2025 Year In Review

Hello Neighbor! It’s me, Madison, with my reflections on 2025

I am the luckiest river in the world to have so many people looking out for my well-being. Believe me, your kindness is never “water off my back” (a little river humor). It truly warms my riffles. I’d like to share what I’m grateful for as we head into the new year, thanks to all of you.

2025 brought many exciting moments throughout my waters. There were waves of primping, grooming, and health checkups from bank to bank. My namesake Foundation, the Madison River Foundation (MRF), teamed up with the Madison Conservation District’s Stream Team on their Tributary Blitz, testing the waters that run through my veins to be sure everything was flowing as it should.

Some of my side channels aren’t working quite like they used to (I’m not as young as I once was). But the folks at MRF, along with dedicated partners at Northwestern Energy, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and GEUM Environmental Consulting, initiated a restoration plan to guide them back toward a more natural state. It feels good knowing these channels will once again provide expanded habitat for fish and other critters that call my watershed home.

If you noticed a bit of ruckus on my bridge in Ennis this summer, it was thanks to a partnership between the USGS and MRF to install a shiny new monitoring gauge station. You can now check my flow, temperature, and dissolved oxygen as I pass through town. Trout just love dissolved oxygen, by the way. And there goes my modesty! You can now see it ALL, from Ennis FAS to Varney Bridge and south to Kirby Bridge, on the MRF website.

Another meaningful stretch of work in my watershed was the completion of Phase 19 of 20 on O’Dell Creek, one of my most important tributaries. That’s especially good news for the brown and rainbow trout that return each fall to spawn and raise their young.

Beyond restoration, there’s more good work unfolding along my banks. While healing my channels and tributaries matters deeply, education ensures that care for me carries forward. That’s where Mia and her team stepped in, bringing learning to life through programs for kids throughout my watershed and inspiring the next generation of caretakers.

MRF partnered with Ennis Middle School and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Trout in the Classroom, teaching fifth graders about trout lifecycles, habitat, and the environmental conditions that keep fish, and rivers like me, healthy. Starting that curiosity early does my waters good.

Each year, as the school year draws to a close, Bear Creek Days, hosted by the U.S. Forest Service, brings three full days of hands-on conservation education to hundreds of local students. Mia’s team was right there in the mix. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that one, yes, a fly. I’m a river; it tracks.

My future flows through people, just as it flows through the landscapes around me. Each year, MRF awards eight scholarships to college-bound students studying earth-science-related fields. Maybe a few of them will find their way back to Ennis someday and work alongside my friends at the Foundation.

All told, my pools were full and my buckets overflowing in 2025. I’m looking forward to a quiet winter to rest and settle back into the flow, because 2026 is shaping up to be an even bigger year.

See you on my water,
Madison