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This last weekend a couple of friends and myself went on a nice 30 mile paddle down the Big Hole river in western Montana, just south of Butte. We put in at Brown's Bridge and just rode down the wide bloated Big Hole to the High Road fishing access by Twin Bridges. The weather was beautiful, which was a good change from the weather in Bozeman which seems to have trapped small pockets of winter every week or so that come and dump down onto the Gallatin Valley. If you are into birds, this place is amazing. We saw at least a dozen hawks, a flock of pelicans, a gazillion ducks, and geese, and two herds of deer, gallavanting around the river! It was nice to go out canoing with Brett as we are both planning on paddling the
Northern Forest Canoe Trail this summer! We ran some small class I and class II rapids, but definitely had to portage a very intense class III. I got a chance to practice standing in a canoe and found a large stick to practice poling. Because the river was so full we were making amazing speed and decided to pull out and make camp somewhere around
mile 20. The night was nice and we tried to cook with this Sterno stove i got for christmas, unfortunately, the Sterno stove doesn't heat things past 205, which means we couldn't boil water. So instead we "warmed" our spaghetti and sauce and did some cooking over the fire. Not to bad, but good to know that Sterno won't boil water. Looks like we'll be getting a nice white gas "whisperlite" stove for this summer! The weather turned cold that night and before I crawled into bed, I grabbed a stone from the fire, wrapped it in my jacket and took it into my sleeping bag with me! It was a great idea as the next morning we woke to a frost on the ground! The next day was some nice navigation of downed trees and quick water and made for a sweet paddle back to the jeep! It was a nice trip and it was great to get one last nice view of the high plains/desert and the snow covered alpine mountains before I head back east!
Oh I almost forgot to mention, on our way to Browne's Bridge we saw a sign in the middle of nowhere
that announced "Rocket Launch Today!". Slightly confused we continued down the road until we saw a bunch of cars pulled off to the side of the road and sure enough it was the
Big Sky Rocketry Association holding a spring launch! We stayed around to watch the initial launch, but knew that we had to get going to the put in if we wanted to get back at a descent time the following day!
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Peter Z
non-member comment
Bird lovers
I know you're a mathematician, but deer do not equal birds. Sounds like an awesome trip though. Good thought on the stone, bummer on the sterno. Good thing to find out when on a single overnight though. No shots of the rocket actually launching?