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.