Chapter Twelve - Lewis and Clark Senior Style

Chapter Twelve – Lewis and Clark Senior Style

Columbia Gorge

 
At the end of their outbound journey the Corps was anxious to reach the Pacific Ocean and so were we.  We enjoyed every moment of the trip, but we had been traveling for a month with countless visits to Lewis and Clark Interpretive Centers.  I was pretty much done with the Lewis and Clark trek.  Russ—not so much.  We stayed in Lewiston, Idaho only one night and were ready to move fast through the last miles of our journey to the Pacific.

Two hundred years earlier, Lewis and Clark had left their horses with the Nez Perce at Weippe for safe keeping, and Clark had supervised a work crew to make new canoes to finish their journey to the ocean by river.  On October 6, 1805 the men of the Corps dipped their oars into the Clearwater River and began their downstream journey.  The Nez Perce assured Lewis and Clark that following the river would take them ultimately to the Pacific.  The men rowed with determination and speed.  Eventually, the Clearwater River would converge into the Snake River and finally the Columbia River, then the ocean.  There was a definite, “Let’s go boys” attitude in the speed of the men to get to their destination.

Russ and I had two days of driving to the ocean.  The first day we traveled alongside the Snake River toward Kennewick, Washington, where the Snake River converged with the Columbia River.  The topography was in constant change.  An hour into the drive we were traveling through endless rolling fields of wheat, later we passed groves of Sycamore trees being grown for paper and eventually apple orchards, then we saw grape vineyards on otherwise barren hills opposite the river.  The change in the look of the land was slow but dramatic; for we had begun the day in a pine forest and ended it amidst barren hills.  Clark wrote when he arrived at the end of the Snake River, “Worthy of remark that not one stick of timber on the river.”  Once Russ and I reached Kennewick, we visited the Sacajawea State Park and Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  (Yes, another Interpretive Center). 

 Beginning of Drive Near Lewiston, Idaho

 End of Drive Near Kennewick, Washington

The Interpretive Center at Kennewick sat in a park beside the Columbia River.  At the park, two canoes, similar to the ones made by Clark and his crew, were on display.  The most interesting thing that happened to us at the park was that we were approached by a uniformed Washington State Parks employee, while walking around park.  The Parks employee was very nice and asked us if we were from Texas.  When we said,” yes”, he explained that he was looking for us because he didn’t want to give us a parking ticket.  We hadn’t purchased a parking ticket, because we assumed we could buy it inside the center.  He said that if we intended to visit more sites in Washington, we would be smart to buy the annual pass for $30.  Otherwise, we could be given a $100 ticket.  We were grateful for his advice and quickly bought the annual pass-a bargain at twice the price.

Columbia River at Convergence with Snake River

Reproductions of Expedition Canoes

We left Kennewick a hot July 22^nd morning and drove west on the Interstate along the Oregon side of the Columbia.  Soon we were in the Columbia Gorge where the Columbia cuts a half mile swath between barren cliffs that reminded us of photographs of the moon’s surface.  The Gorge goes on for a hundred miles and ends at the Dalles Dam, where trees once again scatter across the landscape.  The views were spectacular at the Dalles Dam, and after lunch we    

Columbia Gorge Cliffs

Dalles Dam with Mt. Hood in the Background

 

Historic Oregon Route 30 near the Dalles

decided to take the Historic Oregon Route 30 Highway to enjoy more of the beautiful scenery.  In the 1 ½ days driving since leaving Lewiston the scenery had been the highlight of the trip.  We thought about the wonders that the Corps had been seeing, as the first European Americans to be rowing down the Columbia two centuries ago.  They were impatient to reach their destination, but they had to be overwhelmed by the beauty of everything they saw.  Once at the Dalles we saw nothing but tree covered hills until we reached Seaside, Oregon, the last stop of our odyssey across half the continent.

Chapter Eleven Lewis and Clark

Chapter Eleven – Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Lolo Pass – Missoula

We left Great Falls and the dramatic Portage to drive to Missoula and explore the site of the most difficult task the Corps accomplished – crossing the Rockies.  Missoula, like Great Falls, was an unexpected treat.  We thought it would be more “cowboyish” like our home state of Texas.  Instead it reminded us more of a Colorado ski resort.  The town is surrounded by scenic mountains and is built adjacent to the meeting of three rivers--one of them named after Clark.  There was a surprising variety of fine restaurants-better than we had seen anywhere on the trip, and Russ couldn’t wait for us to try them.  For our first night Russ chose the Blue Canyon at the Hilton hotel.  The hostess seated us at the only empty table in the crowded restaurant and took care to make certain we at least had water until a server could get to us.   She was all smiles and one of the people you remember, when you are on the road for a long time and dependent on others for every comfort or service.  The menu and food were outstanding, making it worth the wait.

We spent our first evening planning the next day, which would be the first of a two day exploration of the Lolo Pass, the route used by the Corps to cross the Rockies.  The Corps was no longer traveling by river when they reached the entrance to Lolo Pass.  They had purchased horses near Lemhi Pass from Sacajawea’s native tribe, the Shoshone, and used the horses to haul their supplies a little over a hundred miles up the valley north to Lolo.  The trip took a  total of ten days.  The captains had only been able to purchase thirty-three horses and three colts, a number sufficient to carry their supplies, but no riders.  The corps themselves, including officers were on foot.  In addition to horses, the Shoshone had provided them with an Indian guide to steer them across the Rockies.  The captains called their guide Old Toby.

(The Shoshone had made two suggestions to Lewis and Clark, and they rejected both.  The first suggestion was that the captains wait until spring to cross the Rockies, because they were getting a late start.  The Shoshone also recommended they take a pass further south, which the Indians said was an easier route with less snow.  The captains refused the first suggestion because they wanted to move forward, and the second because Jefferson’s instructions were to follow the Missouri to its source, then portage to the source of the Columbia River.  Jefferson’s hope was that they would find a water passage across the continent.  The captains believed they had to stay on their current latitude to intersect with the Columbia River.)

Old Toby guided the Corps to a camp site just below Lolo Pass.   Indians on both sides of the Rockies had been using the camp site and the Lolo Trail for hundreds of years.  Tribes on the eastern side of the Rockies used the trail to get to the salmon on the other side; whereas tribes on the western side used it to get to the buffalo on the prairie.  Lewis and Clark called their camp site Travelers’ Rest and stayed several days to hunt for meat and dry it for crossing the mountains.  It was early September and there was frost at night and snow on the surrounding mountains.

I had arranged from Austin to have my allergy shot at a local doctor’s office in Missoula the morning of July 18.  (It is amazing what you can accomplish with our modern day communication. Any ailments the men of the Corps experienced were generally treated with powerful laxatives nicknamed Thunderclappers.)  After my doctor appointment we drove twenty miles from Missoula to Travelers’ Rest State Park adjacent to Lewis and Clark’s original camp site.  As we entered the Visitor Center, we were fortunate to walk in on the presentation of a Park Department employee, who explained the archeological research that had been done at Travelers’ Rest to determine exactly where the Corps had pitched their tents, set up a position for melting lead to replenish their supply of bullets and even where they dug their latrines.

After visiting the museum we walked through the Travelers’ Rest camp site which had been privately owned land from the mid-19^th century until the Montana State Parks Department acquired the land a few years ago, preserving it as a historic site.  Fortunately, the land had been untouched by farming or construction, and the Montana Parks Department was able to preserve the site in a condition much like it looked when the corps camped there 200 years ago.

Travelers Rest Camp Site

                            

Leaving the Visitors Center and Travelers Rest camp site we drove up into Lolo Pass, which it turns out was the easy leg of the mountain crossing.  I happened to be talking on the phone with my niece when Russ drove into the throat of the pass, and I instantly lost the connection.  After the pass, the route turns from difficult to almost impassable. The Lolo Trail is an extremely rugged and beautiful route, where railroad companies have twice failed to build a track.  Even the two lane road we were using hadn’t been completed until 1962.  Soon into the drive we reached a sign marking the original Lolo Trail and stopped to walk a short distance up the narrow and heavily forested pathway.  We tried to visualize what it would be like to follow it covered with snow and laden with fallen logs and underbrush. ( Note from Russ – hard to get Sue on this trail because she didn’t have her bear whistle with her).

                                                         Lolo Pass Trail

On September 11, 1805 the Corps left Travelers’ Rest to follow Old Toby onto the Lolo Trail which climbed up one mountain ridge after another, descending between ridge tops to traverse saddles.  The Indians had cut the path atop the mountain ridges instead of the valley, because both sides of the Lochsa River, which flowed through the pass, were steep and rocky.  The perpendicular shores prevented Indians and railroad companies from cutting a path alongside the river.  The view of the Lochsa River drifting in and out of sight beyond steep rocky banks was spectacular.  When not looking at the river, we glanced above us to the mountain ridges over which the Corps led their horses for over a hundred miles through snow and fallen logs.

The Corps’ crossing of the Lolo Trail was a brutal, freezing crawl of a journey that took eleven days.  The men were cold, hungry, wet and miserable.  As a mother, it was amazing to me that Sacajawea kept her infant alive in such horrible conditions.  At one point of the journey Clark had been waiting about two hours for the rear to catch up, he wrote, “the rear of the party came up much fatigued and horses more so.  Several horses slipped and rolled down steep hills which hurt them very much.  The one which carried my desk and small trunk turned over and rolled down a mountain for 40 yards and lodged against a tree, broke the desk.  The horse escaped and appeared but little hurt.”  Camping that night they melted snow for water and ate the remainder of one of the three colts they had slaughtered as food through the trek.  They awoke in the morning to four inches of additional snow.  Three days later Clark wrote, “I have been wet and as cold in every part as I ever was in my life.” 

                        Expedition Campsite at Montana/Idaho Border

The Lolo Pass Visitors Center is located at the Montana/Idaho border, and behind it is the September 13, 1805 Lewis and Clark campsite.  While in the Visitors Center we spent a long time talking with an older Parks Department employee, who had been a physicist in his earlier life.  He told us that the Expedition occurred during a mini ice age that lasted from the mid 1500’s to the mid 1800’s, and that during those years the winters came earlier and were harsher than subsequent years.  I don’t know if his information was correct, but it was pretty interesting.

We took a brief walk around the September 13 Campsite behind the center.  The site was beautiful with lush wild flowers in a lovely plateau encased in tall fir trees.  For us it was perfect summer weather, and we tried to imagine the cold damp discomfort at the same site 200 years ago.   We took the long drive back to our comfortable room in Missoula to shower and go out to dinner, then went to a French restaurant called Pearl Cafe.  The food and service were wonderful.  We shared a pate’ appetizer, bottle of Bordeaux, and a main course of perfectly prepared Mixed Grilled Fish.  It was a dining experience far different than the Lewis and Clark Expedition, where the Corps had a dinner of melted snow and reheated horse meat .

After dinner we walked the downtown streets and crossed a bridge over the Clark Fork River to watch young people wading or floating down the current in inner tubes.  The weather was delightful and much cooler than Great Falls.  The following day we played golf at a nearby course and on our

                     Missoula Bridge Overlooking the Clark Fork River

last day drove the full distance through the one hundred mile Lolo Pass to the high plateau grass lands of the Weippe Prairie.

It was at Weippe that Clark, moving ahead with an advance party, met the Nez Perce Indians, two days prior to the Corps arrival behind him.  The Nez Perce had never seen white men, and were initially suspicious.  According to Nez Perce oral history, an old woman of the tribe, who had been kidnapped in her youth by another Indian tribe than sold to a white trapper, approached the chiefs of the tribe as they were deciding whether or not to kill the white visitors.  She had been treated kindly by white people, and pleaded for the lives of the Corps.  The chiefs were convinced by her 

                       Weippe Prairie where Clark First Met Nez Perce

arguments and provided the expedition with food while the exhausted men recovered from their trek through the mountains.  I didn’t know if the Nez Perce oral history was true, especially since the Indian tale ends with the old woman dying the very next day, but it made a good story.  If the tale was true, Lewis and Clark were totally unaware of the woman’s intervention on their behalf.

The drive up to the Weippe Prairie to see the site where Clark first encountered the Nez Perce was one of our major challenges.  We had to turn off the main highway and drive a curvy country road twenty miles to the tiny Idaho farming community of Weippe, where the road dead ends.  It was a Saturday, and the Visitor Center, which doubled as the community library, closed early.  In the parking lot was a huge sign stating that across the street was the location of the meeting of Clark and the Nez Perce.  We read the small print at the bottom of the sign, which informed us that the sign was moved from its original site four miles away twenty years ago.  (OK, now what do we do?)

 

We started driving up and down the streets of the small town that looked like one of those movies where only the buildings are left, because some kind of gas had killed all the inhabitants and melted their bodies.  There was not a person in sight.  We searched for signs indicating an Historical site, hoping one would lead us to the exact location of the Clark and the Nez Perce meeting.  We finally found a sign that pointed us to the meeting site and followed its instructions three miles down a dirt road into the country side.  We were determined Texans - well Russ was.  I was generally content to get reasonably close to the real site.  One prairie field looks pretty much like another to me.  With the exact prairie in the background of Clark’s meeting with the Nez Perce I took Russ’ picture, and we drove the twenty miles back down the country road until we reached the highway which took us to our destination for the night which was Lewiston, Idaho.

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten – Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Great Falls – The Portage

Great Falls was an unexpected treat.  Our room was lovely overlooking the Missouri, which was almost blue instead of its normal mud color.  The hotel was across the river from the downtown area, and we decided to walk across the bridge to scout the town on foot.  As we hiked the bridge, a large brick building with a tower dominated the landscape on the other side.  We approached it and read the sign stating it was a restored railroad station.  The doors were locked so we peeked through the windows and determined that the vintage structure was currently being used as an office building.   Russ wanted to ignore the No Trespassing sign at the railroad tracks and walk across them toward town.  I refused and insisted we use the under pass.  As we walked under the tracks, local artists were painting a mural depicting the city’s history on the concrete walls of the underpass.  When we spoke to them, they explained that they were volunteers.  They were painting colorful scenes of buffalo and Native Americans followed by the railroad, the plow and then commerce.  Russ said it must be a metaphor of some sort.

 Downtown Great Falls had the abandoned look of most downtown streets on a Sunday afternoon, plus it was hot.  We walked in one direction through the town to the busy commercial highway where most of the fast food restaurants and small businesses were located, then turned back toward the river through an older neighborhood adjacent to the downtown.  At the river we followed a pedestrian path alongside it and then discovered a lovely park where geese and ducks kept cool in the summer heat.  We passed tables with large families of picnickers enjoying a Sunday afternoon in the shade of aging cottonwood trees.  Everywhere we walked we sensed a tradition of civic pride.  The residents were eating in a downtown park, the artists were enhancing the beauty of their town, and, instead of being leveled, the old railroad station had become a landmark that was in current use.  It was a very pleasant place to visit.

The significance of Great Falls for the Lewis and Clark expedition was that the Corps was forced to spend nearly a month (June 16-July 14, 1805) at the location because five waterfalls impeded their progress by boat.  The Mandan Indians had told the captains about the falls and Lewis and Clark expected to portage one waterfall in a single day.  When Lewis scouted ahead of the Corps, as was his habit, he discovered five waterfalls extending over a distance of ten miles.  He described the first two waterfalls in his journal: 

I continued my rout across the point of a hill a few hundred yards further and was again presented by one of the most beautiful objects in nature, a cascade of about fifty feet perpendicular stretching at right angles across the river . . . to the distance of at least a quarter of a mile.  Here the river pitches over a shelving rock, with an edge as regular and as straight as if formed by art, without a niche or brake in it; the water descends in one even and uninterrupted sheet to the bottom where dashing against the rocky bottom rises into foaming billows of great high and rapidly glides away,   hissing flashing and sparkling as it departs the spray rises from one extremity to the other to 50 f.  I now thought that if a skillful painter had been asked to make a beautiful cascade that he would most probably have presented the precise image of this one; nor could I for some time determine on which of those two great cataracts to bestow the palm, on this or that which I had discovered yesterday; at length I determined between these two great rivals for glory that this was pleasingly beautiful, while the other was sublimely grand.
The task of bypassing the waterfalls was enormous for the Corps.

In addition to the mammoth task of conceiving a plan for portaging the falls, Lewis and Clark were acting as Sacajawea’s physicians.  She had become deathly ill in the days prior to the portage, and while Lewis explored the falls, Clark was treating her symptoms, including bleeding her.  (The Corps hadn’t reached the Shoshone tribe yet, and she was essential to their negotiations for horses.)  She refused to take any medicines, and Clark suspected it was due to her husband’s instructions that she rejected treatment.  When Lewis returned from his exploration of the waterfalls, Clark went forward to survey the falls and surrounding area to devise a portage route.  Lewis took over caring for Sacajawea. 

The first challenge facing Clark was to find a location to exit the river that was barricaded by high cliffs on each shore.  He chose a creek as an outlet, which they named Portage Creek, and the men paddled and pulled the boats two miles up the creek, where they dragged them ashore to dry out.  While the boats dried, the men set up Lower Portage Camp and cached some of the equipment.  Next they chopped and hauled in cottonwood logs, using the wood to construct wheeled platforms (i.e. wagons) on which to carry their supplies and six boats.  Clark surveyed and marked an eighteen mile route across the prairie-the easiest and shortest distance he could devise.  The first two miles were up a steep ascension to the plateaus, then sixteen miles across the cactus ridden prairie to the destination camp site they called, obviously, Upper Portage Camp.

As Clark developed the route, Lewis remained with the main body of men and continued to doctor Sacajawea.  He remembered seeing a sulphur springs a short distance from camp and sent several men to fetch the waters for Sacajawea.  After taking the waters Sacajawea felt well enough the next day to get up.  (Possibly the fact that Clark wasn’t bleeding her anymore helped.)  She went out onto the prairie, ate too much of the local roots and became ill again.  Lewis was furious at her husband for not making certain she followed his instructions to avoid eating anything beyond broth.  Lewis repeated the sulphur water treatment and her health once again improved. 

While Sacajawea recovered, the Corps began the ordeal of hauling six boats and their remaining equipment to Upper Portage Camp.  It required four round trips and eleven days to complete the task.  The men were plagued with bad weather including rain squalls, hail and even gale-force winds, not to mention the heat.  (We were in Great Falls at the same time of year, and we can verify the heat they endured).  The men used the high winds to their advantage by putting up sails and catching the breeze to sail the wheeled boats across the prairie.  The heat was so intense that they stripped off their clothing, but were pelleted by a hail storm that left them battered, bleeding and bruised.  The trek was horrendous and the worst experience yet of the journey.  On the last trip from Lower Portage Camp Sacajawea was recovered enough to walk the eighteen mile portage with Jean Baptiste on her back.  Miraculously, the seventeen year old girl had kept the five month old infant alive throughout her illness.

At Upper Portage Camp the Corps spent two weeks repairing the boats and re-constructing the elements of an iron boat (called the experiment).  The experiment was conceived by Lewis and hauled nearly two thousand miles by the Corps.  After the men pieced together the iron boat’s framework, they covered it with elk skins caulked with a homemade water repellent concocted by Lewis, then they put the experiment in the water.  It sank.  Lewis was embarrassed and Clark set off with a small party of men to find logs suitable for the construction of two additional dugout canoes they needed to replace the pirogue they were leaving behind.

Russ and I know all the above facts about the portage because on Monday morning, July 15, we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Giant Springs.  Clark called Giant Springs, “The largest fountain or spring I ever saw”.  Giant Springs was a beautiful spot of flowing water over granite rocks.  Next to it was a fish hatchery with some giant rainbow trout in a display pond.  It was

Giant Springs

 

a lovely hike after which we returned to the center to tour the exhibits, and decided that the Center was the best we had seen up to this point of the trip.  The exhibits traced the expedition from its

beginning to conclusion and did not focus on just the events in Great Falls.  There was also an amazing two story sculpture depicting the men of the Corps dragging one of the boats from the creek to the plateau. 

                                                                 Portage Sculpture

We watched a film on the portage and by the end of our visit were fully educated on all facets of the feat.  Of course, now we had to visit every site in person that played a part in the portage.  Not an easy task when many of the areas are on private land or at the end of long isolated dirt roads over a span of eighteen miles.  We did it though, and it took two days.  We saw all five dammed waterfalls, both ends of Portage Creek, the sulphur springs (sort of), and both lower and upper portage camps. 

Rainbow Falls

View Down River from Rainbow Falls

 

The Great Falls

Lower Portage Camp on Portage Creek

After visiting the center’s exhibits, seeing the movie and driving to and viewing most of the major sites of the portage, we had intense admiration for the fortitude and resourcefulness of Lewis and Clark and the men of the Corps.  The completion of the task was unbelievably Herculean, and they had done it in only a month.  The problem was that the portage had cost them time, which they dearly needed in order to cross the Rockies before the onset of winter. 

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine – Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Mutiny and Gate to the Mountains

Our last night in Butte we had a mutiny in our hotel room.  Up to this point I was content to be the Lieutenant and follow Russ as Captain on our trek along Lewis and Clark’s trail.  That night, July 13, I found it necessary to rebel and retake my accustomed position as co-captain.  After our night in the spacious suite in Billings, Russ agreed with me that the comfort of staying in two rooms outweighed the difference in price over the cost of a single room.  The problem was that he was in the habit of booking our rooms just before our arrival in a town.  His system  meant that all the suites were sometimes taken, and he had to settle for a lesser room.  Lieutenant Pacey (me) was not happy with settling.  I wanted those suites even if it meant having to plan ahead.  (OK, I admit it, I am a planner.  Operating spontaneously is not my style.)
Russ already had a suite at Great Falls (our next destination), but despite all his efforts he could not get one in Missoula, the following stop.  “OK,” I said, “that means we need to plan the hotel rooms for the whole rest of the trip.”  Russ replied, “but that doesn’t give me the freedom to change plans.”  My expression must have been firm when I answered, “this searching for a hotel room at the end of each stay is driving me crazy.”  Russ was silent as he continued his hotel search on the Ipad.  Fortunately, we had a lot of “stuff” and I went to the computer and began my own search for hotel suites for the remainder of the trip.  I kept asking him the next stops and how long he planned to stay.  He answered, and I booked one hotel then proceeded to search for the next hotel.  With the exception of one night, I booked us all the way to our family vacation week in Seattle.  I sat back in my chair, content.  I had a plan.  Russ still hadn’t said a word in opposition.  He merely answered my questions.  The man is smart.  He knows a good mutiny when he sees one.

The next morning was July 14 and we were to drive to Great Falls.  Russ had not only planned for us to travel back and forth between Lewis and Clark’s outbound journey and Clark’s homebound route, his trip plan sometimes moved backwards against the Expedition’s chronological calendar.  When we left Butte, we were leaving the Expedition at Lemhi pass just before they crossed the Rockies.  At Great Falls we would visit the site where they were still on the Missouri and had to portage passed five waterfalls.  It didn’t matter.  It was all just history. 

The drive from Butte to Great Falls took us through Helena, then a long stretch of grass lands without a town or even a truck stop.   In his research Russ had discovered a boat ride twenty miles north of Helena called Gates to the Mountains.  A private company had been running the boats through White Rock Canyon since 1896.  Lewis and Clark had passed through the canyon in July of 1805, and Lewis named its entrance Gates to the Mountains (thus the name of the boat ride).   There were no signs advertising the boat ride, but Russ had made note of the turn off that I am not sure the GPS knew existed.  We assumed that once again we would be the lone patrons of this out of the way site.  The turn off lacked a sign indicating we were heading for the boat ride, but a large mobile home coming from the opposite direction happened to turn onto the isolated road just before we got to it.  We followed the RV impatiently as it lumbered slowly down the gravel road we hoped would take us to the boat ride (still no signs).  We were concerned that possibly the boats only ran once or twice a day and feared we might miss the ride all together.   (Those are always the thoughts you have when you are behind a lumbering RV, especially when you can’t see around it.)  After three miles the RV eased left, and we saw a large lake on our right, then a ranch house and finally a building with a sign reading; Gates to the Mountains. The RV chugged to the left to an upper parking lot which we hadn’t seen because the vehicle had blocked our view.  Directly in front of us we saw four empty parking spots with signs that said, “Please save for our Senior Patrons”.  Hey, we were seniors, and Russ quickly grabbed one of the spots, and at last we had cut off the RV.

Worried that we were going to miss the ride, we went into quick action.  We both had to go to the bathroom desperately, and I searched out the restroom while Russ looked for the place to buy tickets.  I was the only woman in the restroom downstairs, then quickly climbed upstairs to find a lone ticket seller and no line and no Russ.  Not sure if I should buy our tickets, I asked the ticket seller if a grey haired man had bought two tickets.  He said a lot of people have bought tickets.  “When is the next boat ride,” I asked.  He pointed to the sign, 11:00am, which was three minutes away.  The boats left every hour from morning to late afternoon.  “You board the boat downstairs,” the ticket seller added.  I dashed back downstairs and there was Russ coming out of the men’s room.  “Do you have the tickets,” I asked.  He raised his hand holding two tickets.  Trees blocked our view of the lake and the boat dock, so when we walked around the tall trees we were surprised to see a line of people waiting for the boat that was pulling into the dock to unload its two dozen passengers.  Where did all these people come from?

About twenty of us piled onto the boat which would easily hold double that number.  There were families, young couples and middle age couples.  How had they heard about this place I wondered, and how had they found it when there had been no signage to advertise it?  For once we were not lone sightseers but amidst a crowd.  The pilot-guide steered the boat away from the dock into the

wide lake.  He pointed to where the river turned south of the lake and explained that further up the river was Hauser Dam, then he steered us in the opposite direction where the river flowed into White Rock Canyon.  Enormous cliffs guarded each side of the canyon entrance.  They were majestic and beautiful, and grew more so as the boat slowly made its way for the two hour ride up then back through the canyon.

On July 19, 1805, Lewis said of the canyon, “This evening we entered the most remarkable cliffs that we have yet seen.  The towering and projecting rocks in many places seem ready to tumble on us…a spot except one of a few yards in extent on which a man could rest the sole of his foot.”  The canyon, abutting the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, looked just as it did when Lewis and Clark passed through it.  Except for a few tent campers at sites that could only be reached by boat, the canyon was only habited by wild life.  We were viewing nature in one of its most pristine and majestic states.  It was spectacular.

The pilot- guide told the history of the Hilger family, who owned the ranch house we had seen on our approach, and who had run boats up and down the canyon for over a hundred years.  He explained that the cliffs were made of an unusual folded limestone and that geologists frequently visited the area because of its uniqueness.  Later, the guide pointed out the location of the Mann Gulch fire where thirteen smokejumpers lost their lives in 1949.  The wind changed, trapping them in the flames.  For two weeks, the news had focused on the tragedy of nineteen firefighters losing their lives in Arizona in a similar way, and we felt the heartbreak of the story all the more.  Near the site of the Mann Gulch fire was the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s campsite, one of the few open areas wide enough for a group of thirty three people to camp.

                                       Campsite of Lewis and Clark in White Rock Canyon

As the pilot-guide turned the boat around at the end of the canyon to return us to the lake, he steered the boat so we could see the sight that Lewis saw when the expedition entered the

                              Entering the Canyon Lewis called the Gates to the Mountains

canyon and he named it Gates of the Mountains.  Once again we were experiencing a view just as Lewis and Clark had seen it.

 Location where Boat Stopped along the Canyon

On the return trip through the canyon the boat stopped at a spot where we could stretch our legs and pause to enjoy the beauty of the cliffs.  The canyon was truly one of the most beautiful places we had been and a highlight of the trip.  When we arrived back at the dock two hours after our departure, there was an even longer line of tourists waiting to board our boat.  Clearly, we had discovered a well-known secret.

 

Chapter Eight

 Chapter Eight - Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Missouri Headwaters – Lemhi Pass - Butte

Early the morning of July 11 we packed the car for the drive to the Headwaters of the Missouri with Butte as our final destination.  The distance from Billings to Butte was only 240 miles, a 3 ½ hour drive, but we would be gaining altitude all the way rising from 3100 feet in Billings to 6300 feet in Butte.  Traveling West we would follow the Yellowstone River (Clark’s homebound route), then leave the Yellowstone and turn north to intersect with the Missouri River at Three Forks.  At Three Forks we would once again be following Lewis and Clark’s outbound journey toward the Pacific.  Now that you have had a geography lesson I will continue my narrative. 
As we continued alongside the beautiful Yellowstone River we passed hilly terrain and fertile land unlike the desert-like landscape of eastern Montana.  Occasionally, the hills were interrupted by lush meadows occupied by meandering cattle.  We discovered Montana to be a beautiful but thinly populated state.  We left the Yellowstone at Livingston and continued east toward the important stop of the day, the Headwaters of the Missouri River.
The Missouri River is formed by the confluence of three rivers marking its Headwaters.  (I know—more geography.)  Russ had researched the location of the confluence and discovered that it was in an unpopulated area north of Three Forks.  The turnoff for the Headwaters was not marked from the highway, but Russ had set the GPS to steer us to the isolated site.  Ours was the only car in the parking lot, and a lone sign identified the significance of the site.  There were no other visitors and no Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  It seemed strange to us, because the Headwaters of the Missouri was one of the most important milestones of the expedition.

Thomas Jefferson had instructed the two captains to follow the Missouri as far as possible, then portage to the Columbia watershed, where the explorers could return to river travel until they reached the Pacific Ocean.  Jefferson was trying to make the dream of an all water route across the continent a reality through Lewis and Clark’s expedition.  Jefferson’s instructions made the discovery of the Missouri Headwaters a key step in the process of crossing the continent.  On July 23, 1805 Lewis, who had advanced ahead of the Corps, climbed to the top of a 200 foot rock tower and surveyed the beauty of three completely different rivers flowing into the one huge muddy river he had been following for over a year.

Two days later Sacagawea, who was traveling with the Corps under Clark, recognized the area as the place she had been kidnapped five years earlier.  With Clark’s arrival the two captains surveyed the area and agreed that not one of the forks was large enough to be called the Missouri.  They named the three rivers the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin.  Which river must they follow to connect as close as possible to the Columbia River was the next question.  They chose the Jefferson and they were right.  Once the Corps paddled their canoes onto the tributary, they were no longer on the Missouri.  They were on the Jefferson taking them, they hoped, to Sacagawea’s people.

The rock tower Lewis climbed when he arrived at the confluence has been named Fort Rock.  With no other visitors in sight Russ and I climbed it and again saw a vista nearly identical to the view seen by Lewis and Clark.  Like the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri the area was untouched by civilization.  When beginning the trip I had assumed we would be looking at cities and houses and have to imagine what the terrain was like for Lewis and Clark.  Surprisingly, many of the most

The Site Where the Gallatin Joins with the Jefferson and Madison to Form the Missouri

significant sights we were visiting remained in their natural state.  We ended up climbing several overlooks in order to see the entrance of the separate rivers into the valley, until all three rivers flowed out as one river, the Missouri.  Geography was not my strong suit and I found this wonder of nature fascinating.   The heat, altitude and exertion, however, were beginning to take their toll on me.  Russ finished the drive to Butte, which is a much smaller town than Billings, and located, as the name suggests, amidst beautiful buttes.  After arriving at the hotel I collapsed on the bed and Russ went out for fried chicken and I fell asleep immediately after dinner.  (OK this approaching seventy may be a bigger deal than I thought.)

The following day Russ planned for us to view Clark Canyon Reservoir, a dammed lake that marks the end of Lewis and Clark’s journey on water.   I was still suffering from altitude sickness, but started taking ibuprophen every few hours and began to feel better.  Russ planned a day of driving not hiking and he steered the car south to the end of the Beaverhead River (an upper tributary of the Jefferson River), where in August of 1805 the men of the Corps were no longer paddling the canoes, but literally dragging them by rope up the river.  I pretty well knew how they felt; I was doing a bit of dragging myself.

As the men of the Corps towed the canoes against the current, Lewis and Clark knew they were near the end of the water route.  Lewis explored ahead with three men as Clark remained with the Corps overseeing the dragging of their tons of equipment to the end of the river.    Russ and I walked along the edge of the damned lake that had once been the end of the river, and again we were the only visitors to the site.  A sign pointed out the corner of the lake which was the Corps’ 1805 campsite now underwater.   We then decided to take the road ahead through the Lemhi Pass.  We were tracing the steps of Lewis and the three men, who had gone ahead to try and make contact with

 

Sacagawea’s tribe, the Shoshone.  The Shoshone had horses that Lewis hoped to buy to travel over the Rockies.  The stream that had once been the Missouri, was now a trickle of water.  One of Lewis’ men straddled the stream proclaiming he thanked his God that he had lived to stand astride the mighty Missouri.  A man with a sense of humor.  Lewis and his three men trekked on, crossing the Continental Divide, and we did the same.  Fortunately, we had met a couple who took our picture.

 

Continental Divide

We were at 7300 feet altitude, not good for a person suffering from altitude sickness.  To get to the Continental Divide on the Lemhi Pass we had taken a thirty mile dirt road only open in the summer, and we had passed into Idaho and the Pacific Time Zone.  Instead of returning to Butte by the route we came.  We decided to continue on the dirt road until we came to the point where Lewis met the Shoshone.

Meadow where Lewis met the Shoshone

The Shoshone were a poor tribe, who kept to their side of the mountains and lived mostly on salmon.  The more aggressive tribes like Blackfeet and Hidatsa attacked them when they crossed the mountains in search of buffalo, witnessed by the fact that the Hidatsa had captured Sacajawea at the Missouri Headwaters and killed several of her companions.  We reached the meadow where Lewis met the Shoshone and convinced them to return with him to meet Clark, who was still leading the Corps dragging the canoes up the river on the other side of the pass.

The Shoshone chief, Cameahwait, agreed to follow Lewis to the other side of the mountains bringing a few of his warriors and extra horses for the Corps and their supplies, but Cameahwait feared they were being led into a trap.  Several of the Shoshone women wailed the death chant when the chief left his camp. Cameahwait and his warriors followed Lewis back over the pass to the end of the river and awaited Clark and the Corps.  Sacagawea happened to be walking ahead and was the first to see the Shoshone warriors.  She signaled to Clark that her people were ahead, and she forged ahead in the water with Jean Baptiste on her back.  She reached the shore and recognized Cameahwait as her brother.  A pretty amazing coincidence, and very fortunate for Lewis and Clark as Sacajawea spoke the language and assisted in the negotiation for more horses and a guide to lead them across the Rockies.

After stopping at the meadow where Lewis met the Shoshone we drove on to Salmon, Idaho and visited a Sacajawea museum.  It had information about the Shoshone who were the original native population in the area, but the museum didn’t have any information we didn’t already know about Sacajawea.  It was after five in the afternoon when we left Salmon, and we still had a long drive back to Butte, over one hundred miles and a re-crossing of the Continental Divide twice and a return to our time zone.  Both of us had an exhausting day and we collapsed in bed after dinner at a fast food restaurant.  The next day was a day off.  We spent it taking a short walk through Butte, a lovely little town, a soak in the hot tub and a very long nap.  We are, after all, seniors.