The Yankee Jim Canyon raft race: Gardiner raft guides leave it all on the water

The rush of the Yellowstone River, the crunch of gravel, and a chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner” filled the air at the mouth of Yankee Jim Canyon on Saturday night. Dozens of raft guides, Gardiner locals, and seasonal employees held their right hands over their hearts. Their left hands held beer cans, glitter tubes, dog leashes, and hats.

As the anthem ended, guides representing each of Gardiner’s four raft companies: Flying Pig Rafting, Yellowstone Raft Company, Wild West Rafting, and Montana Whitewater ran down to their boats, eager to launch into the 2026 iteration of the annual “raft race.”

“We’re hoping for a win, but we’re really just here to have fun,” Katelyn Harper, a guide with Montana Whitewater, said. “I love the community, the energy, and the white water.”

Last year, Montana Whitewater won the race. A fourth year guide with the company, Harper said she looks forward to the sprint every summer. Dressed in jorts, a neon-green kid’s PFD, and Chacos, Harper’s apparel mirrored her teammates.

Guides draw straws to determine the lineup before drifting down the Yellowstone. Once they pass a cattle guard on U.S. Highway 89, Spencer Benhoff, a manager at Wild West, said. “It’s a full sprint.”

“There’s a lot of good white water, and you gotta pick your line right, or you can flip or get caught in some pretty strong eddies,” Benhoff said. “You get bumped around by the other boats, you’re just paddling your ass off.”

The nearly 6-mile route takes boats through Yankee Jim Canyon, where guides have to navigate Class II and III rapids, including Yankee’s Revenge, Big Rock, and Boxcar. The Carbella Bridge, located less than a mile north of the end of the canyon, marks the end of the race. On average, it takes boats about 30 minutes to run the stretch.

“I’m stoked. Every year, we get a new crew of people. We just go out there and paddle, and leave it all on the river,” Jaxon Muller, a manager at Flying Pig, said. Muller has been guiding with Flying Pig for seven seasons.

The last time Muller and Flying Pig won the raft race was in 2022.

“It was the year of the flood,” Muller said. “Today is the four-year anniversary.”

On June 13, 2022, a 500-year flood event, driven by heavy rainfall and snowmelt, caused the Yellowstone River to swell to unprecedented levels. The inflated water levels washed out roads and buildings, rerouting parts of the river.

The Carbella Bridge was a casualty of the floods, collapsing when a waterborne house crashed into it.

While the infrastructure was since been rebuilt, the flood scars remain visible from widened beaches at river access points like the Yankee Jim put-in, where driftwood and debris piles remain stranded in trees and on shorelines through the canyon.

With a year-round population of about 800 and nearly a million annual visitors passing through the Yellowstone gateway town, building community among locals and seasonal workers is important, per Benhoff.

“It’s competitive, but we’re all just here for a good time. It’s a good community builder; it gets everybody meeting each other at the start of the season,” Benhoff said.

As the four rafts fought their way downstream, a posse of dozens of fans loaded into a caravan of vehicles, leapfrogging from pullout to pullout.

Flying Pig took an early lead, followed closely by Wild West. YRC and Montana Whitewater trailed the front-runners but stayed close together for the first stretch of the race.

“It’s a blast every year,” said Leslie Young, the owner of the Tumbleweed Cafe in Gardiner. Young strategically picked three pullouts across the race route, beating other vehicles to them before the areas got too crowded.

At each stop, fans poured out of their vehicles, climbed over the guard rail, and shouted down at the racers hundreds of feet below. Anticipation mounted as spectators craned to see which boat would materialize from behind the rocky bands in the canyon walls.

As the race neared the finale, with less than a quarter of the route left, Flying Pig clung to their lead over Wild West, widening the gap to nearly two boat lengths. Crews from both boats paddled relentlessly until they vanished from sight.

Just as the bow of YRC’s raft came into view, spectators booked it to their vehicles, eager to get to Carbella Bridge.

Parked cars scattered Tom Miner Creek Road like litter as fans, and their dogs crowded the south end of the bridge. Cheers erupted like fireworks as the two frontrunners paddled mercilessly down the Yellowstone.

“Update: Pig and Wild West in front. YRC trailing. M Dub, nowhere to be found, but we still love them anyway,” one spectator narrated.

Neck and neck, Flying Pig and Wild West fought until the bitter end, paddles entering and exiting the Yellowstone in rhythms dictated by the guides. In a final push, Flying Pig pulled ahead, earning its crew coveted bragging rights and a wooden paddle passed between winners and displayed in the raft shops, Stanley Cup-style.

Fans waved cardboard signs, banged on the metal beams of the bridge, and unleashed shouts of encouragement and joking taunts of discouragement.

As the Flying Pig and Wild West rafts floated lazily to the takeout, guides back-flipped out of the boats.

About a minute later, YRC crossed the finish line, followed by Montana Whitewater, whose guides crowded into the back of the raft, throwing its bow into the air and dipping some of the guides into the river.

“We’re a pretty tight-knit family, and it’s pretty awesome to see everyone working together and paddling their hearts out, and leaving it on the water,” said Muller as his teammates chanted his name following the race. “It’s all fun and games. We all have fun at the end of the day, and there’s a great team aspect to it all.”