🎧Episode #10: Thor Tingey Talks Hunt Packrafting & Packraft Fly Fishing

Lizzy Scully (03:48):

This is episode #10 of a Beginner’s Guide to packrafting. Today we here with Thor Tingy of Alpacka Raft and Thor, would you mind introducing yourself? I mean I just introduced you, but maybe tell me a little bit about you’re the owner of Alpaca Raft and how long you’ve been the owner and what you do there. 

Thor Tingey (04:06):

It’s great to be on today. I helped start the company way back. My mom and I did the first prototyping back in 2000s and then the first boats were for sale and the company was started around 2002. And then mom developed the company from that point until about 2015. And then I rejoined in 2016 and have been running the company sort of ever since. 

Lizzy Scully (04:33):

Cool. Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re very, very busy. 

Thor Tingey (04:40):

No problem. 

Lizzy Scully (04:41):

So can you tell me, first I kind of want to know a little bit about your history with hunting and your history with fishing. You grew up in Alaska. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? 

Thor Tingey (04:51):

Yeah, so I would go ahead and say fishing is my first and longest love of outdoor activities. My parents will tell a joke about when I was two they caught some fish and I was terrified and didn’t want to touch them. And then by the time I was three or four, it was like I was completely addicted. 

And they tell a funny story, which is false, but that’s their memory. I was learning to drive when I was like 13 before you could have a learner’s permit or whatever. We had this old Ford van and we were going fishing. And so they were driving down a dirt road, and I jumped out of the van while it was moving because I saw rising fish. I definitively remember turning the car off and that it was in gear. But they think the car was still moving. 🤣

Thor Tingey (05:57):

Sort of love of outdoor activities. And then hunting. I liked hunting just as much, but my dad had been involved in a lot of culling and killing of wounded elk on public lands when he was younger in the park service. And so he lost the taste of hunting a little bit. So he took me hunting because he grew up hunting, but not because he loved it. He loved to climb and so that’s what he loved to do. So I didn’t really get the sort of family, let’s raise you hunting, even though I liked it. And because of that I didn’t do as much hunting growing up. 

And I got really, really into bird hunting in college and then later in law school and after law school and I owned a lab and really, really got into bird hunting and then sporadically, big game hunted. But over the last eight to nine years I’ve gotten way more into, and I’m going to use the word hunting here, I’ve got way more into bow hunting elk in Colorado and it’s hunting. It’s rarely ever successful, but I love the activity. 

Lizzy Scully (07:07):

Oh, why do you love it? Curious? 

Thor Tingey (07:10):

So for me, fishing is more of a, I’ve done it for so long in my life, it’s like I love it, it’s ingrained, but I’m pretty good at it. It’s pretty easy for me to do and it’s just this cool experience. Hunting is way more focused, intense, hard. I think hunting without a doubt is the most engaged I have ever been in the outdoors. When I’m bow hunting, you’re up before dawn, you’re paying attention to every sound, every smell, the direction of the wind, all these things. And then when you actually get into animals, and one of the cool things about bow hunting is even if you’re not successful in killing something, you’re often in animals. There are elk around and it just, as my good friend of mine puts it, he’s like successfully kill elk on public land with a bow requires a hundred out of hundred things to go. 

Thor Tingey (08:18):

And you might have 95 to 99 of those things go right 10 times in a season and just not the hundredth. But that experience of being on the nice edge of alert and ready for anything to happen and focus is something that doesn’t really happen in any other sport I do. It kind of happens I think in adrenaline sports, hard paddling, hard skiing and stuff like that. But even then it’s shorter. The moment in big game hunting, especially in bow hunting can last an hour where you’re just on that edge of like, oh my gosh, they’re right here and it’s this chest match if you’re trying to position yourself just right and hope that everything comes together. And most of the time it doesn’t. But I’d love that experience. 

Lizzy Scully (09:13):

I want to put this in perspective for listeners because you are someone who paddles, you’ve paddled Class V and you’ve done month or more long trips in Alaska, so you’ve done things that are pretty radical in other films of the outdoors. 

Thor Tingey (09:33):

And I always, one of the things, to be fair, there’s a lot of different ways to hunt and I think a lot of people sometimes see what we might term the lazy way you can go and just sit on a spot where animals are likely to show up. And in some ways if you do that regularly and be patient, you’ll be more successful than me running around the woods chasing things. I’m not here to denigrate that, but it’s a different experience. And when I first started big game hunting, I started dol sheep hunting in Alaska and I loved that because it was combining mountains, which I loved climbing and getting up high in views with hunting such a cool experience. 

Lizzy Scully (10:25):

So it’s just a way to go a little, I suppose when you’re kayaking or packrafting, even if it’s Class V and super exciting, it’s more of you and the water, whereas if you’re hunting, it’s you and the animals and the air and the trees and everything is that. 

Thor Tingey (10:45):

Yeah, and I might think about it in the sense of if I’m paddling a hard or rapid Class IV to Class V, there is definitely an adrenaline boost that happens, but usually you’re paddling, it’s fairly easy and then you’re like come up on a big rapid and you get out, look at it and you think, am I going to do this? Am I going to not? You talk to your crew, you figure out a safe plan for it, you make a decision, and while you’re making a decision, the butterflies start to build in the stomach and you start thinking, oh, is this going to be okay? But then the actual rapid itself, unless you’re I don’t paddle continuous big water Class V, once you’re in the rapid, it’s a long classified rapid still may only take you less than 15 seconds to run from entry to end of it. So that experience is really, really, really intense. And then it’s less intense outside of it. Whereas I think big game hunting, especially bow hunting, when things start to happen, it can be an hour or more of just like everything is on heightened alert. 

Lizzy Scully (11:57):

Wow, that’s so cool.

Thor Tingey (11:58):

Yeah, I like that. And you still get that peak if you draw the bone, you expect the animal to step out or do something. It’s the same kind of adrenaline hit, but you get dry mouth, you get everything. And amongst that, the only way you’re going to be successful is by calming down, closing your eyes, taking a deep breath, readying yourself for the moment. So I think that experience is really cool. The other thing about it independent, like I say, I’ve been bowing for nine years and I’ve only killed one animal doing that. So it’s not a lot of killing necessarily for some of the hunting I do. But while I’m doing that, I see such other cool stuff because you’re being quiet, you’re working, you’re making sure that the wind is in the right direction. So even though I’m out looking for elk, I see small animals that are really cool and watch what they do. And you see little predators like weasels and stuff like that. But when you’re just backpackrafting, you kind of don’t see that because you’re a little bit more noisy and you’re moving fast. And when you’re sitting there and going slow and being super observant, it’s amazing what you see moving through the world. 

Lizzy Scully (13:11):

Cool. Well thank you for sharing that. I’m going to switch over to, I’m curious, when you first envisioned using a packraft for fishing or hunting, which came first and when did that happen? 

Thor Tingey (13:24):

I’m trying to remember which came first. Hunters were actually very early adopters of packraft. I think the first year we started manufacturing, we had guys that were like, oh wow, if I get a packraft, even the old stubby little boats we made, I can get a moose or a bison out of this really hard to access area just by being able to float it down the river. So we saw that with customers before I really saw the utility there. Fishing was definitely early for me mostly, and in the early years I was doing packraft fishing trips less like I do them now. I try to identify rivers that don’t have use and that’s where I think the advantage of packraft come 20 years ago, even fishing wasn’t as popular as it’s today. And so I would just do traditional rivers from a packrafting perspective. 

Thor Tingey (14:24):

But I want to say that even by 2005, we had figured out, I was living in Oregon at the time and we had figured out, so the Deschutes River there doesn’t allow, you’re not allowed to fish from a boat on the Deschutes. So people do float trips in drift boats and rafts. I can’t remember why. The rule is the way not takes away raft because you can’t fish from it, then you don’t really have any advantage other than transport for over people on foot. So other than the fact that you can do more miles in a day when you’re actually fishing, you’re standing just like anyone else on foot. Well, there’s a section of the Deschutes that’s like 50 miles long and it ends at a place that they call lock gate. And then upstream of lock gate you can walk, but because it’s a big river, you can’t access the other side of the river. 

Thor Tingey (15:24):

And usually most of the drift boat and raft crews, by the time they’ve gone 50 miles… it’s beer 30 for them and they’re not fishing that lower five miles. And then when you walk up, there’s crowded with anglers because everybody’s walking up. And so it’s hard to find spots with fish. But meanwhile, the other side of the river, it’s totally ignored because there’s no road over there. So we would take packrafts, put ’em in the backpack and immediately paddle over and then fish the other side of the river without any competition because the drift boats are going by us and the other guys. And it was amazing how many more fish we could catch doing that. And then the other nice thing is on that river took a little trout stream, the best fishing is off in the last hour a day, but most of the foot traffic is already tired by then. It’s been hot all day and they want to get back down to their car and have a beer and what have you. Well, I’d be able to fish till just before dark flow into the boats. And while everybody else has got tired feet walking on the dusty road, you’re kicking back when watching the world go by. So that experience was pretty young in packrafting. It was like, hey, packrafts can really get you into spots that other people aren’t using. That’s the secret of fishing. 

Lizzy Scully (16:51):

And that was 2005, about 

Thor Tingey (16:54):

Starting in the fall of 2004, that’s when I moved to Oregon. So pretty early on we were doing those kinds of trips. 

Lizzy Scully (17:03):

When did you and your mom start talking about developing boats specifically for fishing and hunting for alpaca? 

Thor Tingey (17:14):

In 2000, she and I took a fishing focus trip in ?? National Park and we flew in another case in point of using rafts to basically pick up marginal areas that are underutilized by other anglers. And again, that’s one of the secrets to fishing is being able to get to fish that other people aren’t fishing. So we went into a very, very famous river in cap mine that’s incredibly crowded and popular with guided clients, people that pay 13,000 a week to go fishing in Alaska. 

Thor Tingey (18:02):

A lot of money but none of it’s overnight. So every morning at 8:00 AM income, the beavers and Cessna 180 fives and all the float planes with a guide and three clients to go T Trump around the river. So they would fish all day. So my mom and I did this river and would, we would chill out all day and watch bears and relax. And then at 3:00 PM everybody’s back in the airplane heading back for cocktails and fancy dinner at the lodge and the river is empty now way more bears come out after the guides all leave too. So it was very, very, but it’s Alaska, it’s August and it’s light till 10:00 PM So my mom and I would fish from 3:00 PM to 10:00 PM and a lot of fish would actually relax and come back into the runs because they’ve been targeted by anglers all day and so they’re hiding. 

Thor Tingey (19:00):

So it’s just that kind of thing. But that’s all the way back 2007 that we were doing fish specific trips, but we weren’t really fishing as much from the boats as much as we were using them for access. So access has long been the point of packrafting and fishing or packrafting and hunting. It’s about getting access where other people are not using those access things. The last seven, eight years is when we’ve had more boats like the Orx, which has been replaced by the Rendezvous, which is a canoe style pack, RAF, that’s a lot easier to fish out of the front of it and design. So one person can paddle from the stern and then a person in the bow can actually have pretty good casting position. So we’ve started to design more and more boats along those lines. And now in the hunting realm we have multiple boats starting with the forger, but the rangers just as good in my opinion that are good big game hunting boats. 

Lizzy Scully (20:00):

Did you see, so I read this, I think it was Hunting Alaska and the guy said something about how packrafts have become the trend in Alaska. So did alpaca, I’m just curious, precede the trend or did you sort of start riding the trend? How did you see things change and then decide that it was appropriate time to add boats to the mix? 

Thor Tingey (20:25):

I got to give credit where credit’s due on that. It’s kind of a mix. So we had early adopters of our boats for hunting, even though we weren’t making targeted hunting boats. And then Larry Bartlett, pristine Ventures in Alaska who is a guide outfitter and what have you, he had bought our boats, but then he started having his own boats made that were more modeled after inflatable canoes specifically for hunting. And I think he’s been, I don’t know how successful he’s been, but they’ve been quite popular with Alaska hunters. He’s been doing that for about a little more than 10 years now. He’s been doing the hunting thing for a lot longer that, but specifically selling boats, packraft style boats, two hunters, he’s been doing for 10 plus years now, and we kind of got into it at about the same time. We had been selling boats to hunters for much longer than that, but we started making targeted boats to hunters for about the same time. 

Lizzy Scully (21:38):

So basically you saw that the trend, people started doing it more and you were already doing it and you were already selling it, so you decided that it would be a good idea to do something really specific for hunters and fishing anglers. 

Thor Tingey (21:50):

Yeah, because the boats at the time, people were taking our ordinary adventure boats and using them for hunting and we were like, I bet the hunters would actually a more targeted purpose specific boat and that’s where the forger came from. 

Lizzy Scully (22:06):

How big is the float hunt and fish market in general? It seems to be pretty huge in Alaska, but 

Thor Tingey (22:12):

It’s big in Alaska. It’s small overall. The packrafting, I would say it’s a small but very important part of the market. It’s probably less than 20% of our overall market, but that’s an important 10 plus percent 

Lizzy Scully (22:27):

Wait 20% of Alpacka’s market or 20% 

Thor Tingey (22:30):

Of Alpacka’s market. So I don’t know more broadly, 

Lizzy Scully (22:35):

But it’s a pretty big market and I read a couple different interesting things about the reasoning behind why the market probably has or the trend has sort of grown and one person said hunting pressure has increased exponentially and hunters have become increasingly minimalistic. Both of those things are interesting to me. I can see that how hunting pressure has increased exponentially, but why would hunters become increasingly minimalistic? 

Thor Tingey (23:05):

So there’s a lot of interesting things happening in hunting that you can do. Some more licensed sales have been decreasing for 30 years 

Thor Tingey (23:19):

And that’s because there’s been a trend for whatever reasons away from hunting as a generalized activity like 40 years ago, I think virtually everybody that lived in a rural area went hunting every fall. That’s just what you did. That was part of life. But it was you go set up a camp and you just go hunting. And what’s happened is the general populace hunting, the easy example of this is more in fishing. When you think about the local lake with the stock pond and you see all the guys out there standing and fishing of that, these are blue collar lunch pail guys that don’t have expensive gear, they’re just going out to have fun and catch fish and it’s like an important part of what they do and that’s how hunting was. And I think it’s still that way in some parts of the upper Midwest and things like that. 

Thor Tingey (24:15):

But overall, the trend has been less and less licensed sales, so fewer and fewer people doing it. But the reality is the same number of animals are being killed because the people that are doing it are more and more dedicated core hunters as opposed to casual, I’m going to dig the rifle out in October and go hunting. These are guys that think all year long about how they’re going to go hunting that fall and with that. So I think we’ve seen a general trend away from the more generic brands of clothing, even though Cabela’s is still, BassPro are still very big companies. It’s why companies like Sitka and KU and Firstlight have done really, really well because they’re building premium outdoor brand level gear. So comparable to Patagonia arc, TerraX mountain equipment, north face for the dedicated hunter. So we’ve seen over 20 years a way more dedicated population of outdoor enthusiasts who are focused solely on hunting, and that’s who’s buying KU and who’s buying Sitka and who’s buying first life. 

Lizzy Scully (25:33):

Those are people seeking a wilder more remote experience. 

Thor Tingey (25:36):

Yes, they want the full experience. They’re not just going to go set up a camp with their truck and then walk in a few hundred yards and sit at a water hole and hoping an animal comes by. They’re physically training their buying fancy supplements and backcountry meals and all these other things because it’s a big activity for them. 

Lizzy Scully (26:04):

That’s so interesting. Do you think that’s a media fueled thing? People are like, oh my god, that’s so cool. Or what do you think has fueled that change? 

Thor Tingey (26:14):

I think it’s a broad mix of marketing equipment and culture and I think the reality is the more you showed people that, Hey, this is a really cool way to do this. It’s hard, but so is backcountry skiing and backcountry skiing exploding in popularity too? Two. 

Lizzy Scully (26:35):

Interesting. Yeah, I’ve never, well, I don’t know anything about hunting, so this is really interesting to me. Can you talk to me a little bit more about the problems you are solving for hunters with packrafts and then we’ll talk about fishing as well and anglers? 

Thor Tingey (26:51):

Yeah, so let’s focus on big game hunting. So deer, elk, sheep, moose, goats, you name it. The first goal with any boat is can the boat carry out a harvested animal? So that’s the first thing we have to solve. And the forger, our biggest boat is about the bare minimum to haul out a complete moose and it will do it and lots of people have done it, but it is very loaded and I think that’s where when you look at Pristine ventures, boats, their boats start at forager size boats and go up and ours end at forager size boats and go down. So in some ways we’re playing in a little bit of a different market and I kind of get to that get to. So the first thing is can it carry the animal you want? So if you want to hunt a moose, the forger for us is basically the bare minimum. Then the ranger, which is our kind of little step down from the forger, and then the mule, which is a little bit stepped down from that. The ranger and the mule are both excellent for carrying up to a moose size animal. So elk fine, caribou fine deer, fine sheep fine. They’ll easily carry that kind of way. So that’s the first problem we have to make sure we have enough physical space in the boat to comfortably carry that animal. 

Thor Tingey (28:20):

But the Mule and the Ranger and the have pretty much only been around for about 10 years. 

Lizzy Scully (28:28):

Can you hold on a sec? I have something knocking and I need to turn it off and it’s really distracting. 

Thor Tingey (28:40):

Hey, the fricking flicker. Oh my God, 

Lizzy Scully (28:47):

It was maybe the washing or the dishwasher, but it’s a flicker. He’s banging on the fricking house, he’s trying to make a hole in our house. 

Thor Tingey (28:54):

Yeah, classic. 

Thor Tingey (28:58):

Ahead. Anyway, we were talking, the first thing we to make sure is that the boat could physically carry the game animal that you’re hunting. And so that for, although we don’t offer up bigger than the for more capacity, although that’s something we’re looking at because that’s the second thing that we’re looking at is now we have a boat that can carry the animal. Then the question is how are you going to use that? We’ve always been a more hike in or hike out focused brand rather, and hunt packrafting as well has really grown to the point where a lot of people are doing it without serious amounts of hiking. 

Thor Tingey (29:52):

So that causes us to relook at things a little bit. Like just in Alaska for example, you might really not have that much of a hike. But the reality is a beaver (plane) is like $1300 an hour and it holds thousand pounds or something. I know on you’re going to pay close to thousand an hour and you’ve got a 650 pound payload. Well, two or three guys means you can only carry 60 pounds a piece. That’s not very much. Two guys that each weigh 200 pounds. Now you’ve only got 200 pounds of gear that you could bring in that 185. Well, if you have a 14 foot raft, which is lovely. It’s really you can put a moose in and all this other thing, that boat alone weighs 120 pounds and then the frame weighs another a hundred pounds, and now you have to charter a second plane. If it’s an hour and a half flight in, that’s $3,000 in extra airfare just to get your boat there. So that’s why packrafting has started to even make inroads into traditional float trips in Alaska is because the cost, you can save the price of the packraft just on the first flight you ever do. 

Lizzy Scully (31:24):

Wow. 

Thor Tingey (31:26):

So that’s the easiest way to put it. 

Lizzy Scully (31:28):

So cost savings, weight carrying weight out. What else? 

Thor Tingey (31:35):

So then what we want to look at, so we always look at the walkability. So we want the boats to be able to be carried into river because that’s where we think you can really get, some people will be willing to spend the extra money of bringing in the big raft, and you don’t really want to be competing with them on the rivers. So you’re looking at smaller rivers. Can I land at a lake or land on a gravel strip that requires me to hike to the river? It’s amazing how many fewer people you see hiking who are willing to hike even a mile to get to better hunting. 

Lizzy Scully (32:14):

Really? 

Thor Tingey (32:16):

Yeah, I mean it’s a great thinner, even here in Colorado when I’m elk hunting, if I get a mile away from the road, 90% fewer hunters, 

Lizzy Scully (32:28):

Does that mean the market then shrinks for people who want to get boats or no? 

Thor Tingey (32:32):

Yeah, but that’s just the overall market in general. I mean, they probably sell 5,000 sit atop rec kayaks for every one pack out there. That’s the world we’re in the you see at Walmart for tons and tons of those to take down to the lake. 

Lizzy Scully (32:57):

Right. That makes sense. So that’s for big game and for small game, I guess it would be similar to fishing, it was just more of an access thing. 

Thor Tingey (33:08):

Yes, exactly. So small game is more like bird hunting or waterfowl hunting, and I’ve never waterfowl hunted out a packraft, even though I have friends that swear by it because they’re super compact. You can get into tight spots and there’s a lot of situations where a good duck hunting lake might not have a boat ramp to it, so you got to walk in a few hundred yards from a road access point and the traditional hunters are going to be walking in, putting their decoys out there and hunting in that spot. But if you have a packrafts, you walk in, get in the lake and then paddle over to the other side, you have even less pressure and ducks, waterfowl like other animals, animals are always seeking out where there’s less pressure. Fish behave that way, animals behave that way. It’s just the way. So packrafting is all about getting to spots that are less pressured by other people. 

Lizzy Scully (34:08):

Can you talk to me a little bit about the limitations of packrafts for hunting and fishing in brief? Just in case, for example, we had a guy call us and he was like, well, I want to float from Hanksville down on the Dirty . And we were like, oh, well what’s the flow a hundred? Oh, well, you’re probably not going to get very far. 

Thor Tingey (34:29):

Yeah, limitations. You’re going to have limitations in what kind of water you can access. You can access more in a packraft than you can and other kinds of boats. Tthe limitations is more around what you can carry. You have to make some compromises when carrying stuff with a packraft. It just with the internal storage, with the zippers, you can carry a ton of weight in them, but still it’s not the same as the mount as you can carry in a full size raft. 

But realistically, these days you’re more limited in terms of what you can carry in your back if you’re going to do any walking and going back to other little niches of how they work is they’re not common. But there’s a handful of rivers that I know that have a really mellow floating section followed by a really dangerous canyon, followed by a mellow floating section. Well, you can’t bring a full size raft into that river because you can’t get through that canyon, but a packraft, even though it might be logistically kind of a pain, you can hike around that canyon with all your gear and your boat and then suddenly you have access to a river that no one else does. 

Lizzy Scully (35:48):

So the reality is sort of like with packraftss and back country, really difficult, challenging boating or even mellow boating is just really, you can get to more places with rafts 

Thor Tingey (35:59):

And especially if you’re willing to sit down and do the research to figure those places out. They exist. There’s tons of other companies who are not necessarily doing that research for you, but providing those tools, like Onyx has grown into quite a large company and all they have is basically super high-end maps with public land shown. And that’s the way modern people hunt is by using OnX maps to figure out where can I go that I’m likely to have good hunting. 

Lizzy Scully (36:39):

So I want to ask you a question I chatted with, I can’t remember, maybe it was Luc Mill, but I can’t remember who it was, but about some things that hunters and anglers should be considering when they’re buying packrafts. And I think his point was something to the effect of there are quite a few people like this guy for example, who I should probably not point him out actually, nevermind. There are quite a few people who maybe are taking these boats and they don’t know exactly what they’re getting into. What sorts of things should hunters and anglers be aware of if they want to buy packrafts? What kind of training do they need and what should they be thinking of? 

Thor Tingey (37:17):

Yeah, I think there’s for sure the angling market less so because the angling market is just way more used to water. I think from Luc’s perspective where he may get a little nervous and it’s fair, I understand where he’s coming from, but I’ve also experienced the other side is anglers are much less likely to have proper safety equipment. But that being said, I’ve done a number of rivers in Alaska where I have not brought a helmet, not brought a PFD to do fishing rivers. But we’re talking like dead flat water rivers that are never more than. Or if they are, it’s for a short section and I would be wading in that river all the time anyway with my waders. And so I’m making a judgment call that I don’t need that safety equipment because of my skill level and my knowledge of the river. I think anglers are more aware of that, whereas hunters buying packrafts maybe their first experience with a paddle support ever. And the reason they bought one is so that they could get to the places where other people aren’t and they’re not thinking through all of the safety stuff. 

Thor Tingey (38:35):

Well, I obviously should, if you don’t have experience with rivers, because we’re really talking mostly rivers here for hunters, if you don’t have experience with rivers, you should get that experience before you’re out in the back country hunting because hunting is going to make it harder. Hunting makes everything harder. Carrying a backpack is one thing, carrying a backpack with 120 pounds of elk quarters on it is a whole nother thing. And just in terms of the physical stamina required and stuff like that. So the same thing goes with a boat, like a packrafts is very, very stable and easy to paddle and maneuverable when you’ve got 60 pounds of stuff in it. But when you’ve got 300 pounds of meat into it, well, if you’ve got a flooded out river from a big rainstorm, that suddenly gets a lot scarier because you’ve got to have better skills. 

Thor Tingey (39:27):

So the reality is, my rule of thumb is good judgment is the most critical skill that you could ever have. You can take all the safety courses in the world, you can do everything, but if you don’t have good judgment, you’ll get yourself into real trouble. But it’s hard to say what is good judgment. So taking those safety courses, a swiftwater rescue course is always a good idea regardless if you’re going to go in rivers and stuff like that. But really if you get a boat getting it out on any kind of similar river to what you’re expecting to go to for a lot of practice before you actually get in that back country will serve you well. 

Lizzy Scully (40:12):

Cool. I think, and then as far as gear goes, really just understanding where you are and what you’re doing and what the rapids are like. And so dry suit versus no dry suit, for example. You bring them sometimes, but then you don’t bring them other times, 

Thor Tingey (40:28):

Most of the time hunting, you’re actually going to be looking for rivers that don’t have any kind of stuff because you may have a real hard time if you don’t have the experience paddling any kind of rapidness, especially with a game animal in it. But if you have that experience, that’s thing, then suddenly you may have access to things that as the other hunters don’t do. I’ve got a good friend in Anchorage and he’s a Class V paddler, and he’s a really, really incredible traditional bow hunter, and he and I are always looking for rivers that have whitewater and potentially good hunting because we know that no other hunters are going to go there. We’re like, oh yeah, we can find a Class III or IV canyon, we could go there and nobody else is going to be there because they don’t want to deal with that. 

Lizzy Scully (41:14):

That’s kind of cool. That kind of brings to mind the expansive possibilities then also of packrafts. So the more you learn and the better you get at it, the more access you actually will have.

Thor Tingey (41:26):

Exactly. 

Lizzy Scully (41:28):

Cool. I guess my last question is, is there anything I’m not asking you that you want to share with me share that I didn’t cover about hunting or fishing packrafting? 

Thor Tingey (41:38):

Well, let’s talk a little bit more about fishing because that’s the other neat thing you can do with packrafts. As we kind of said at the start of this thing, there’s a pretty big difference between hunters and fishermen and practicality. And the cool thing about rafts and fishing is the same idea that you can get into rivers and locations that the other people aren’t accessing. And in the last 10 years, I have been blown away by the small number of absolutely incredible fishing locations that I have been me and friends have been able to locate that no one else is doing. And we’re so tight lift about these spots that they don’t show up on Alpacka’s marketing materials. I’m just like, I’d rather not reveal that these even exist. But they do exist and they exist around the world. I know of some in New Zealand, I know of some in Plenty in the lower 48, Oregon, Montana, Colorado, there’s Alaska locations. It’s really, really, really cool. 

Lizzy Scully (42:57):

That doesn’t sound like a few. That sounds like a lot. 

Thor Tingey (43:00):

There’s a lot, but you have to, it takes time. And I think, I can’t remember whether it’s Luc or Roman Dial said this about packrafting trips as well, that you’ve got to kiss some frogs to find princes. And we have definitely been out on trips that we thought were going to be incredible, and we got just virtually skunked like six days on the river where we caught three fish. 

Lizzy Scully (43:30):

It’s like climbing expeditions. I mean, anybody who succeeds on all of their climbing expeditions, it seems like a very small percentage. It’s just the journey versus the actual climax of it 

Thor Tingey (43:45):

And the rewards are worth it. It’s like you do a trip where you’re like, man, the fishing was not good. And that can be frustrating. You took a week off of work, you spent thousands of dollars in airfare and bush plane flights or in other travel costs to get into this spot, and it’s just like it doesn’t pan. And you’re like, oh man, that’s kind of tough. And then you do that a couple times, you’re like, and then you get the one where you’re in there and you’re like, oh my gosh, we just caught a 28 inch brown tr that’s never seen a fly. And you’re like, I’m never telling anybody 

Lizzy Scully (44:31):

For you. And for other people who are real adventurers, it’s really, that’s why you go bow hunting because it’s all the other things that you see while you’re there. And then if you happen to kill something and have meat, you’re awesome. But that’s not necessarily the goal always. 

Thor Tingey (44:49):

Yeah, that’s true. That’s very true. 

Lizzy Scully (44:51):

So is that sort of the essence of packrafting? It’s just, it’s not necessarily, it is where you get to go and what you get to do. But it’s like everything, the adventure, the planning, all of that. 

Thor Tingey (45:04):

For me, the reason it stuck originally back in the nineties when I started it was the adventure of it. And I think Brett Davis put this a really good way, and I love what he said where it was like, some people really go out there and look for first ascent or first us sense or whatever it it’s, and that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s all well good. And I’ve chased those things too, but Brett said it’s like, well, sometimes it’s the first time for me. And don’t get me wrong, I chase beta as much as the next person and I comb social media. I comb other things for places and especially fishing and hunting. It’s amazing what non fishers and non-hunters will tell you. Fishermen ands won’t tell you anything, but if you’re, I’ll use New Zealand as example. If you talk to the fishermen, they won’t tell you which rivers are really good, but if you talk to the trampers, the hikers, they’ll be like, oh yeah, we saw tons of fish in this river. 

Thor Tingey (46:18):

And you’re like, oh good, that’s great. But you can chase all the beta you want. And don’t get me wrong, when I do the Grand Canyon, I’ve got the river guide, so I know what every corner is, but there’s something about the experience of let’s going and doing something and not knowing what’s around the corner and not knowing what’s coming up. And I love that experience. It’s what drew me to packrafting. It’s still draws me to a lot of outdoor activities, and I don’t think that’s inherently irresponsible to not know. I’m not necessarily pursuing super hard whitewater that way, but definitely adventure for sure. 

Lizzy Scully (46:54):

I’m totally with you. I mean, it is nice to have a general idea. Steve always says, you should know what the climate is. You should know what the weather is going to be as much as you can, and you should know the terrain. But if you knew every single last little detail, then I don’t know how much fun it would be, how much of an adventure. 

Thor Tingey (47:15):

And we experienced that in our ordinary lives too. If we travel, you can fly to an international destination and pull up Yelp or whatever, review and find exactly what’s the most popular restaurant, which will probably get you good food and probably get you a good experience. Or sometimes it’s kind of fun to be like, well, let’s just wander down this street and see what’s here. And sometimes you find total hole in the wall gems and have amazing experiences. Experiences. Sometimes you can get food poisoning. You got to be careful, but people like doing that. 

Lizzy Scully (47:54):

Yeah. Cool. All right, well, anything else? Did we miss anything else that we need to cover?

Thor Tingey (48:00):

No, that was super fun. 

Lizzy Scully (48:02):

Thank you so much, Thor. I know again, you’re really busy, but this is really fun for me too. I learned a lot. Yeah, thank you. 

Thor Tingey (48:09):

All good? Yeah. Alright. 

Lizzy Scully (48:12):

And that stupid fricking flicker is still pecking. 

Thor Tingey (48:15):

Still hammering away. I don’t hear it through mine, but that’s funny. 

Lizzy Scully (48:20):

Yeah, he’s loud. Yeah, he is moving around the house. He was up on the window a minute ago. I had to go outside him away because the last one that did this last year actually killed himself by slamming into the window. So I prefer they not bang holes into the house and then two, not kill themselves. Classic. 

Thor Tingey (48:37):

Yeah, totally. 

Lizzy Scully (48:39):

All right, well you have nine minutes to get to your next meeting. 

Thor Tingey (48:41):

That’s perfect. Thank you so much. 

Lizzy Scully (48:43):

All right. Have a wonderful day Thor. 

Thor Tingey (48:45):

Alright, you too. Bye. We all live down. 

Concluding Extro

Lizzy Scully (48:59):

Thanks so much for joining us for A Beginner’s Guide to Packrafting and Bikerafting podcast. If you’d like to follow us, you can do so on Podbean or Spotify. You can also find the show notes on the four corners guides.com blog and on the podcast page. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please email us at fourcornersguides at gmail.com.