in the boat for the first time. It was an eye opener to her how tight the boats needed to be blown up!

Mom heading down her first set of rapids. At the bottom the river took a bend to the right and she got swept into the eddy on the left hand side of the river. This gave her her first chance to ferry across the river. Fun!


Here's Thor behind mom shouting instructions as her bow is caught by the water and flipped her into the current. Mom got a lot of practice trying to ferry across this rapid to the downstream side, but in the end she was successful (without flipping her boat like Thor did) and we were able to continue on downstream.

Here's my mom in her second set of rapids - this is right above Carter Falls.

Thor shooting the left side of Carter Falls.

Me in Carter Falls.

Thor and I mid-float in a brief moment of non-rascally behavior.

And then immediately back to trying to flip each other over in our boats (sadly this is a game I am very bad at & usually ends poorly for me unless Thor takes pity and releases the stern of my boat).

Having fun on the river!

Here is the second-to-last rapid that we ran through with my mom - at this point she was pretty comfortable in the boat and ran the drops like a champ!

Mom on approach with Thor shouting encouragement & directions!

She almost lost her paddle here, but was able to hang out and bounce through with no problems! She actually hauled her boat back up on shore and hiked upstream to run this stretch again!

Here I am about to drop into the same section.

You almost can't see Thor here - he ran the rapid at far river left - but he's there - hidden behind the wave.