Packrafting and hiking the length of Kodiak Island, Alaska

[Philip.AK]

Hey folks. I just finished a 110-mile, 6-day hiking and packrafting trip up the length of Kodiak Island from Alitak on the south end to the city of Kodiak on the north end with my [rather customized] Unaweep. Check it out if you have 8 minutes to spare:

[kevin_t]

Nice thank you for sharing . Two questions , first what is your average total weight for one of these trips sans water ? Two , how much footage do you actually capture to make a video ? Are you still using just a small hand held ?


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[Philip.AK]

[kevin_t]

Thanks that is about what I figured . My base is 14 to 17 in the summer


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[SHTF]

Philip Great video man. Love your adventures. Thank you for sharing them.

[Philip.AK]

I just got back from a 5-day trip to the northerly-most island in the Kodiak Archipelago. Shuyak Island is a state park and one of the most remote spots in Southcentral AK. There is an old cannery on the south side of the island that is a mail plane stop, so flights from Kodiak are cheap. I headed up with three friends and we spent our time wandering around the interior and western and northern coasts of the island, and it was glorious. I hope you enjoy... 

[kevin_t]

Thank you for sharing. You are really getting some great videos this year. Were those forest service cabins ? You also do a lot of open water on your packrafts. Any recommendations or caveats ? Have you tried a PR 49 in similar areas ? Also, since you are on Kodiak .. where are all the Bears

[Philip.AK]

Shuyak Island is a big state park, so the first building is a public use cabin that you can reserve. The other log structure is actually a banya (sauna) from an abandoned recreational mining claim. Most of the abandoned buildings on the island have had animals move into them and make a serious messes (squirrels filling every nook with pine cones and making nests in anything they can chew up, or bats roosting in the walls, etc), but the banya is in great shape and I stay there on most trips. This trip was a bit mellower and more relaxed than some of my outings, and a nice change of pace.

Open water is no problem in a packraft providing it's not too windy. Packrafts are pretty useless when the wind hits about 15 mph. But on Shuyak you can just go ashore and hike if you don't like what the seas are doing. Since paddling requires less energy than hiking, we rafted when we could and hiked when we wanted to switch bays or go around capes that were subject to weather. I have never used a PR 49.

There was surprisingly little bear activity on our trip. I don't know where they all were, but we hardly even saw tracks or scat. Shuyak generally is not a good place to see bears anyway since it is densely forested, but the dearth of activity surprised me. I guess they were laying low or swam to the next larger island to the south, Afognak, to fish larger salmon streams.

[SWO80]

Great videos. Can I ask what hipbelt pockets you're using?

[Philip.AK]

They are Granite Gear hipbelt pockets. I cut the rather lame stock attachment straps off and sewed some double-sided Velcro straps on the back for going through the molle webbing on the Paradox hip belt. The pockets are lightly padded and hold their shape well, and are pretty water resistant. I'm not sure I would recommend them with the stock attachment straps.