Learn to Packraft: Private Course for Mexican Locals
From Paddle Strokes to Multi-Day Adventures
Learn Packrafting Skills
Turn the blue lines on maps into trails and acquire the packrafting skills you need to embark on your own exciting adventures! Through this Packrafting course, we seek to offer opportunities that, “get you on the edge of your own reality to feel things you’ve never experienced,” as FCG co-founder Steve “Doom” Fassbinder says. And we work hard to enhance your existing backcountry skills so you can do bigger and more exciting bike and packraft adventures, while at the same time pushing you just a bit further so you can, “find out what you’re really made of.”
We feel certain you’ll walk away from this course with a deeper sense of enjoyment for both living in and utilizing human-powered tools to pass through remote landscapes. We want your experience to be the milestone in your life that you measure everything else up to.
Course Overview
Turn the blue lines on maps into trails! Acquire the packrafting skills you need to embark on your own adventure. From 10a.m.-4a.m. over two days, you’ll learn basic paddle and river reading techniques on the Animas River on up to Class II rapids. We’ll teach you what you need to know to enhance your existing backcountry skill set.
This no-frills Learn to Packraft course is for the budget-minded adventurer wanting to learn basic packrafting skills, from paddling and reading rivers to overnight adventuring. Scroll down to book.
Price: $650
A 50% deposit is due upon receipt to secure your space. The remaining balance is due 30 days prior to your course. The remaining balance is due immediately if you are registering inside of the 30 day window.
Please review our cancellation policy, which you will find on our Terms, Conditions & Cancellation Policy Page.
What's Included
This course includes an open packraft, PFD, paddle, helmet.
What's Not Included
Lodging, food, shuttle.
Instructor
Thad Ferrell: Thad is a Level 3 American Canoe Association Packraft Instructor. An early adopter of packrafting and life-long cyclist and bikepacker, Thad has accomplished some ground-breaking, multi-week climb-bike-packraft adventures in the desert Southwest. He is also an expert fly fishing guide.
What You will learn
Packrafting 101: Learn Basic Skills
We base this instructional courses on confidence and skill progression. The course starts with the basics. And then we push you a little harder as the days progress, tailoring the experience to your own personal abilities.
Beginners will learn basics paddling skills and river reading techniques such as:
- ✓Equipment (use and care)
- ✓Swimming and general water confidence
- ✓Self-rescue & buddy assistance
- ✓Dealing with currents
- ✓Aggressive & defensive swimming position
- ✓Decision making
- ✓Hazards & river dynamics
- ✓Basic paddle strokes
- ✓Using eddies
- ✓River commands
- ✓Spacing on the river
