The current was strong; I held onto the clothesline that had been strung across the river to aid our crossings. The river got deeper with each step: knee, then thigh, then crotch. Finally, when I was just about up to my waist, I found myself struggling to hold on. I looked downstream at the rescuers who were standing in the river, wondering exactly where I would float to if my feet slipped and my hand released. I kept moving forward, and after what felt like a long time, but was likely no more than a few seconds, I started rising back up out of the river. My focus shifted to shore.
John Colter had no lifeline, no rescuers down river when he and John Potts were confronted by a party of hundreds of Blackfeet as they tried to paddle up the Jefferson a few miles west of Three Forks: the location of the confluence of rivers that form the Missouri and where the race took place. Potts resisted the warriors’ entreaties to come ashore, shot one Indian and got riddled with arrows. Colter went ashore likely thinking of the myriad ways he might be put to death. Being stripped naked and then given a running start was likely the best he could have hoped for and it was all he needed.
The start of the 47th reenactment of Colter’s run, now put on by the Big Sky Wind Drinker’s, is civilized enough. We line up on pavement waiting for an early 19th century mountain man, returning from Rendezvous to his beaver traps, to fire his 50 caliber Hawkins black powder rifle into the sky. A train passed us by while we waited; no Blackfeet warriors were in view.
After more than a mile on pavement, we start climbing a long steep hill up into dry
grasslands and cactus, country reminiscent of what Colter crossed as he raced from the Jefferson to the Madison River. A modern-day Colter was given a 100-yard head start. He was chased up and down hills throughout the race with racers who passed him earning prizes for doing so. As in all races, it is a battle for position. The only position the original Colter could afford to be in if he was to survive was first.
There was no trail when I first ran this race back in 1983. Just orange topped stakes mixed into the brush to point the way. Now the trail is marked with cairns and is obvious in most places so we get to focus on views and camaraderie. We raced for miles but none of us had to push to the point where we were spouting blood from our nose in a race against death. Sure, we were at risk of tripping on a rock on a steep downhill, but there was no risk of suddenly feeling a spear rip into our backs.
We ran to the river with nervous anticipation. It was always cold, but the water crossings add a memorable challenge to this race, one that makes it stand out. In 1983 we made a beeline for the river running over the railroad tracks, and crashing through downed trees and thick brush. After two racers sprinted in front of an oncoming train some years back, BNSF would no longer allow us to run across the tracks. Now we follow a circuitous trail that takes us under them. Dipping under the railroad trestle, marked as Colter's Beaver Dam, gave us our first feel of cold water and muck. A short burst of speed later and we were at the Gallatin River. Nearly two inches of rain fell earlier in the week, that water was making its way downstream. The river was deeper than in past Colter's I've run.
Colter provided firsthand accounts of his race for survival. Word of it was then passed among mountain men and was suitably embellished. In accounts I’ve read, he turned to face the one warrior who had outpaced all the others and was within range of spearing him. The warrior tripped, possibly from the exhaustion of the chase or from the disorienting effect of Colter’s bloody face. Colter grabbed the warrior's spear, drove it through him pinning him to the ground, and continued to the Madison. One version has him grabbing the warrior’s blanket before continuing, another has him continuing totally naked. Once in the river, one version of the story has him hiding in a snag, in another he swam up into a beaver lodge. In the one that was read to us at the race start, he was also in a snag, but he found his way inside the trunk of a hollowed-out cottonwood.
The river is cold. He would have had to keep himself out of the water or he would have become hypothermic while the Blackfeet poured over every inch of ground. Beaver lodges have shelves built in them that sit above the water line. If that version is accurate, he could have stayed relatively warm and dry. If he were lucky enough to find a hollowed-out cottonwood in the snag that also might have worked. We’ll never know for sure.
He emerged from his hiding place after dark and continued downriver for some miles. He had to make his way to Manuel’s Fort, a fur trading post at the confluence of the Big Horn and Yellowstone Rivers some 150 miles east: in the fall of 1808 it was the only outpost of American civilization in the region. He had to travel at night through the mountains until he got beyond the area we now know as Bozeman Pass as he expected the Blackfeet would be waiting for him there. He survived on roots for seven days and turned up at the fort emaciated, but alive. It is a great story of survival worthy of its many retellings and embellishments, and worthy of our race in his honor.
Once we left the river, we had to run on river stones for a short distance. Those stones were under a few inches of water this year, but then we turned, headed up the bank and sprinted to the finish. For the fastest among us, the roughly 6.6 mile race with 1,100 feet of each climbing and descent, was over in 49 minutes, and it was over in 2:28 for the slowest. My guess is that Colter would have been glad to join in. He might even have been satisfied if he didn’t finish first.
The afterparty
(All the photgrahs in this article were provided by race organizers Darryl Baker and Kurt Buchl. Thanks guys!)
For anyone who is curious, links to my stories about this year's Bridger Ridge Run and Old Gabe races are below.
Ridge Run:
Old Gabe:
When will it be your turn to be the modern-day John Colter?