Awesome watching you roll this thing! I started paddling in a recon, stable and pretty fun! I still use it for hike in runs and scraping down desert canyons
Oh man, you went river right at 3:05.... I was waiting on you to hit that to see how it does. That's the only spot that's every flipped me at NWC... It was my 4th run of the day, back to back. I was too tired, it was too hot and I got sideways at the bottom. Didn't carry enough speed. My IK is 10.5' Aquaglide McKenzie.
Oh yeah what you don’t see is I’m dead tired from races and playing I was beat by the time paddling this demo I got ask to paddle down and was like ok let’s go
people seem to be real excited about the packrafts. i prefer a traditional duckie(thrillseeker, ugly duckie, tomcat, bandit, etc.)if i’m gonna paddle an IK. more down downstream speed, possibly less flex. i use a 215 for those outings.
The problem is that you can't use a traditional IK on long, multi-day outings over rough terrain. They weigh too much. For example, an Aire Lynx or Tomcat, weighs between 35-40 lbs while a Kokopelli Rogue Lite only weight about 6 lbs. That's what I used a couple of years ago when I floated the South Fork of the Flathead in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It took my friend and I three days just to get to the put in point and there's no way we could have done it carrying a traditional IK due to the weight limitations.
You should also try the Alpacka Raft Gnarwhal or the Vankyrie. The last one is more like a ww kayak. There is at least one video of Nouria Newman in one:)
I took my Recon last summer on a week long float of the Main Salmon: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YEp_0sQCM9c.html. It did pretty well considering the circumstances. You really can't beat it for packrafting, especially if you're walking any significant distance to the put-in point.
