Clearwater River Cruise

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to check out a river here in Montana that was new to me. I travelled up to Missoula and met a friend who had some visitors in town from Greenville, South Carolina. We decided to rent a raft and head up to the Clearwater River, which feeds into the Blackfoot due East of Missoula.


We put in at Salmon Lake and rowed through it to the mouth of the river...luckily the wind was at our backs, or it would have been a looooooooooong day. It's a gorgeous lake, with some pretty impressive houses on it. Not exactly in the backcountry, but beautiful all the same. The river sections of the float between 3 different lakes were a lot of fun to row through, featuring some mild whitewater that bumped us around enough to soak the girls...making the rest of the trip a bit cold in the Montana spring wind.


Luckily, everyone on board retained great attitudes, including the dogs, Zeus and Cody. Our friends from SC, Lagare and Hunter enjoyed being on the river, and we all got to see a new section of Montana by raft...always a nice thing. Hunter (above) has a pretty cool gig going at home, where he started a website called www.whatsgoinongreenville.com... it's still under construction, but stay tuned to see how it develops.



After a day on the river in the wind and sun, there's nothing like a good meal at the campsite to re-fuel. On this particular night we dined on some Tenderloin Steaks cooked in butter and some instant mashers. It didn't suck.


We didn't do much fishing on this trip, mostly just sightseeing and hanging out. However, the water is gin clear while most other rivers are muddy right now, and I hear there's some Northern Pike in the upper stretches. Next time I'll be slingin' Yellow Bunny Strips and we'll see what happens