Creative Packrafting: No shuttle, no problem. Try Bus Rafting.
Photos and Story by: Topher Donahue
I realized I could only go so far in life borrowing packrafts. Friends were generous and I didn’t put any holes in their boats, but I started feeling like a guilty couch surfer. I ordered up, and while waiting for the fine Alpacka folks to build me a packraft, I pondered the potential. Sure, I’d seen photos and heard stories about all manner of rad endeavors combining these versatile little boats with various other adventures, like skirafting and bikerafting, and maybe I’ll sample those someday, but the frontier of packrafting I wanted to explore first was the low carbon neighborhood version: Bus Rafting.
There is a commuter bus that runs right past my home in Nederland, Colorado, down Boulder Canyon, and right past the Boulder Creek water park. I can’t toss a kayak on the bus, and certainly not my oar rig, but with a packraft public transit river running is open season.
After hopping off the bus, we strolled along the bike path to the water park and found the scene to be approaching rave state. Deep base music was pumping. Fragrant clouds from frat boys drifted by. Police walked up and down the path looking somehow simultaneously authoritarian and impotent.
I stopped in the shade to inflate my boat, feeling a bit overequipped compared to the stoned tubers. Then a crew showed up to run the drops on an inflatable orca and I realized I was among my people after all.
Once in the water, I don’t remember hearing the music, smelling the dank, or seeing the beach party along the shore. As usual on the river, the fascination with moving water overtook my consciousness entirely. The rapids were incredibly mellow, but that mattered little. The surprising strength of the main current pressing against the paddle, the sneaky snaking eddy lines playing tricks on my sense of control, and the patterns of light moving on the surface were all I needed.
While trying unsuccessfully to surf a wave no bigger than what I make in my sink while doing dishes, one sunbather said to me, “That’s a super nice inner tube!”
As I paddled past a guy fishing, who was casting one way while sightseeing in the opposite direction, I wondered how many packrafts had been pierced by wayward fishhooks.
When I got on the bus home, thunderstorms were billowing over the foothills. The lady behind me leaned forward, looked at my packraft on the seat next to me, and said, “It’s about to storm; you should already have your tent set up.”
I’m thinking about going bus rafting again tomorrow, and many other days. There’s something incredibly refreshing about not getting in my car to chase the river magic. And the misunderstandings around packrafting are almost as entertaining as the boats themselves. With practice, maybe I’ll even get some hang time on that baby wave.
