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For 25 years, Alaska adventurer and Alaska Pacific University professor Roman Dial has used a packraft to explore corners of wilderness next to impossible to reach on foot.

He’s used the packraft in most of his 11 Alaska Wilderness Classics, perhaps the toughest backcountry race in the world.

He’s used it to help him cross the Brooks Range and the Alaska Range.

He’s used it to navigate Class V white water.

Now Dial hopes he’s riding a wave that will make the light rafts must-have outdoors gear for travelers on foot — and that his new book “Packrafting!” will help ignite a surge of interest.

“I happen to be one of the people who thinks it’s going to explode,” Dial said. “Anytime somebody gets in the packraft, they want one.

“It’s kind of like mountain biking was when it was getting starting. It’s like a mountain bike for the water.”

Packrafts are tough, durable rafts that weigh 4 to 10 pounds, making them easy to pack and easy to inflate.

“These boats can open up Alaska’s backcountry like nothing short of a Super Cub,” Dial said. “A packraft is the best piece of gear an adventurer can carry other than clothes, food and fire starter.”

Dial was introduced to packrafting on the banks of the surging Skilak River during the 1982 Alaska Wilderness Classic race from Hope to Homer.

He and other racers were wondering how to cross the glacial river that emptied into an iceberg-choked lake in front of the Harding Icefield, just five miles away.

That’s when legendary backcountry traveler Dick Griffith, 55 at the time, unpacked a tiny raft and oars and rowed to the far shore.

The gambit didn’t win Griffith the race, but it convinced Dial that packrafts were invaluable — even if he could barely maneuver one back then.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. Back then, it was more ‘get in the boat and hang on.’ I’d use it to cross rivers and float rivers to get in the direction I was going. It was more a tool.”

No more.

“Now I do it as a sport,” he said “I treat it the way kayakers treat kayaking.”

And while packrafts have been popular among adventure travelers for years, Dial hopes his book reaches outdoors lovers who’d never consider a race as daunting as the Alaska Wilderness Classic.

“The potential is fantastic,” said Addie Morstad of Backpacking Light, the publisher of Dial’s book. “We’re marketing it pretty heavily. The stuff we publish is all about being self-sufficient, getting into the backcountry and going lightweight. This really broadens the scope for those folks.”

Sheri Tingey is a former Alaskan now living in Mancos, Colo., who runs a company called Alpacka Raft LLC. The company makes two types of Alpacka rafts that are considered by many to be the best on the market.

She sold her first packraft seven years ago, and in the early days most of them went to Alaskans. Now Alpacka rafts are sold to people in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and even Antarctica. She says her Alaska sales are down to 40 percent of the total.

Unlike Dial, Tingey doesn’t see a packrafting explosion on the horizon. She predicts more of the same — “consistent small growth.”

When Tingey starting selling Alpacka rafts, “I was selling the idea as much as selling the boat. I don’t do that anymore in Alaska. I just sell boats.

“There are enough boats out there. People have seen them. They know about them.”

She compares river running in a packraft to skiing on fat skis. Once you figure out what you’re doing, she said, the enjoyment curve steepens sharply.

“I’d venture to say that in an afternoon you can be bouncing down a Class III rapid and be fine. You couldn’t begin to do that in a hardshell. (A packraft is) really hard to dump over. It’s extremely forgiving.”

Jim Lokken, a high school biology teacher in Fairbanks, has been using pack rafts for about 30 years. He and Dial used one in the 1983 Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic between Hope to Homer, the year after Dial’s eye-opening experience with Griffith. These days, Lokken uses one of Tingey’s Alpackas and loves it.

“It’s pretty slick,” Lokken said.

Lokken has used his Alpacka to float rivers on the Seward Peninsula and has also used it to float Birch Creek in the Hot Springs 100, a 100-kilometer wilderness race from Chena Hot Springs to Circle Hot Springs.

“They’re really tough,” Lokken said of the Alpacka rafts. “On Birch Creek I hit thousands of rocks and just bounced right off.”

The Alpackas are easy to maneuver and it doesn’t take long to figure out to steer them, he said. It only takes about 10 minutes to inflate them, too.

Alpackas are also equipped with a spray skirt that helps keep the paddler dry.

“It’s really nice to have a spray skirt,” Lokken said. “It keeps you warm and dry.”

The boats are not just meant for extreme wilderness trips, either.

“I did a really cool trip this summer,” Lokken said. “I went off the top of Murphy Dome and went straight north and dropped into the Chatanika River and floated down about 13 miles.

“Then I tied my bike to the front of the pack raft and rode 15 miles out the road,” he said.

Tingey and Dial say that choosing the right paddle is as important as picking the right boat.

“With a good paddle, a bad boat can be made serviceable,” Dial said.

“Likewise, a good boat can handle a bad paddle. But bad boats with bad paddles — the combination you buy in discount stores — are dangerous,” he said.

Tingey suggests a river kayak paddle or spoon-shaped blue-water kayak touring paddle between 220 and 240 centimeters to provide enough length to clear the tubes.

Four-piece — and some three-piece — paddles will fit in a backpack with the raft. Light carbon-fiber paddles are available, and Sawyer Paddles recently introduced 29-ounce paddles with blades of laminated red cedar reinforced with fiberglass and carbon fiber, adjustable from 205 to 230 centimeters.

Some long-time Wilderness Classic rafters prefer old, aluminum-shafted paddles with removable blades.

They pack the blades and carry the shaft as a walking stick.

“One of the reasons I really wanted the book out there is that I wanted (readers) to learn to boat safely,” Dial said.

While there are thousands of books on fishing, hunting, climbing, boating and scores of other outdoors pursuits, “Packrafting!” is the only book devoted entirely to Dial’s passion.

“I still love the wilderness travel, but these days I really like long trips with family members,” Dial said. “A 5-pound packraft with my wife in the boat with me — it doesn’t get much better than that.”

News-Miner outdoors editor Tim Mowry contributed to this story.