Early Season Montana

Missoula MT is my favorite US town and I was able to sneak in early season trip in down there this past week. The wave park in town on the Clarks Fork, that was created to honor local paddler Brenan Guth, should be reason enough to get anyone to head down there. Locals say that except for peak flows the features are always in. It's pretty obvious that locals paddlers are getting on the water lots as everyone can throw down here! Having a sweet downtown wave makes for plenty o' practice time. I think the cold temps and recent dumps were keeping most people on slopes because I had the place almost to myself for most of my sessions. I did meet some local paddlers at the conveniently located Strongwater Kayak shop only 1/2 a block from the river park itself. K.B. and Luke made me feel right at home Montana style at their Grand opening while I was there with free beer and burgers all night. Lots of local folks were out and Seth Warren was there with his Biofuel van "Baby". The folks I met were all time friendly and I soon realized Missoula has a huge kayak community!

I was spreading the word about the ECE and all the IPP madness going on up here in BC and I find out that just up river is the biggest Super Fund environmental clean-up ever on the Milltown Dam. Toxic sludge from the old mines in Annaconda had washed into the river and built up behind the dam. The Army corps were taking down the dam, digging out the ooze and trying to restore the river! What the frik is going on here?! The states are restoring and protecting rivers and we're up here in Canada letting private companies run amok in our watersheds, drilling giant holes through mountains and forever altering creeks and rivers to try to sell Americans electricity that they don't even want because it's not Green!  Hmmmm......

The next day I hooked up with Seth and a few of his buddies to run the Triple bridges section of the Alberton Gorge on the Clarks Fork. Even though it was pretty low ( only 4200cfs, it gets up to 50,000cfs) still there were a couple of features in. A friendly hole called 'Cuda I think, and a sweet pyramid shaped fast wave called "Fang" that was super fun with a good eddy. On a sunny Sunday afternoon there's no better way to get back on the water. I had a great timedown in Missoula! It was easy to meet paddlers and find beta at the only TRUE kayak shop in town, Strongwater (# )Thanks to the Missoula crew; KB, Luke,Ted, Seth, Dan, Raven, Cheyanne, Jess, Pat, Darren, Good times! As soon as it warms up I'm comin back to get my creek on with y'all!

Keep the plastic side down

Randy,

ECE