Risk & Reward: Lessons from the Flathead River

article by Megan Crawford

The main theme of this issue is “where there is little risk, there is little reward.” Right? Right.

Let’s set the scene: it’s late July. A perfect Montana summer day— a bluejay sky, a light breeze, a few innocuous clouds here and there. It was a day made for the river, so we went.

There were four of us: me, my mom, our friend Novalee, and her friend Angela, who had never kayaked on the Flathead River. We loaded kayaks into the truck and headed to West Glacier. Our original plan was to kayak on the Flathead from West Glacier to House of Mystery which, as the car drives, is a 12-mile route. But it was no biggie! It was the hottest day of the week! Like I said, it was a textbook definition river day.

We left West Glacier around 4:00, just a bit later than we planned, but that was also fine. Things like that are always late. Besides, raft tours were leaving at the same time. If they deemed it a good day for the river, we weren’t going to argue.

So there we went, merrily paddling along, skirting through the small rapids that lie between West Glacier and Blankenship. We stopped along the bank to skip rocks, eat snacks, and sit in the current. We watched people fly fish, cliff jump, and float the river in tubes that were tied together with a rope. I sat out in the water and was just peachy— I cannot emphasize how perfect this day was (note the past tense though, it’s important).

Toward the end of our break, it started to cloud over. Again, no big deal. We’ve kayaked in rain, you’re already wet to begin with. Rain on the river is serene, so bring it on. Right?

We passed Blankenship, which is about halfway through the float. This was at around 6:30. The shoreline was packed, and people waved as we paddled by. We thought they were just being encouraging, but it was definitely more of a “farewell” sentiment. Not too far after Blankenship, we hit a set of rapids that were not there when my mom and I last kayaked that part of the river. Granted, the last time we kayaked that part of the river was September of 2018, but that’s a minor discrepancy. We fearlessly paddled on.

The clouds started to get darker, and every few minutes we heard thunder rolling in the distance. Again, no big deal, we’ve kayaked with thunder. It’s only a problem if lightning gets involved.

There were more rapid sets that we didn’t know existed, some decently sized boulders inconveniently dotted across the river, and absolutely no people. The raft guides got out at Blankenship, along with everyone else who noted the turn in the weather. This is a good time to remind you that for our friend Angela, this was her inaugural voyage onto the Flathead. I am sorry, Angela.

We traveled onward, into a headwind, in the rain, thunder booming closer, and the stray lightning bolt here and there. I think it’s safe to say that at that point we were all nervous, but we were just fibbing for each other. “It shouldn’t be too much farther!” “We’ll just keep going till it gets really bad!” However, the line between bad and really bad is about six lightning bolts happening at once.

It got to the point where the storm wasn’t just behind us, it was off to the side, at the mountains in front— we were center stage. We kept going as much as we could, our arms practically useless after four hours of paddling. At this point, we were just trying to find a bank that could hold the four of us and our kayaks. We were conveniently in the section of the river that’s totally exposed to lightning on one side and a 45˚ angle on the other. Just when we were about to call it and land on whatever spit of land we could, we saw it.

A set of stairs climbed up the left bank. They might as well have been bathed in golden rays of light with cherubs gently floating down from the clouds above. Angela crawled up the stairs to find the front door while we pulled kayaks up on the muddy bank. Not long after, she appeared at the bushes at the top of the hill to let us know we could come inside. So there we were, totally drenched, in a thunderstorm, crawling up a set of metal stairs to the chosen house on the river.

We were greeted by a sweet golden retriever and Tina, who let us know that we weren’t the first stranded rafters to grace her home. This was a regular thing. She welcomed us in, wet shoes and all, and asked if she could take our picture to commemorate another Stranded Rafter Rescue. We all got to talking— “so how did you end up here? How do you know each other?” “How often do strangers crawl up those stairs to your house?”

I told her about Montana Woman, she told me she’s a defense attorney (which hello, how cool is Tina? Tina is a gem, especially at this point in time). Angela told her about her heart healing sessions, which Tina serendipitously was fascinated by. We were a ragtag group of sopping wet kayakers, standing in Tina’s house, bonding over shared interests. After the storm passed, Tina drove us down to the House of Mystery to get my car and bring it to our new endpoint at Glacier Bible Camp, which was only a 5-minute float from her house.

Once we got the cars situated and triple checked that the storm had passed (and stopped for a picture with the hero of the day, Tina), we headed back down to our kayaks. By then, the float was beautiful. All of the clouds turned shades of marigold and peach, it was warm and still, and there was absolutely no one else on the river. The bank at Glacier Bible Camp was not as wide or flat as we imagined and we did have to haul four kayaks up to the road at the end of the day, but I think it’s safe to say the risk was worth the reward.

However, if it were up to me, I would not kayak in a lightning storm again. But think of the Tinas you would miss out on if you didn’t jump headfirst into a storm! There are a lot of storms out there, but there are also some really great Tinas.