A rejuvenating river runs through it
SPRING RAINS ATOP deep snowpack fueled mid-June floods that inundated at least 100 homes, forced more than 10,000 tourists to evacuate, and caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage in the Yellowstone region, especially in southern Montana. Weeks later, the effects on the ecosystem were just beginning to emerge.
Two weeks after the historic floods, I walked down a gravel road in Montana’s Paradise Valley with geomorphologist Karin Boyd, who runs a private consultancy in Bozeman focused on restoring river systems. We entered a normally bustling fishing-access site, closed due to the flooding. With no anglers or campers, it felt like a ghost town. The Yellowstone River was still high and muddy, around 30% above
