In the most southern reaches of Montana, on the border of Yellowstone National Park, high up in the smoldering volcanic cinders of the fuming mountains, there exists a small wetland with a little stream running through it. The wetland consists of rodents and waterfowl, raptors circling overhead, and black bears and grizzly bears meandering in search of trout that fill the waters of the river and berries that line its shores. The wetland's green, grassy expanses are strikingly different than the mountainous sides that erupt on either side. The stream, that begins as a mere trickle, soon turns into a gurgling flow as it leaves Yellowstone and becomes the Gallatin River. Grassy fields line its shore and the river supports vibrant ecosystems and ranches for more than 100 miles as it gains more volume until it reaches Three Forks and joins forces with the East Gallatin and the Madison River to become the Missouri River.
The Gallatin is like any mountain stream; during the spring melt its banks become flooded as the icy snowpack turns to its liquid form and rushes to the ocean. During this flood phase when the water is high, it carries debris as far downstream as possible before becoming en-snagged and stopped due to lowering water levels. Fully grown, downed trees are transported for miles; sticks and branches get thrown high up on shore, and the rocky, meandering river bed gets completely changed as boulders get pushed downstream by the force of the high flow. Boating the Gallatin during high flow must be an entertaining experience; one that many whitewater kayakers took full advantage of this past spring and into the summer as the enormous snowpack of the previous winter melted away.
My second or third day in Bozeman, Ben's idea was to float this river in his canoe. Of course it would be an easy float, he explained to me. We would bring a cooler with beer, our fishing rods, and have a grand old time lazily floating down the 6 mile stretch of river in the late afternoon. We put on the river around 5 or 6, with about 3 hours of daylight left ahead of us. We were dressed in shorts and t-shirts - typical summer wear for the season and just barely sufficient for the evenings and nights that were beginning to be cooler as the fall season approached.
By this time in the season, the water was about five vertical feet below the spring levels Ben had last seen it, and we followed the river slowly, lackadaisically looking for fishing spots and finding the route downstream. We were in Ben's old, heavy, aluminum canoe - a canoe he had found discarded in Hyalite Reservoir close to Bozeman. An excellent find and a vessel that had served him well, in spite of the lesser handling ability and heavy, plow-through-the-rapids type build. We had a cooler with beer, three fishing rods, a jar of peanuts, Ben in front, his room mate Brett in the middle, and me steering the boat in the stern. We seemed to be set up for success and a great afternoon.
Yet the streams tight curves, vast quantity of dead wood, and completely different path than expected yielded challenges we weren't expecting. "Huh, this is waaay different than I remember it," exclaimed Ben as we narrowly avoided scraping up on rocks and beaching the old canoe. I had just steered the canoe down a route through a rapid putting us in precariously close vicinity to some dead trees, but remaining in the swift current and avoiding the shallow rocks a couple of inches from the draft of the boat.
"You sure you got this," questioned Ben?
"This isn't really what I was expecting, we might have to put the fishing aside for a while and really paddle," I replied.
A couple of rapids later, we were confronted with a bend to the right in the river. The setting sun cast a glare into our eyes, blinding us from the river left bank that the stream carried us towards before cutting right. A shallow rocky shore blocked our path from cutting straight down the river; in order to follow the channel we would have to stay high then cut hard downstream to avoid hitting the river left bank. But, if we happened to crash into the left bank, whatever trees and strainers that existed there would surely push us downstream and we would be okay. It may get a little hairy, I thought, but in the end we would be sent straight downstream and avoid danger.
As our speed picked up and we entered the shade of the trees, the far bank revealed itself to us. As we speed towards it sideways trying to shoot ourselves downstream, razor sharp tree trunks jutted out perpendicularly to the water flow - the work of friendly beavers. These dead trees weren't harmless wood that would merely push us downstream, they would impale us if we came too close and stop our progress down the river with a painful and bloody shove.
As the boat came around, Ben in the front cleared the danger. Brett saw it and swerved around it. But as the spike came at my torso, I couldn't do anything about it. The only choice was to lean away from it - leaning upstream at the current - and in a second we were swimming in the water, beer cans and fishing poles floating away from the boat in the chilly melt water.
After the debris had been collected and we were drying off on the shore of the river assessing the damage we were at a loss for words. Was it my fault, I asked myself? Maybe Ben could have paddled a little bit harder and we could have hit the route as I had intended. But if Ben would have been in the stern, he argued, he would have taken the easy way around, beaching the canoe in the shallows, walking the boat and avoiding danger all together.
What would have been done, given differing circumstances will never be known. As for the rest of the trip, Ben took over in the stern, and with my guidance from the bow we commandeered the canoe down the rest of the river avoiding danger the entire way.
Beware, the spring flood waters change rivers. Easy float trips become challenging, technical rapids full of dead wood and unexpected death traps - in our case, razor sharp, beaver shaved, tree trunks of death...
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