Forest Service OK’s permits for raft companies

The Flathead National Forest late last month approved extending the special use permits for four raft companies and one nonprofit to operate on the North and Middle Forks of the Flathead River.

The permits were extended another 10 years for the Montana Raft Co., Wild River Adventures, Glacier Raft Co., and Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp.

The permits were due to expire April 30.

The Forest Service extended the permit for Great Northern Raft Co. for two years, with the possibility of it being extended another eight years if the company returns to an acceptable performance rating by the end of the two-year term.

Hungry Horse Glacier View District Ranger Rob Davies said Great Northern did not have a major violation last year, but it did go over its allotted use days in 2024.

“They went over by a little bit,” he said. 

He said the problem was more a bookkeeping error on their part, but the Forest Service was “holding a high standard,” and that it was important for a company to account for all its customers on the river and for the Forest Service to hold the company accountable.

Great Northern, like the other raft companies, has been in business for decades.

The companies are also able to ask for up to 3% more service days than their previous year’s use of the lower Middle Fork of the Flathead (which has the whitewater section), but the total number of service days for that stretch is capped out at 86,000.

In 2024, the combined number of service days for that stretch was 70,826, but during the pandemic in 2021, that rocketed to more than 101,000, but then dropped in subsequent years.

Davies said the 86,000 cap is in line with the proposed action that was released earlier this year for the Comprehensive River Management Plan for the Three Forks of the Flathead River.

The Forest Service is working on a new river plan for the three forks as the old plan is decades old and river usage across the board has surged, both in outfitter and private use.

A draft of the plan is due out later this summer.

Davies said the 3% increase comes with caveats. The Forest Service monitors the lower Middle Fork and if it starts seeing more than 10 parties a day on its trips, they can stop any increases in permitted use from outfitters and guides, he said. 

“We’ve been close to bumping up against that,” he said.

In addition,  if the final river management plan calls for a lower number of service days for that section, the permits have language that would defer to that number.

On the fishing side, the cap outside of the wilderness boundary is 4,002 service days, as set by a biological opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Inside the Great Bear Wilderness, the total number of guided service days is 456, Davies said, which has been the standard for at least 20 years. Outfitters typically reach that number, unless water levels are really low, he noted.

But only two of the five have permits to guide in that section, which typically runs from Granite Creek or Shafer Meadow downstream to Bear Creek.

The season in the wilderness is relatively short on the Middle Fork, as the water gets too low to float without dragging a raft through every shallow section.

The total number of service days is calculated by multiplying each service day by the number of clients on the trip. For example, a three-day trip with five clients would be 15 service days. A two-hour trip with 10 clients would be 10 service days. 

All of the permits were approved under categorical exclusion from the National Environmental Policy Act. 

Davies acknowledged that many people wanted lower limits and shorter permits (two years) until the CRMP was finalized, but the CRMP might not be done in two years, though the Forest Service has previously said it hopes to have the river plan completed by 2026.