Pandemic Crowds Bring ‘Rivergeddon’ to Montana’s Rivers – Has the Last Best Place bragged a little too loudly and too often?

“The rivers are getting the living snot pounded out of them everyday.”

As urbanites flock to forests and rivers to escape coronavirus threats, trailheads are cramped with parked cars and fishing on the Madison River is like a Disneyland ride.

“You’re in a flotilla with five boats in front of you and five in back of you,” said Carl Hamming, a board member of a local chapter of Trout Unlimited, which wants to limit commercial guides on the river. “It seems like everyone was flocking to Montana this summer,” he said.

By Jim Robbins