Idahoan's Using Montana Like Idaho Gets Used

Bear Trap Canyon

So I decided to roll back over the hill and go see the Bear Trap Canyon that Walt was telling me about. It was a nice sunny day last weekend and I had to put a bachelor party float together for a friend in Bozeman on the 21st and 22nd, so why not float a new section of water while I was at it. Everything was great the three bald eagles we saw in the tree two adults and a very large juvenile, the shit load of pelicans that were down in the middle of the canyon, the young moose who was in the river with us. Oh yeah and the day was really nice right about here.

As you can see the canyon is narrown and rocky and then there was kitchen sink. Right about now I need to let you know that of course this is one of those spur of the moment floats where there is very limited resources used when planning the float happened about an hour before this. We had this wonderful river map, yeah right, that showed a river out of a lake and a couple of hash marks across the riveer in three different spots but that was it no description, rating, you know the usefull stuff. So after some carfule consideration we decided that it was time to load up and go run the rapid. We did however encounter a fedw people along the scout of the rapid that had deflated their boats and walked them around the experience on the madison. They were nice enough to watch moose, my dog and take some pictures of us handling the rapid. At least that was the idea!

We first experienced a problem when the front of the boat decided that it liked the water that was behind us and just decided to go there! The boat stood straight up and we went straight down for a swim , a long swim, actually I think it was pretty much 80 percent of the rapid that we got the unenjoyable experience of hit every thing in the kitchen sink! At least a few of the passengers did I only swam about half of the rapid and decided that the better place was on top or bottom of the boat depending on how you looked at the situation. This is of course after a Chaco with the heel and toe strap was ripped off of my foot in the first oh 5 second s of the swim.

After getting to the bottom of the rapid and trying to guide all of the four swimmers I had to safety, while helping one with a dislocated shoulder, yeah he is the groom in two weeks. I got the boat flipped over and accessing the situation it was apparent that this was the first time I have ever really gotten my ass kicked by a rapid. The total toll was 2 chacos mine and my wife's same foot, and the loss of four thats right four paddles in the meyla these experienced rafters decided that the paddles were not helping and they wanted back in the boat or out of the river. We had five banged up legs/knees all the same side again, and one rafter on the other side of the river. I have to admitt that it was quite a site from the perch on my boat I had at the time. We did however recover three of the paddles further down the river but no fourth and no Chaco's, the wife had this funny limp until we got her back to Bozeman and got her another pair of Chaco's

The river was running pretty large from what I have gathered since the float. The fishing ended up being great below the encounter and we caught alot of nice fish in that section. I hear that it is actually a prety nice float now that it has come down some, maybe we can all meet up over that way and do some floating and fishing sometime soon. I will be there all week from the 20th-27th if anyone is interested. We will be floating the upper madison until the 22nd and a wedding of that friday but saturday and sunday I will be free and hoping to make another run, this time kicking some kitchen sink ass!