I would like to be able to align an unknown number of columns with an unknown height. Since I do not know how many columns there will be it is not ideal for me to use multiple
You really don't need bootstrap to handle this. Here's one potential solution using inline-block. I imagine it's compatible with bootstrap.
.box { margin: 15px; width: 80px; background-color: grey; display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; }