june 6th-june 9th, 2007

4 days

Vicki

steve, heidi, bill, rick, janice, mike, kathy, ray, ernie, randy, blake, jed

3.1 feet

2262

little goat creek, tony point, tango bar

there is at least one great way to approach the beginning of a river trip with a lot of rain in the forecast and it is to stay indoors the night before.  randy, blake and i opted to do just that and stayed at rocky knob, the infamous one time cat house just south of conner montana.  so while our fellow rafters camped in the rain at paradise we ate a great dinner and played pool with the locals.  rocky knob has great food and the accommodations are what you expect for the $45 price for a room.  we drove back to sula to eat breakfast, used their front porch to climb into our dry suits and began the two hour drive to paradise.

heading over the summit the rain turned to snow at about the 5000 foot level making us even more glad for our rocky knob stay and having donned our dry suits in sula.

arriving at paradise i was surprised that not a single boat was in the water.  we arrived at 9:45am (mst) and were supposed to be pushing off by 10:30am.  we went about our business of unloading, rigging and getting our cats down the ramp.  suddenly here comes a cat around the corner and it was then i figured out that everyone else had put in on the creek, white cap creek i think it is called, and were floating down to the ramp at paradise.  white cap creek (below) runs past the campsite and can indeed be used for a launch if the water conditions are right.

as if on que this bald eagle flew upriver towards us and then perched for a great photo op.  great pic kathy!