I made the call at 7:01 a.m., (being 8:01 in Montana, expecting a busy signal not an answer, and definitely not expecting a positive answer to my question. The question being, “Do you have any available permit cancellations?” After the ring and the pickup, the response came, “Yes, our furthest one out is May 11.” I quickly responded, “We’ll take it” and just like that we were headed to float the Smith River in Montana.
Obtaining a permit for the Smith is literally winning the lottery. It was difficult a few years back – maybe a 1 in 30 chance a decade or so ago, the last time I figured the odds. Then Montana changed the permit system to limit permits to out of staters to 10% of the total launches. Forget it. Playing megabucks at the corner store will get you better odds. But there was another way, a chance for a cancellation. Having an open calendar helps. But from what I found out upon check in, there hadn’t been a full slate of launches this year on any given day up until the day we launched. People are canceling much more than I anticipated. Either way, we still felt lucky to obtain a permit. We packed our gear and in a couple days we headed over the mountains to Montana.
It poured buckets on our way to the launch, but once we were on the river the sun was shining and we were peeling off the rain gear. The river was high and in just two hours we were to our first of four camps. The Smith is somewhat unique in that you reserve all your camps before you launch. You are also assigned a one hour launch window for the put in. Five days is the maximum days allowed on the river. All this is done to make the experience more enjoyable, manage the crowds, and provide for the best experience. Being one that experiences campsite anxiety on other rivers the pre-planned camps are a really nice feature. Our first camp was Rock Creek, a nice spacious camp with a good view.
We took a hike above camp and the sky showed signs of things to come. The sun from earlier in the day had vanished.
But the sky held off on dumping the rain on us for the night. The next day we headed down the river to a camp I have wanted to stay at since the first time we floated by it in 2018, Canyon Depth. With the view of the cliffs, it doesn’t get much prettier than this.
As it was throughout the trip, the geese stood guard over their new goslings. Much honking ensued, even though we kept our distance. Most of the honking was aimed at other geese wanting to land on their shoreline.
The rain started up a bit after we arrived in camp. We were provided just enough time to set up our tarp and get a warm fire going from the plentiful rounds left over from clearing hazard trees killed by Douglas-fir beetles in the previous year. With the exception of about a four hour stretch on day four of the trip, the rain mostly continued on for the remainder of the trip, but the views continued on as well. Being in this canyon is something special.
Through the rain we continued on to Upper Parker Flat, which provided a nice stand of trees to set up the tarp again as a shelter from the storm. We were even provided just enough of a break in the rain to wander the hills above camps and check out the spring wildflowers.
With the rain pouring down the next morning we packed our gear and headed to our final camp, Upper Givens Gulch. It was a quick, tight landing, but luckily that was what we anticipated, and I jumped out of the boat towards the shore and quickly stopped the boat and secured it to shore. I can’t recommend staying at Upper Givens during a high flow. Although the camp is nice, you could easily miss it, and with only a few camps left on the river, all likely reserved, your only choice may be to end your trip a day early.
The rain had stopped, and there was a huge pile of wood in the campsite. It was a welcome sign as our float was a cold, rainy and windy one since we had shoved off earlier in the day.
A drumming grouse kept us entertained as we sat around the fire warming up and drying our gear. Drumming continued on for a good couple hours. This is my kind of drumming.
The break in the rain was welcome, but it didn’t last. As we called it a night it began to sprinkle, and before morning light we awakened to an absolute downpour. I actually had to sit up in the sleeping bag to confirm that the roar we were hearing was indeed rain. The river rose during our trip from 1050 CFS to 1450 CFS (cubic feet per second). That isn’t a big number for most rivers, but for the Smith it meant it started high and ended exceptionally high. We can take solace in the views of the canyon walls, the wildflowers and the wildlife, and be thankful to whoever cancelled their trip so we could get back on the Smith once more.
The trip ended with a silver lining, literally. As we rolled back toward Idaho we stayed along the Blackfoot river in the camper, and just as we arrived at our campsite the rain cleared and those silver and gold clouds reminded us how lucky we truly are.
