2016 Bob Marshall Wilderness Open

[Dan Gregerson]

I applaud your kindness to stray dogs. Long live Bob!

…and congrats on completing the BMWO, injured, but augmented in company.

[Nick Aschenwald]

We had vigorously trained and planned to attend the BMWO for round 2 this year.

Determined to get a three day finish under our belts.

We had started training early in the winter and felt really good about our fitness.

We made a few gear upgrades and got our pack weights down.

We had scouted a ton.

• Dearborn up to Welcome Creek Cabin.
• Went up to Lion Cr. Pass a couple times.
• Floated the Swan from Van Lake Rd to Cedar CG, preparing to do it in the dark if necessary.

None of it mattered when my buddy that is a guide up in AK got the call to go up to work a week early.

We were very disappointed.

We still had worked really hard and wanted to do a trip together before he left.

We decided that we would leave a week earlier and do a early season Southfork Trip.

It was awesome. We had a ton of water and pretty good weather, right after that big rain/snow storm.

We put in right below Youngs Falls, spent a few days fishing and exploring the Southfork in the spring.

Had a blast in the gorge in lower Youngs Cr. It was perfect packrafting water. We had a swimmer, but fun was had by all.

Found some nice elk sheds, and a ridiculous amount of Morrells.

Towards the end of our float, I thought that we could sneak a few miles of Meadow Creek Gorge in at 6500cfs. Shortening the after float packout… Big mistake.

All the sudden we were in continuous big class 4 white water with no eddies in sight.

We had 2 swimmers but didn’t lose anything or anyone.

After about 4 or 5 big rapids we caught a sliver eddy on river left. Went ahead to scout a saw that we stopped about a hundred yards above a rapid that would have had dire consequences.

We packed up and walked the rest of the way through the black burn.

When we ran our shuttle Meadow Cr. camp ground was a ghost town.

But when we finished they were getting ready for the Backcountry Horsemans Association annual round up. There was probably 200 horse trailers and wall tents.

That might explain seeing more people, and dogs, in the Bob so early this year.

Overall we were really bummed that we couldn’t finish our trip.

But we made the best of it and had a blast.

Any trip in the Bob with good friends is a great thing.

Hope to see everyone next memorial day.

 

[Mike M]

Had a small Bob “rendezvous” Wed night here in Helena- Les, Micah, John and Thad and I met up over beers in Helena.  Got to hear details of Les and Micah’s trip- definitely bare boned and hardcore!  No bags or quilts, they just wrapped up around a small fire at night and then for only a couple of hours.  They got messed up at Lion Creek Pass at night (as did I!) and ended up following the drainage down; a very tough go said they :)

Everyone had some post event injuries to deal with; fortunately everyone has pretty much healed up, save Thad.  He was diagnosed with a ruptured tendon on his outer ankle- he’s better, but probably only 50% or so to being fully healed. He’s confident he’ll be good to go by archery season.

Fun to reminisce, talk strategy and look forward to next year.

 

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