Another year, the Flathead may be a much simpler proposition to
negotiate. Owing to the unusually heavy snows of last winter, which had
not commenced to melt on the mountain-tops until July, the river was
high. In a normal summer, I believe that this trip could be
taken--although always the boatmen must be expert in river rapids--with
comparative safety and enormous pleasure.
There is a thrill and exultation about running rapids--not for minutes,
not for an hour or two, but for days--that gets into the blood. And
when to that exultation is added the most beautiful scenery in America,
the trip becomes well worth while. However, I am not at all sure that it
is a trip for a woman to take. I can swim, but that would not have
helped at all had the boat, at any time in those four days, struck a
rock and turned over. Nor would the men of the party, all powerful
swimmers, have had any more chance than I.
We were a little nervous that afternoon. The canon grew wilder; the
current, if possible, more rapid. But there were fewer rocks; the
river-bed was clearer.
We were rapidly nearing the Middle Fork.
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