When Mark Basso asked me if I wanted to go down to Montana to do some of the best creeks the state has to offer my immediate response was “heck yeah!” I’d heard many stories about how intense Mark could be but didn’t really realize the half of it until the trip began. Before we even got to Montana, or Montucky as he calls it, he wanted to hit two creeks. This was fine, they were both great and worth the time. As soon as we got off of our second run (Cataract Creek) we decided to drive all night so we would be at our first Montana creek in the morning. Good enough, I wasn’t going to be driving. Joey on the other hand, well that’s his decision. Joey was the third in our party of three. The loud Snowboarder from Calgary also gave a heck yeah to Marks Montana plan. So we were off like a prom dress in the two mini trucks that stood out like a sore thumb beside the monstrous trucks the cow boys from Montucky drove. The mini trucks never sat idle the whole time.

Titan Falls on Cataract Creek

Our first run was Hell’s Canyon, not exactly a name that inspires confidence but that’s where we went. This run quickly set the standard for the rest of our stay. Lots of volume in a little space made for big waves, holes and an ultra continuous run. Up to this point Joey had been doing a lot of bragging about how his truck was far superior to Bassholio’s and he was usually seen flying by all other vehicles on the back roads. As I waited at the bottom of the run for these guys to do shuttle I wondered what was taking so long. Basso came back first, weird, Basso drives way slower than Joey on roads like this. Basso quickly explains to me how Joey flew by him as usual, then about five minutes later he dodged a muffler in the middle of the road, another minute later, he saw Joey on the side of the road looking under his truck. Joey had knocked his muffler clean off along with most of his exhaust pipe. Joeys solution to the problem, I’ll just turn up the radio and fix it when I get home.

Deep in Hells Canyon

In the days that followed we hit up all of the classics in the area: East Rosebud, West Fork Stillwater, Big Timber, etc. East Rosebud Creek was basically one really long drop with no flat sections, not even pools. This was fine, the problem was that the creek happened to be on the edge of Yellow Stone National Park in the area where the forest fires took place about ten years ago. This made for massive amounts of wood jammed in the river and lots of scrambling for eddies on our part. Big Timber had to be the favourite though. With a totally different style than everything else on the trip, a vertical drop of over 720 feet per mile, and flows on the high end of the scale we were anything but disappointed. Everyone had told us it was way to high to run but we decided to go and take a look for ourselves. After scouting a couple of drops we deemed it good to go and suited up. We got ready in such a hurry that none of us remembered to bring any food. Half way down I spotted Joey chewing on some green stuff like a cow. It turned out he had found a patch of chives and has having at em’. I could smell his breath from ten feet away, and it wasn’t pretty.

No Worries, first drop on Big Timber Creek

Joey and I decided that Big Timber was a good way to end the trip and called it sending Basso into frantic mode, explaining to us multiple scenarios that could be pulled off in the one extra day he was able to stay. Never the less we held strong/fell asleep and went back to Canada. Better luck next time Bassholio!

Fine Line on the Big Tim

Special thanks to Joey Vosburgh for taking the great photos

Joey “the muffler” Vosburgh