Family outing turned tragic on Gallatin

By KELLYN BROWN, Chronicle Staff Writer

The two brothers who died when a guided raft tipped in the Gallatin River south
of Bozeman Thursday were in town for a family wedding, authorities said Friday.

Gallatin County Coroner Duncan MacNab said that John Staley, 58, of Algonquin,
Ill., and Vernon Staley, 56, of Minden, La., likely drowned.

County officials confirmed that one of the victims was the father of the groom
in an upcoming wedding and the other was the groom's uncle.

The day after the tragedy, Louis Bishop, owner of Yellowstone Raft Company,
provided more details about the accident. He talked about the frenzied efforts
to rescue the men from the frigid water. In the end, he said, "there was
nothing more we could do."

Family and friends of the Staley wedding party had set off down the Gallatin
early Thursday afternoon, Bishop said.

Just past House Rock, a large mid-river boulder near the beginning of a
mile-long stretch of rapids in Gallatin Canyon, one of the rafts got stuck on
what is known as Whale Rock.

Minutes passed.

"This raft was going nowhere," Bishop said.

Downstream, the other three rafts in the party, which made it safely through
the section of the river, were tied to both sides of the Gallatin's banks. Raft
guides and a safety kayaker nearby were waiting to see if the raft would tip.

It did.

"We were going through the process of getting the raft off the rock when it
flipped." Bishop said.

The guide and his five passengers were dumped in the river and headed
downstream.

Three women fell near the kayaker, who is there as a safety precaution on all
guided Yellowstone Rafting Co. trips. He helped them reach a rope that had been
thrown from shore and they were pulled to safety.

The Staley brothers, however, were heading downstream.

Bishop said the kayaker took off after them. He reached one of the brothers
quickly and pulled him to shallow water.

The kayaker then ejected from his boat to reach the second victim, swam to the
banks with him in his arms and began CPR.

But it was too late.

And what is unclear is how the first brother ended up back in the swift current
after he was pulled near the bank of the river. He ended up floating downriver
to the other three rafts.

"I can't comment on that," Bishop said. "I don't how he got back in the river."

The man eventually died.

Bishop acknowledged a few customers had subsequently canceled their trip as a
result of the accident but said, "Most of them are sticking with us."

It was a tragic, Bishop said. "But we're holding our heads high. We feel we did
everything we could do to prepare for this. And take a look at our track
record."

The two deaths were the first rafting fatalities in Yellowstone Rafting Co.'s
25-year history.

But the accident did happen in the same area where a New Jersey man died two
years ago when a raft he was on flipped. That raft was guided by a different
company.

Gallatin County Sheriff Jim Cashell said Friday his deputies will continue to
investigate the brothers' deaths.

He said the stretch of river near House Rock has caused problem for rafters in
the past.

"They definitely get flipped over there more than a couple times a year," he
said.