UPPER MISSOURI RIVER DRAINAGE 



Boundaries: Three Forks to Smith River 



Drainage size: 20,9A1 square miles 



Main stem length: 168 miles 



Tributaries: Prickly Pear Creek, Seventeenmile Creek 



Cities/Towns: Townsend, Helena 



Access: U.S. Highway 287, Interstate 15 



The trip from Helena to Three Forks just about dusk on a 

 summer's evening has got to be one of the most spectacular in 

 Montana -- the wide open sagebrush grassland valley and foothills 

 of the upper Missouri, dotted with antelope and farmhouses, 

 catches the sun as it sets and holds it there. Hidden from much 

 of the valley is the river that carved it -- the mighty Missouri, 

 as it begins its 2,475-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Transformed from a clear and fast running mountain river to a 

 powerful, deep and muddy plains river, the mighty Missouri winds 

 through a broad valley between the once gold-rich Elkhorns and 

 the Big Belt Mountains on its way to the great plains of central 

 Montana. 



The river gets off to an impressive start as the Madison, 

 Gallatin and Jefferson rivers converge near Three Forks to begin 

 one of the longest water journeys in North America (Figure 8). 

 The journey is not uninterrupted, however, and in the 168-mile 

 course from its headwaters to the Smith River, the Missouri has 

 been dammed four times, losing 64 miles of free-flowing river. 

 Traveling downstream from Three Forks, we encounter Toston (or 

 Broadwater), Canyon Ferry, Holter and Hauser dams, constructed for 

 irrigation storage, electrical generation, and/or flood control. 

 Toston Dam, a run-of- the- river project with a 40-foot dam was 

 constructed in 1940 for irrigation. Canyon Ferry, the largest of 

 the four reservoirs, constructed and operated by the Bureau of 

 Reclamation as a multipurpose project, was filled in 1953. Hauser 

 and Holter dams below Helena, also run-of-the-river reservoirs, 

 were completed in 1904 by the Montana Power Company for power 

 generation. 



Fisheries 



A total of 505 miles in 100 reaches were rated for their 

 fisheries values in the upper Missouri drainage (Tables 39 and 

 40). An additional 90 reaches in 122 miles could not be rated due 

 to insufficient fisheries data. Eleven percent of the miles were 

 rated as Class I sport fisheries (17 percent of the state's) and 

 10 percent were rated as Class II. These percentages were nearly 

 identical to the state averages. Two percent of the stream 

 reaches in the upper Missouri, totaling less than four miles, 

 received a Class I habitat and species value. Another nine 

 reaches in 13 miles received Class II values in this category. 



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