You are one with nature when a fox sniffs your head through a tarp lol

Hey all ,

I'm mike from london, enjoy wild camping mostly in wales as it's fairly remote and not so bad to travel too. Hammock, tent, tarp whenever the moment arises. Enjoy packrafting with my Alpaka raft too where it dosent require a license, so you might see me down the rive arun or the wye occasionally, sometimes upto 5 days at a time solo wild camping.

enjoy the lightweigt gear and have a boxful of heavyness I wish i'd never bought.

well that's me, happy camping all

Mole wrote (see)

 there are a few lightweights on OM.

'strue, alas.

Hi Mike, welcome. I know nothing of these pacraft things and am too lazy to google it. Perhaps (when you have worked out how ) you could post a few pictures of your vessel.

Hi, Thanks !

Heres a couple of shots I took last year when I did a 35 miler from Glasbury to Hereford in about 5 days wild camping along the river

Just out of interest... how much does one of those packrafts weigh? And what would a lightweight version weigh in at?

I ask because of something I was told a year or more ago. I walked the Arctic Circle Trail and my entire pack, food and kit and everything, weighed 18kg. Apparently, this is about half the weight that people usually carry along the trail. A year after my trek, a German woman contacted me to say that she walked the trail with 15kg, including food, kit AND a packraft. The raft was for use on one of the big lakes on the trail, even though there are canoes left lying around for people to use.

Edited to add...

I've never had a fox poke its head at me... but I did once come nose-to-nose with a badger when I just threw my sleeping bag on the ground on night. I've been told that they can give quite a nasty bite, so I consider myself fortunate still to have a nose!

Hi Paddy

the rafts go from around 1.45 kg(3.18 lbs) but limited use I would imagine. Mine above is 2.4 kg (5 lb. 3 oz) and it's useable upto pretty rough white water 3 I believe. Folds down to the size of a 2 man tent, even smaller tbh. The paddle is mostly carbon fibre and a 5 piece, weight 29 oz. (.822 g) doubles up as tarp poles.

They do a range of about 8 rafts, all varying around 1kg difference in weight. 

I expect she was carrying about 3-3.5 kg max for her raft.

 The ideal weight makes not having to inflate and carry them on your back / drag them to them to get to other bodies of river.

Check out youtube for "roman dial packrafting" and you'll see these things are hard as nails for weight ratio.  Roman has done Alaska I do believe in one, the vids should be on there.

The fox, lol, yep sniffed by head one night through the tarp.

Those badgers can be pretty dangerous I heard especially if cornered, got some claws like Wolverine!

cheers !

I remember waking up under a tarp hearing a 'ripping' noise. Trying not to move, i looked to the side. The 'ripping' was a deer eating grass no more that a few metres away. Magical.

Welcome to OM.

Nice packrafting trip here.

This packrafting looks brilliant.  It could be the answer for me getting from Dartmoor to Churchstow (via the Avon).