Photo by Skylar Browning
Lesson learned Hubris and humility on the Bitterroot River
by Skylar Browning t’s rarely a good sign when you end a canoe trip wearing nothing but your underwear, a pair of women’s tennis shoes, a pink ski cap and a shirt that’s only dry spots are the tops of the sleeves. I look like a cross-dresser in the world’s worst wet T-shirt contest. The stares from the fly-fishermen along the banks of the river suggest I would’ve been laughed off the stage. Even worse, I couldn’t care less about my appearance: I’m too worried about regaining the feeling in my frozen feet. Things never should have come to this. My early season float down a scenic and calm stretch of the Bitterroot River, accompanied by two seasoned paddlers, was supposed to be
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Missoula Independent
“It’d require a tight approach to the left of one sweeper, then a hard right turn past the second, and strong paddling to shoot the gap. What the hell, I thought.”
about as eventful as a stroll through the woods. The weather was still cold—flurries greeted us that morning, and the mountain peaks were covered in snow storm clouds—but everything
Explorer 2011
else was pristine. We scheduled a put-in at Bell Crossing, just 40 minutes south of Missoula. Our shuttle car was parked in Stevensville, about seven miles downstream. The whole day would last roughly three hours, but deliver maximum exposure to the gorgeous Bitterroot Range. We planned on seeing some wildlife, practicing our strokes, basking in the simple pleasures of preparing for a day on the river. In short, we wanted to soak in the scene, not soak ourselves. We started fine. I sat in the bow of one canoe, with my friend Steve in the stern. Karen, the most experienced of our trio, launched in a solo canoe and, being a stickler for details, reviewed some paddling basics since it was our first time back on the water after last summer. J-