It’s the water.
When I lived in Michigan I ran the Great Lakes Relay every summer. It was a three day, team relay from Detroit to the top of the state. I had a lot of fun. But that race had no definite theme, no reason beyond simply running hard for three days with my friends. (except perhaps the idea of running away from Detroit….sorry, Detroiters)
I had roots in Montana, and always intended to move to the Bozeman area so I could spend more time at our family ranch, Roaring Creek Ranch, where the official source of the Missouri River, Hellroaring Creek, flows out of the mountains and into the valley. Then I began to fantasize: Would it be possible to find a relay route from Three Forks -- where the Missouri river by name begins -- to our Ranch? How cool would that be, to create a three day relay from where the Missouri proper begins to its ultimate source 200 miles to the south? The idea became an obsession. So I recruited my friend David Reed-Maxfield, who became equally obsessed, to help me establish the route. After three summers of scouting, we did it. So, finally, I had my reason to move to where I always wanted to live, Bozeman and the Montana mountains.
This race is a celebration of the headwaters of the Missouri river. The 3rd longest river in the entire world forms piecemeal along the relay route. We begin at the official beginning of the river named the Missouri, at Headwaters State Park, and then explore its many tributaries further south: The wide, majestic, and gently flowing Jefferson River; the narrow and swift Beaverhead and Ruby Rivers, the high and beautiful Madison River; the modest and meandering Red Rock River; and finally -- the ultimate origin of the Missouri-- tiny and icy Hellroaring Creek, 3,745 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. These waters, wild and undammed, create the Missouri River.
Do we follow Lewis and Clark’s route? Up to a point. The Corps of Discovery followed the Jefferson River from Three Forks to Beaverhead Rock, and then the Beaverhead River up to Red Rock River, and then finally Trail Creek westward to its source. They believed that they had found the ultimate origin of the Missouri, when in fact they had not.
The genuine source, Brower Springs at the head of Hellroaring Creek, lies some 100 miles east of Trail Creek, at the extreme west end of the Centennial Mountains. The Headwaters Relay finishes three miles below that Spring, on Hellroaring Creek as it begins its journey through the Centennial Valley floor. To get there, we deviate from Lewis and Clark’s route at Beaverhead Rock, and run southeastward up the Ruby, the Madison, and eventually to Hellroaring. In other words, the relay attempts to forge a route that Lewis and Clark could have taken, had they known a bit more geography.
We ask you to respect these waters and their environs, and leave them as pristine as you found them. Please, therefore, refrain from using soap or shampoo in the rivers at the campgrounds, and dispose of waste in the appropriate bins provided by the campgrounds.