Smith River Float
A Fun Trip on one of Montana's Iconic Rivers
Early June, 2016
Canyon Depth to Fraunhofer
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We awoke on our third day on the Smith to another crummy day in paradise.
Every day should be this bad!
The Smith is a semi-wilderness river, but not much of a white-water one.
It has a few small rapids but unless it is really ripping it's pretty benign.
However, lousy cold spring weather can make it hazardous for the inexperienced and unprepared.
We were geezers with a good weather window and our days were pretty relaxed.
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| Elizabeth Paddling Huck-Finn Style |
John
Photo by Elizabeth Rundquist |
We refilled our water containers at another spring by the side of the river.
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Water Fill
Photo by John Rundquist |
It was great having a geologist along.
Elizabeth gave us mini-geology lessons
and pointed out things which otherwise were just "rocks" to the rest of us.
It was particularly interesting to see how you could determine which way the land had folded
by the offsets of succeeding layers of rock.
In keeping with my geezer status I have forgotten everything she told me.
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| Folded Rock |
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Geology Things
Photos by John Rundquist |
At one point there was a big undercut cave that just had to be explored.
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| John in the big Cave |
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| John and Elizabeth in the Cave |
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| Rock Flow |
Dona particularly enjoyed getting out of the raft and paddling one of the kayaks for a while.
The kayaks are similar to the super light ones now made for backpacking;
maybe we will have to get one of those...
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Table Rock |
Our third camp was at Fraunhofer;
it has a big cliff across the river from it.
It was still hot when we made camp,
and the river was shallow enough to wade across.
I could see a slot that looked like it led up to the top of the cliff,
so I waded across and hiked up.
It was a bit of work getting through the brambles
and avoiding the poison ivy, but
the view from the top was great!
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| Derf and Jill Cooling Off |
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| Fraunhoffer Camp |
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| Cliff Slot |
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| Fraunhoffer from Cliff |
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| From Cliff Top |
There was a large meadow behind the cliff,
and it was full of wildflowers.
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| Meadow |
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| Cliff Top Meadow |
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| Blanketflower |
Xxx Penstemon |
Little Sunflower |
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| Xxx White |
Daisy |
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| Xxx Yellow |
Xxx Yellow |
That evening we had a thunderstorm pass through and got treated to a great double rainbow.
It was followed by some pretty dramatic cloud formations.
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| Rainbow |
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| Mammatus Clouds |
Clouds |
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Mammatus Clouds
Photo by Carol Kulish |
Mammatus Clouds
Photo by John Rundquist |
The younger members of the crew were
Settlers of Catan devotees
and stayed up past midnight trying to be rulers of the known universe.
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| Settlers Of Catan |
