Kent Ford's Kayak Self Support Blog

Nothing better than exploring… and happily this seems to be a growing trend in whitewater sport. You can get out for a night, or for a few. It is tons easier than schlepping tons of raft gear to the car and then into every camp. Tons easier because you can’t fit tons into a kayak! Back when I did my first exploratory runs self support, there was no equipment suited to the task, so gear packing was always a challenge. New crossover boats from Wavesport, LiquidLogic, and Jackson change all that with hatches for easy packing. If you don’t know the concept, think of a extra large creek-river running boat, with a rear hatch for gear.

On my late 80’s exploratory we got first descents in Mexico on the Moctezuma and Santa Maria Rivers. Those exploratory years introduced me to how sweet it is living out of a boat. Those were some adventures! 140 miles to go through the unexplored 1000 foot deep Moctezuma canyon. 1000 feet deep. 9 days of food in our boats. First day 23 miles, easy. Second day, 2 miles total. Third day, 1 mile. You do the math. We started sweating it until the river eased up. More on that trip in another post. For now, just find a section of river, and get out there by kayak!