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.