MONTANA — On August 18, four women, who call themselves the MT River Oars, completed a 570-mile float on the Yellowstone River after years of planning.
“We do think we are the first woman team to do this, and camp along the way and not just go in a hotel every night,” said one of the oars, Shari Smith-Holley.
Smith-Holley has been friends with Celesta Hallam-Barwick for years. They first met over 20 years ago at work when, after only knowing each other for three days, Hallam-Barwick invited Smith-Holley on a river float. They have been friends ever since.
So, when Hallam-Barwick first came up with the Yellowstone River float idea, Smith-Holley couldn't pass on the fun adventure.
“I originally wanted to float all the way to Louisiana until I ran the numbers and realized I was not taking a year off of work. So, then I just decided to do the whole Yellowstone and invited my daughter (Michaela), and then Shari invited herself, and then Michaela’s friend Virginia invited herself and then it just grew from there,” Hallam-Barwick said.
Both Smith-Holley and Michaela Horn live in South Dakota. Horn's friend Virginia lives in Alaska. Hallam-Barwick is the only one currently living in Montana, so once the plan was set and everyone made their way to Livingston, they set sail.
“We started in Gardiner, Montana,” Horn said.
After their launch in Gardiner on July 24, the women spent nearly one month floating and camping along the river.
“We ended at the confluence there where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri,” Smith-Holley said.
It was a journey that created lifelong memories for the women, filled with many good days.
“I think it was really healing to be in nature for that long, and we had such a good girl empowerment vibe on our boat,” Horn said.
There were also some hardships they had to overcome. On the day Horn described as "the best worst day," she remembers everyone overcoming a difficult journey of emptying their raft to go around a dam in the river.
"We had to lift our boat over the embankment. It was not fun while we were doing it, but looking back, everyone was level-headed. We all had a common goal and worked so well together," Horn said.
Smith-Holley had just turned 50 years old before the trip and had been dealing with health problems. She said that she feared she wouldn't be able to make it through the entire journey. In the end, she was proud of herself for doing it all.
“I learned that I’m not broken and that I can still keep going. So, that was a huge exciting thing for me. Just more empowering that life’s not over at 50 yet,” she said.
The group already has plans for more river adventures, too.
“We’d like to hit every river in Montana now,” Smith-Holley said.
“Well there’s a lot of them, but we’re going to try,” Hallam-Barwick added.
