By Fischer Genau DIGITAL MEDIA LEAD
This June the Gallatin River will once again host one of southwest Montana’s splashiest traditions.
The Gallatin Whitewater Festival will return on June 28 to bring together whitewater enthusiasts for three races down the Gallatin River’s Mad Mile. Hosted by the Wave Train Kayak Team, a nonprofit dedicated to youth kayaking programs, the festival will take place at the pullout across from the Lava Lake trailhead on U.S. Highway 191 and aims to raise money for Wave Train’s youth scholarship program.
“It’s important to have community events like this to bring together all the folks that are having so much fun on this river year-round in one area,” Brooke Dunnagan, Wave Train’s longest serving whitewater coach, told EBS.
Close to 80 paddlers participate in the festival each year, competing in the slalom race, downriver race, or boater cross. Anyone can register to compete, and the event is open to the public, although parking is limited along U.S. 191, and Wave Train instructs people not to cross the road.
“We welcome spectators, and I wish that more people could join us, and we try to just be really clear in terms of not crossing the road,” Dunnagan said.
Racers will first take on the slalom course, weaving through red and green gates in an Olympic-style test of skill. Next comes the mass-start downriver race, which kicks off from the rock beach near the Lava Lake trailhead and barrels through the legendary House Rock Rapid.
“It’s absolutely chaotic,” Dunnagan said. “But it’s a lot of fun. We do a big safety briefing with the participants, and they know that ultimately this is for fun, and yes, people do get competitive, but I’d say it’s more on the friendly side.”
The final showdown is for rafters, who follow the same route as the kayakers, navigating the Mad Mile’s narrow chutes and exposed rocks to reach the finish line.
Deep roots
The roots of the Gallatin Whitewater Festival date back to the 1970s, first as an informal meetup of paddlers called the Gallatin Get Together. In the 90s, organizers redubbed it the Gallatin Whitewater Festival. When one group of organizers moved on, someone else would come along to maintain the tradition, and the festival kept changing hands until Dave Zinn came along in 2012.
Zinn, now the executive director of the Wave Train Kayak Team, arrived in Bozeman in 2009 after graduating from the University of Oregon in Eugene. That same year, a group from the Northern Lights Trading Company hosted the festival, but they moved away and two years passed without one. As a long-time whitewater enthusiast, Zinn decided to take up the mantle.
“When I moved here, I didn’t know a lot of the whitewater community, and there wasn’t something that brought people together,” Zinn told EBS on the phone. “And given that that’s something I really valued, I decided to try to do something about it.”
Zinn put on the festival until 2018, when he could no longer invest the time and energy the event required. But after the pandemic, some of his employees, including Brooke Dunnagan, approached him about bringing back the festival.
Bringing kayaking to kids
Since then, the Wave Train Kayak Team has hosted the Gallatin Whitewater Festival and used it as a fundraiser for their youth scholarship program. All funds raised go towards partial and full scholarships to help new paddlers afford the Wave Train’s kayaking programs.
“The cost can be expensive, and we want to make it more accessible for anyone who’s interested in joining,” Dunnagan said.
Funds primarily come from the festival’s sponsors, as registration fees only cover the cost of operating the event. This year, Toyota is the festival’s presenting sponsor and will be buying a kayak for Wave Train to raffle off to one lucky paddler.
Zinn, who learned to kayak as a youngster, said it’s important to him to share the sport with a younger generation.
“A number of years had passed before I met another young kayaker, so it’s pretty fun for me to get to share that experience with young people today, and not only share the experience with one or two people, but build an entire youth whitewater paddling community in the area,” Zinn said.
Many kayakers who learned the sport through Wave Train compete in the festival, including the advanced high school team, who Dunnagan said are very excited to participate this year.
“It’s a really special thing to spend a whole summer on this river, teaching youth participants how to paddle and seeing them grow as people through kayaking, and then have this cherry on top event for one day that highlights a whole season of community gathering through this river,” Dunnagan said.
Dunnagan says the festival is an opportunity for whitewater enthusiasts who wouldn’t normally cross paths to convene in one place, and a chance for the community to celebrate the Gallatin River together. Zinn agrees.
“I really do think it’s super valuable to see 50 to 100 kayakers all in the same place, sharing stories and getting to know each other, and supporting each other and helping each other out,” Zinn said. “It’s just a really cool thing to watch that happen.”
