The Missouri Breaks

So….I got the schedule a bit mixed up and we aren’t leaving for Montana until early tomorrow morning. Good thing too, because the trailer needed a reinforcing bolt put into the tongue of the structure. Who knew!

After breakfast, everyone broke off to get their jobs done, lists made and the cleaning of the bins, dishes, etc. And, of course, we needed a plan to sort out the boat trailer.

Chuck, Bob and Kris drove off to a selection of stores to get the last of what we needed – including a 12” drill bit suitable to go through the aluminum frame of the trailer.

Now, I’m a guy who’s on the ‘trim’ side, so I was elected to wriggle under the trailer and hold aside all the wiring harness that was fed through the 3”x3” aluminum tube.

All went well and we got the reinforcing bolt in place, and I slipped a shim of wood down one side of the wiring harness so that any road vibration wouldn’t wear away at the insulation on the wiring harness.

The rest of the day was spent stowing the supplies, making sure the gas stoves worked, and making sure the important stuff was there ….like toilet paper! 🙂

There are 2 sections we’ll be paddling that are ‘wilderness’ paddles and each of these is 3 days/2 nights. In a couple of places there a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) pit toilets. Where there aren’t any, we need to take a ‘Honey Bucket’ for those special private occasions. This is a pack-in/pack-out part of the river, so it’s important that everyone on the river takes that care.

The other interesting side of the organization is the need for water. The river water is not potable…you can’t even boil it and drink it! So we spent a bit of valuable time calculating our water needs – both from the individual side and the group side (for cooking, cleaning, etc). It looks like it will be anywhere from warm, to hot for the next couple of weeks, so maintaining hydration will be key.

We’ll drive to Fort Benton in the morning and the following day paddle from Carter Ferry downstream into Fort Benton.