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.
We had only been home from British Columbia for a couple of days, but we had worked diligently on rehabbing the truck and gear. I got the notification that Reckless Kelly was going to be in concert in the middle of Montana. Why not get back out on the road? Before we knew it we were packing the truck for a quick trip to Montana. This was a real whirlwind tour of western Montana, but…
We finished up the Smith River and had the boat on the trailer by about noon. It was Thursday so there was time to take the slow road home. We headed over the continental divide to the Blackfoot river. After lunch at Trixi’s in Ovando we checked out the river access for a float the next day. There are a few questionable boat launches on the Blackfoot but the ones we scouted were great, so we had a plan for the next day. All we needed was a camp for the night. That part proved trickier than I anticipated, but after lots of driving and several camps and fishing access points we found our spot and watched the sun go down over a stream originally named for Meriweather Lewis’ dog Seaman, but is now named Monture Creek. Kudos to Montana for all the fishing access sites with camps that give you a discount for having a fishing license. Reason #101 that Montana is awesome. The next morning we called Ovando shuttles with our barely passable service (note to self: next time save the wifi password for Trixi’s) and with that bit of logistics out of the way we headed to the river. Just before reaching the launch we happened across a little tan bear who turned tail and ran before we could get a good look at him. Mostly we just saw ears as he galloped through the sage. He headed right towards the campground at the launch and disappeared into the timber. I’m sure he wasn’t headed for trouble.
