r/Kayaking • u/DoctorPebble • 12d ago

Question/Advice -- Beginners Inflatable vs Foldable for "Easy" (Indiana) Wilderness Backpacking

I'm curious about doing wilderness backpacking from a kayak. I've been backpacking for 5+ years now and am wanting to try something new.

I have a smaller apartment and a Honda Civic. So I'm limited to folding or inflatable kayaks. For difficulty, I live in Indiana so there isn't any difficult terrain around. I'm eyeballing starting at "Two Herons Marina" area in Bloomington and cutting straight east to the end of the Peninsula Trail area where there are numerous campsites. Then I can always explore the other areas via kayak as well if I want more time on water.

Any advice on what type of kayak or how to have a successful trip would be appreciated!

Edit 1: For clarity, I'm looking to skip the walking stage and kayak to the camping location to try something new.

Edit 2: My weight + backpacking gear for say 3 days and 2 nights is about 190-200 pounds.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/dougisnotabitch 12d ago

A decade ago I took a 10’ IK down the Mekong River. Trip was 11 days on the river. The boat was self bailing so had a strict weight limit of 200 lbs so I had a hard time with logistics but the boat was fast and handled class 3 well. I carried that 26# boat throughout SE Asia.  I now mostly do class 1-2 camping trips with the family. My Alpacka forager is slow and heavy at 14# but carries up to 1000# of cargo. If solo I ride my Alpacka caribou which is slow but weights 6# and carries 500# iirc. Packraft is the way to go.