Our Packrafting 101 course is designed to give you confidence and teach you the basics you need to get out on the water with your mates. We focus on the fundamentals that you’ll need as building blocks as your progress your packrafting.
We select appropriate sections of rivers in and around Queenstown and create a safe and controlled environment to practice and learn. Whilst you will be learning some theory, this will be taught out in the field and you’ll have the opportunity to put the theory into practice straight away.
This course focuses on your personal paddling on the river and should be viewed as an “on-ramp” to our more comprehensive Recreational River Safety (RRS) course. We aim to run the Packrafting 101 course the weekend before the expedition style RRS course so the they can nicely dovetail together, however if you’d like to organise a course on specific dates, please don’ hesitate to drop us a line.
Course Content
- Introduction to all your gear, how to store it and look after it
- The anatomy of the river, different river features and hydrology
- Basic paddling techniques and strokes
- Introduction to hazards
- Self rescue and the basics of helping others
This course will include some river swimming so you will need to be a confident swimmer with a reasonable level of fitness. We strongly recommend using as much as your own gear as possible to get used to it but we can provide the gear for you if it’s easier.
Packrafting Equipment
Included in this price is all the equipment you’ll need, however, we would strongly recommend bringing as much of your own gear as you can in order to familiarise yourself with the kit you are likely to end up using.
Upon completion of this course, you will also qualify for discounted rental gear from Packrafting Queenstown.
