Flathead, Middle Fork

We 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.