Rafting the Gallatin:

We decided we hadn't abused our bodies enough on the mountain, so we wanted to see if we could abuse our bodies even more on the Gallatin River. We succeeded. We dropped off the kids and met mom and dad's friend Grant to go rafting. Grant used to be a rafting guide so we thought we would be ok.






We floated down 11 miles of river, battling rapids ranging from class I to class III (where class VI is the highest, meaning the river is unnavigable). Several lunatics (Charisse, Taina and Charlie) went through some rapids while “riding the bull”. That means they put their feet over the front of the boat and just held on to the rope.





It looked like a pretty wild ride. But mom thought she would show them up by jumping out of the boat right in the middle of the rapids. Of course there is a rumor going around that Grant pushed her out. She was sitting right by Grant after all. She floated through almost a mile of rapids before Dicky and Bryan were finally able to pull her in the boat. Here's some of the spots that mom floated through sans raft. In the first pic you can see her trailing behind the boat.






When she got back in the boat she was purple and half drowned (or maybe ¾). It was pretty scary, but in the end she only had a few bruises. I took some video of one of the spots she floated through.


After 11 miles mom had had enough and she got out and hitch hiked back to the car. The rest of us had one more mile to go. The “Mad Mile”. It's a solid mile of non-stop rapids; some class II's a lot of class III's and even a treacherous stretch of class IV rapids as you come around House Rock, which is a giant boulder in the middle of the river.

Now that sounded wild, but not wild enough for us, so we decided to go past House Rock sideways. That was definitely much more exciting for most of us, but apparently not enough for Bryan. He decided to jump out of the boat just as we passed House Rock. Then again, he was sitting right by Grant. Hmmmm... I took some video the next day of a few boats going by House Rock. They didn't go sideways though. (pansies!)

We somehow fought through the Mad Mile. We even managed to pull Bryan back in the boat along the way, even though he was yelling at us to leave him in the river ;-)

Thanks for steering us through Grant, but next time keep your hands to yourself! At the end we were soaked, beaten and exhausted, but the day wasn't over yet.