Veterans accept new mission: Riverboarding Alberton Gorge
Xsports4veterans operations leader Anton Johnson waits to river board down the Alberton Gorge with veterans. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
Montana River Guides owner Mike Johnson teaches veteran Thomas Bond safety skills before river boarding. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
Mike Johnson teaches veterans safety skills before river boarding down the Alberton Gorge. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
Anton Johnson checks veteran Louis Matteau’s helmet before heading down the Alberton Gorge. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
Veterans walk down to the Sandy Beaches put-in with their river boards. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
Louis Matteau, Thomas Bond and Anton Johnson gear up at Montana River Guides. (Maggie Dresser/Mineral Independent)
After serving in the U.S. Army for more than 20 years with four deployments, Louis Matteau is nervous as he suits up to riverboard down the Alberton Gorge, a river with class III rapids.
“The river’s kind of scary,” he says. “I’m used to still water.”
Matteau, 51, is part of Xsports4vets, a nonprofit program that takes veterans on extreme outings. The organization works with Montana River Guides, a raft company in Alberton, to take veterans down the river.
While this isn’t the first time Matteau has river boarded down the gorge, he hasn’t done it for a few years and says he’s looking forward to it. River boarding the gorge doesn’t require prior experience, but it entails squeezing into a wetsuit and flippers while laying on a board, similar to a boogie board, splashing through rapids.
“It helps them get outside and build relationships with other veterans,” Montana River Guides owner Mike Johnson said.
Mike has worked with Xsports4vets since it originated in 2010. His company takes veterans on river boarding and whitewater raft trips down the gorge every summer.
Anton Johnson, who leads operations at Xsports4vets, says the group started with only river boarding but later expanded to other sports like skiing, skydiving and rock climbing.
He says it began as a sucide prevention program and was originally meant for veterans injured in combat, but it eventually grew to serve all veterans.
Thomas Bond, 41, has been involved with Xsports4vets for about seven years. He says it’s helped with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his Traumatic Brain Injuries after 13 years in the British Special Forces.
“It helps me being with other like-minded veterans,” he said.
Bond has been on many other trips with the program like skiing and whitewater rafting down the Lochsa River, but this is his first time going river boarding down the gorge.
Bond raves about the program, and says he would have gone over the edge if it hadn’t been for Xsports4vets.
Xsports4vets holds activities all year long, and veterans can go river boarding every Monday night at 6 p.m. with Montana River Guides from July until mid-August.
Anton says the organization has seen a positive response from veterans and it continues to grow.
“We wouldn’t keep doing it if we didn’t have such a strong following,” Anton said.
Both Matteau and Bond say they will continue to take advantage of Xsports4vets and that it’s helped them as veterans.
“For me personally, I don’t think I’d be here today,” Bond said about the program.