Monday, August 23, 2010

The Missouri Breaks trip

We launched around 9:45 on Wednesday. 7 kayaks & our canoe. 9 of us. We had 14 miles before we reached camp. The river was flowing at about 3 miles per hour so it was an easy paddle.

Chuck led. He, Karen & Jim were way out ahead. Doug, Janet, Peter & Carolyn opted to go with the flow and we were sweep.

Our first campground was called Eagle Creek. We were all pretty close together. Had a campfire in the evening and visited. We had reached the White Cliff area that Lewis & Clark had described in their journal. It was an awesome sunrise on them looking out our tent door.
Donna took a short walk for these pictures.
We took a hike up a slot canyon in the morning before leaving.

Looking back up toward the campground on the right and the cliffs on the left.

We only had 7 miles to go to the next campsite at Hole In the Wall.
Bob's back was bothering him a little and it was quite aways up the hill to the campsite so we opted to camp nearer to the river along with Doug & Janet. We did go up the hill for socializing after dinner.

Our third day was a 14 mile paddle to the the campground. We had head winds so we had to do a bit more paddling than we had been. Bob even stood up for a stretch break. We camped at Slaughter River. It was a large campground and we spread out. Had a big campfire and started it while it was still light out. Each campground we stayed at had pit toilets. We had taken bottled water along and still had enough left to share.

Before leaving we took a hike to the marker that notes that Lewis & Clark had camped here both on the way west & on their return.

We had just under 12 miles to the take out area. Along the way we counted about 8 bald eagles and a golden eagle. 3 white pelicans too. We were in swifter water and at some points we were flowing at 6 mph. Once even 10 mph briefly. Two other canoes passed us and were in between Chuck's group and ours. We had radio's and briefed Chuck. They were working on the boat launch so there was a very narrow spot to land. We were last to land and with radio contact we told our group when they could go in for their landing. We managed to get all the kayaks & canoe plus gear and people all into the two trucks we had placed there before our trip.

On the way home we stopped for dinner at Big Sandy. Everyone wanted something cold. We spilled ice and ice water on the table several times and had a laugh about that.

Our last day Doug, Janet, Bob and I went back to Havre grabbed a Blizzard at DQ and headed south thru the Bear Paw Mountains geocaching found 11 of the 12 we attempted.

Even found this pretty waterfall. Two we didn't attempt as too much ground cover in snake country. About 12 miles of the road wasn't paved and it really was rough going at times. We were on a reservation and they were logging. We asked a native if it was passable and so we went. Stopped at Big Sandy for supper.

It has been great to be with our WIN friends. Now we will be traveling alone until meeting up with them in Moab in about a month.

1 comment:

Barbara and Ron said...

Whew! Better you than me, but it looks like it was a wonderful trip. I wonder who painted the buffalo.