Upper Missouri River Breaks

I grew up loving the Missouri River. We spent hours and hours in and on the water in the section of river between the Dearborn and Hardy exits. I think my family loves that river and what it has given us more than words can express. All of that time...and we have never experienced the section called the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. This Labor Day weekend the girls and I met Tony and his daughter Jaida and set off on a three day journey through this amazing piece of Montana.

We met after school at Coal Banks Landing. Did you know there were still working ferries across the Missouri River? If you are like me and have grown up in Montana without riding those ferries you need to get busy!

First Tony had to put his canoe together...that's right...put it together. It's a Pakboat. Check it out! This thing rolls into about the size of a large dry bag.

Everyone pitched in to help. Thank goodness the directions were still in the bag. As we were busy getting the gear put together and boat assembled we kept our eye on the black clouds building.

We waved goodbye to Mom, who had come up to ride the ferry with the girls and camp a night while Tony and I shuttled the rigs. That cloud was coming...not too fast but it was on it's way.

We weren't on the river an hour when we started feeling the first drops of rain. The dollar store has these plastic rain ponchos...pretty much single use disposable ponchos...but they did the trick for our first downpour.

After the rain quit we began to get into the white cliffs. It was absolutely amazing scenery. White walls, table rocks, slot canyons, caves, spires...incredible!

It was even warm enough for the kids to enjoy the super soakers a little...although no swimming or hanging off the boat was taking place.

This is a wide, slow, easy river. The wind thankfully was at our back pushing us down the river the whole trip. We were the only fools out there with a raft and were very lucky to not be blown back up stream. The girls all took turns rowing both the raft and the canoe and Tony taught them how to make sails out of their paddles.

Three beauties enjoying camp.

Frogs and mud...it doesn't get any better than that.

Then came the hike up Neat Coulee. The coulee leads into a slot canyon very much like what you find in Arizona but with white rocks! What a powerful and beautiful place!

The next morning was c-c-c-old! I had packed winter gloves and hats for the masses and we all wore them without complaint!

This is where my photos stop...I can tell you the story but I put my camera away and lost it under 5 layers of clothes...here is what came next.

It was about 2 in the afternoon and we were watching a thunder boomer build behind us. It was coming fast. We pulled off to see about a camp and decided that we could go a bit further...I mean we were going to get wet anyway, right, why not get to a pretty spot. Not a mile down river the wind picked up and we beached the boats and ran for cover. The five of us huddled under a tarp in a field of cow pies for over an hour as we listened to the wind roar down the canyon and rain pour down. Tony estimated the river rose about 3 inches in that time! Avery slept through most of the wait while Kyndra and Jaida toughed it out. When the rain died down enough Tony and I threw up his all weather tent in record time. It's amazing how two people can work together with freezing fingers and soaked through clothes when they need to. That night dinner was PB&Js in the tent, beef jerky, and whatever else we could throw together without heat.

The storm passed...the cliffs died off into farm land...and we had a white-cloud-filled Montana sky on our last day. Its a stretch of river that we will be seeing again, hopefully with more time to explore the pieces we missed.