The Wilderness Packrafting Expedition (WPE) offers students interested in whitewater paddling the opportunity to learn and apply technical skills across a two week, progressive expedition on some amazing Northern Rockies rivers.
Section 1
In the first part of the WPE course, participants will focus on the fundamentals of packrafting on moving water, learning essential paddling, river safety, rigging, and rescue techniques. We’ll work with each student to build comfortability and confidence navigating short stretches of whitewater, and the expedition team will learn to work together to accomplish all the tasks necessary for remote wilderness travel.
Section 2
Having built a strong paddling foundation, the team will transition to the true wilderness portion of the expedition, launching their packrafts on the famous "River of No Return" stretch of the Salmon River in Idaho. Here they’ll take on some more challenging & remote whitewater, applying all the competencies gained during week one. The Salmon river provides amazing scenery and seclusion. It will give students the chance to learn about and experience a truly wild setting, picking up valuable teamwork and backcountry leadership skills along the way.
The WPE course will provide a foundation of whitewater competency; in addition to core technical packrafting skills, students will practice swift water rescue techniques and be challenged as a team to identify, understand, and avoid water hazards as part of our river risk management curriculum. Each student will have multiple opportunities to lead the group as the Expedition Leader of the Day to gain experience with newly acquired leadership skills.
For more information about MWS core curriculum and expedition progression see Expedition Life.
