The first real test of my new canoe came on the Madson River near Ennis, Montana. Scott, Jason, and I met Grandma and Grandpa at a camground along the West Fork. The first day of paddling wasn’t really paddling at all. The river carried us along swiftly, and our paddles were only needed for steering. We always seemed to be drifing faster than Grandma and Grandpa. Maybe the extra weight in our boat helped us “grab” the current better.
From there, we moved south and did a couple of slow floats on the Teton River and Henry’s Fork. Once, when we were relaxing in camp by the Snake River, a huge bull moose wandered past us. He moved out into the road and thoroughly startled a kid on a scooter.
We tried our flyfishing luck in several streams here and there. While our success wasn’t exactly phenomenal, we all caught and released several nice trout.
One morning, a tire of mine was flat as a pancake, and I couldn’t use the spare, because my bike rack was locked to it (diligent searching failed to produce the key). Fortunately, Grandpa had a small air compressor, and we pumped it back up. The leak was slow, and we were able to eventually drive to an auto shop and have it repaired. You’ll be happy to know that I have since located the key to my bike rack.
We had a good time visiting with the cousins, Josh and Matt, in Logan. I did the hike up to the Wellsville Cone again, and the trail was as brushy as ever.
On the way back to Seattle, we made a detour to see some wagon ruts on the Oregon Trail at Baker City, Oregon. From a hillside, you could still see that faint trace of the old trail disappearing into the distance, I thought the ruts were very cool, but I think Scott and Jason were considerably less impressed.
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