Flathead, Middle Fork
1. Schafer Meadows to Bear Creek (Upper Middle Fork of the Flathead)
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportWe paddled this section of the Middle Fork Flathead on the first two days of a five-day packrafting trip from Granite Creek to Blankenship Bridge. After setting our shuttle at Blankenship Bridge, we drove to the Granite Creek Trailhead and bivouacked there for the night. The next morning, we hiked the six miles on the Granite Creek Trail to the river. The trail is well-maintained, generally downhill, and used by stock. Our hike took about four hours, though it could easily be done faster.
Our put-in flow was 810 cfs. We paddled a couple of miles downstream to Upper Twenty Five Mile Rapid and camped at a nice site just below the rapid on river right. The following morning, we continued from Upper Twenty Five Mile Rapid to a gravel bar just upstream of Bear Creek. While some might consider the flow low, the river was fully navigable, and we were able to find routes through all the rapids, with only a few brief stops on shallow gravel bars.
The river was forested, with very scenic bedrock outcrops, particularly in the lower Spruce Park section. The deep pools in this series of rapids were beautiful. True to the name of the Great Bear Wilderness, we saw a black bear swim across the river and then impressively scramble straight up the riverbank.
Although a trail parallels the river for much of the way, it runs high above the river in several sections, making it easy to find campsites accessible only to river travelers. The Granite Creek confluence was a heavily used camping area with easy trail access, and several groups were camped around the confluence.
I ran this around 2,000 cfs. I hiked in and put in at the confluence of Morrison Creek and the MF Flathead. The first 1/3 was a bit too low and I had to drag my packraft a few times. Above Morrison Creek must have been a lot worse. The middle part was better but still boney. I flipped a couple of times when my boat goat lodged on rocks in the middle of a rapid. The last part was fine. I encountered one class 4 rapid in the middle of the run and 2 class 4 rapids in the Spruce Park gorge. None of them looked very runnable at these low flows with lots of FU rocks in the middle of potential lines. With more water to cover some of the rocks, I probably would have run them if I wasn't alone.
It was a great trip, but next time I would aim for at least 4k CFS especially if I was going to put in at Schaeffer. I'm assuming 4k would be enjoyable flows with good fishing.
The 1K lower limit for this is not correct.
On the low side of good but plenty of water below Granite Creek.
Spring trip on the Middle Fork Flathead.
Middle Fork of Flathead run on 6/30/2017 from Schaefer Meadows to Blankenship Bridge (70 miles). A really great trip. Flows were about 5,000 at West Glacier and probably 300-500 at put in.
I just posted a bunch of new pictures with captions for this river. I couldn't find the most reliable info for this section and wanted to update what was here. We started at Shafer running at 8200 and ended at Essex at around 6400 and I thought being a class IV boater that it was perfect! Check out the pics and enjoy.
Feel free to contact me at jgras@sailingscubaadventures.com for more,
Thanks to Glacier Whitewater and Mike from Helena for all the great info!
High Water the upper stretch is very dangerous use extreme caution
new online whitewater guide for montana area paddling - check it out! www.montanaeddyhop.blogspot.com
This was a great wave, about 6 feet tall, not to far from the take-out. The water was incredibly cold.
The only way to fly is with Red Eagle Aviation
Thanks to Corwyn Warwaruk for this photo!
This pic was taken just above the confluence of Bear Creek and The Flathead. The line was on the left channel left of center at what was probably a medium-high flow.
Thanks to Corwyn Warwaruk for this photo!
Thanks to Corwyn Warwaruk for this photo!
Hard to imagine more beautiful water!