We had a dream Montana experience when we went Kayaking in Yellowstone Country with the Bozeman Kayak Company on the Madison River. Check our the details on our experience below for the full scoop – we’ve even included a Bozeman Kayak Company Video Review too so you can join us on the river! Kayaking on the Madison River was one of our absolute FAVORITE excursions on our Yellowstone Country adventure. Beautiful, relaxing, and a real adventure in nature.
Kayaking in Yellowstone Country
We highly recommend booking a Kayaking excursion on your visit to Montana. You’ll find there are several gorgeous rivers in Montana and one of the best ways to experience Yellowstone Country is to actually get out on the river and be in nature.
The Madison River was overall calm and very easy to kayak. We had ZERO kayaking experience and my 11 year old son, 13 year old daughter and I had practically zero problems kayaking or steering. We loved every second of the adventure!
The Bozeman Kayak Company gave us 2 guides for the 3 of us too! We were told they normally include 2 guides so that one can stay in front to guide everyone and one guide can hang behind in case anyone is a slower paddler or runs into problems – like hitting a clunk of weeds or running into the river bank!
We spotted a beaver, kayaked through a canyon, saw lots of fish jumping, and overall just enjoyed this beautiful gorgeous day experiencing the Madison River on the water. The kayaking was truly EASY and not hard to do. We absolutely LOVED it and we’ll definitely be booking more kayaking adventures in the future!
Bozeman Kayak Company Video Review
Take a peek at our video review to get a real feel for what it’s like to go Kayaking on the Madison River.
Bozeman Kayak Company Details
For more info on booking with a kayaking adventure in Yellowstone Country Montana, check out the Bozeman Kayak Company website here. We had a wonderful experience with them and definitely recommend it.
We left for our trip out of Bozeman. You’ll meet your guides and they’ll drive you & your group in their van with the kayaks to the river. We drove a scenic 20 mins to our drop off point at the Madison River. We actually had 3 guides with us which I thought was fabulous! (Normally you have 2 guides, but we happened to also have a guide in training attending for the day!)
Our guides pointed out wildlife, helped us avoid any big rocks during the small rapids we encountered, and gave us great instructions on kayaking. We saw a beautiful river pelican and even a beaver! The guides were fun, interesting, and a great group of guys to hang out with.
I loved how the Bozeman Kayak Company had one guide hang behind and one lead in front. At one point during the first 20 mins kayaking, my son Kyle just steered the wrong way and ended up quickly banking his kayak in some weeds. As a novice kayaker myself, it would have been very hard for me to paddle up river to help him out! Luckily, there was no worries because I knew our extra guide was helping him so Kenzie and I could confidently just keep on floating until we all met up as a group again on a calmer part of the river.
Tip: There is no actual storefront to the Bozeman Kayak Company. When you book your trip, you are meeting at a “rendez-vous” point in a shopping center. I was totally confused on this point so driving around looking to meet at a store since I clearly missed the memo that I needed to meet at a rendezvous location to then head to the river. This wasn’t explained clearly to me on the website, so when I put the random address they give into my GPS, I was confused driving all over a 1 mile area because I wasn’t seeing the right store location where I assumed I was supposed to arrive. To clear up any confusion, know that you are simply meeting your guides with their van complete with a trailer of kayaks in a very large parking lot by the Dollar Store shopping center and a Landscape company. This lot was located near a Chipotle and eventually I found my way. YAY! So when you book the trip, call and ask for some landmarks so you know where to meet exactly & avoid the stress of thinking you are lost!
Note: Thanks to Yellowstone Country Montana and the Bozeman Kayak Company for hosting us on this adventure to facilitate our review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are our own.