If you have read through the website and had a look at the equipment page you will know that we are carrying a pack raft with us over the whole ice cap. The first 73km of our journey from Caleta Tortel to the base of the Jorge Montt Glacier are through the river networks. Its then a bit of a hack through heavy (and sharp) shrubbery, over a few small lakes and to the base of the ice. This section isn’t exactly world class rafting and we even have a separate food supply in the boat so if we take a few extra days its not the end of the world. Then there is the tiny issue of navigating the ice cap!!! After we come off the last glacier we then have to get back into our raft and head down the rivers and rapids out into the fjords and 93km to the finish line.

The problem that arises here is that in order to paddle efficiently and cover the distance we need paddles. However the lightest paddle we can find weighs in at a rather painful 800g (approximately) and I am truly loathed to carry an extra 800g right the way across the ice cap that can’t be used at all while on the ice.

In the spirit of ultra light travel the most obvious thought is to reuse another piece of equipment that we have to take on the expedition. So what could double up as a paddle?

We are heading back out next weekend to try and iron out some of the problems we have discovered. Unfortunately there aren’t that many options, the best solutions we have come up with so far are:

1. We use our shovels as efficiently as possible.
2. We take a paddle and carry an extra 800g across the icecap.
3. We make a paddle out of wood and an ultra-sil dry bag when we get off the glacier.
4. We take a wooden paddle for the first section and leave it at the base of the glacier and use either option 1 or 3 at the other end.

Now we know that the raft and equipment works we off to a slightly more impressive piece of water to test it out.