I’ve long wanted to float the South Fork of the Flathead in all 9 months I reckon it is ever floatable, read not frozen, those being March through November, with both March and November not providing good conditions every year. This year was obviously a good year for November, and November was the last month unticked; after our big snow in late October things melted quickly, and daytimes stayed sunny and well above freezing, and nighttimes not too cold, all the wasy through Thanksgiving. I was as sure of walking all that way and not getting shut down by ice as I could ever be. The Twin Creeks gauge goes off line in October, and had been trending a bit lower than average through early autumn. The Middle Fork gauge was running high going into mid-November, due to high altitude snowmelt, which I did think would be influencing the South Fork.

Plans being what they often are, things snowballed. I would bring boating gear, camping gear, and hunting gear, walk in from the North Fork of the Blackfoot, and exit up Big Salmon Creek and Pendant Pass. I’d have enough good floating, which would be low but hopefully not too low, have a hopefully good chance of shooting a buck in the midst of the rut, and by coming out at Holland Lake not bother M too much in driving to pick me up.

All of these things worked out.

As seen above, the top 21 miles of the South Fork were worth doing. I’d spitball ~120 cfs at the confluence, probably ~300 downstream at Twin Creeks. Down to Burnt Park was straighforward compared to the Burnt to White River section, as the former only ran out of water at predictable gravel bar riffles, while the later was a consistent maze of rocks without enough padding. I spent all day (9am-430pm) floating 15 miles, with a ~90 minute break to shoot, butcher, and pack up a deer.

The call to bring both the Caribou and a drysuit (and no PFD) was a good one; high volume boats are best for shallow rivers, and without the dry suit (with feet, and lots of puffy coats underneath) the floating and dragging would have been hypothermic, rather than simply a bit chilly. I felt perfectly safe with the added float of the drysuit, and without the added weight and bulk of a PFD (even an inflatable).

The hiking part of things felt less under control. When I arrived at the south end of Danaher Meadows the first night I was tired, chafed, and scared. Food, and warm sleeping bag, and some reflection reminded me that it had been a while (over a year) since I had done a non-family backpacking trip, and over two years since my last backpack hunt. Lack of practice doesn’t just thrash the legs and rub the hips, it stretched the mind. I was ready to take any excuse to cut the trip short, but saw no deer or elk the next day (in either Danaher or the Basin). The whole trip was prominent for being remarkably still, a good thing for the relative lack of windchill, rather harder for the extent to which that highlighted the empty un-humanness of the Bob right on the edge of winter.