Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven - Lewis and Clark Senior Style
Pompey’s Pillar - Billings

With broad smiles of relief on our faces we watched the trailers, oil storage tanks and trucks of Williston shrink in our rear view mirror.  Our next destination was Billings, Montana.  We were not only leaving Williston we were also leaving Lewis and Clark’s outbound route along the Missouri.  Our travel plans did not include retracing the Lewis and Clark return routes, so Russ devised a schedule for visiting the major sites of both the outbound and return journeys of the Corps of Discovery.  Our first deviation from the chronological order of Lewis and Clark’s expedition was to follow the Yellowstone River, which was the route of Clark’s group when the captains split the Corps on their return trip from the Pacific Ocean. 

We were traveling West, but in July of 1806 Clark and his portion of the Corps were paddling their canoes with the current instead of against it, as they had on the Missouri.  Charbonneau, Sacajawea and her child, Jean Baptiste, were part of Clark’s group.  Jean Baptist was a two month old infant when the corps left Fort Mandan in April of 1805.  He had survived to be an energetic seventeen month old toddler when the expedition reached the Yellowstone.  Clark had grown immensely fond of Jean Baptiste over the course of the journey and called him little Pomp.  (Pomp is the Shoshone word for chief.)

As Russ drove alongside the Yellowstone, I read some of our information pamphlets and learned that it was the only major river in the United States that had no dams.  It was a prettier river than the muddy Missouri and flowed freely through mostly unpopulated areas, including Yellowstone National Park.  The date was July 10 and we were experiencing our hottest day since leaving Texas.  Usually the temperature was in the mid-eighties with an occasional dip into the seventies.  Today the high was ninety-five.

Our planned stop en route to Billings was Pompey’s Pillar and the adjoining Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  The Pillar itself was a massive sandstone outcropping that rose 150 feet above the banks of the Yellowstone River with no civilization in sight.  Clark named the cliff Pompy’s Tower after Jean Baptiste, Sacajawea’s child.  It has since been renamed Pompey’s Pillar and has been designated a National Monument.  Clark climbed the outcrop on July 25, 1806 and carved his name and the date into the sandstone.  The terrain surrounding Pompey’s Pillar was mostly flat and climbing the sandstone outcrop provided him a magnificent view of the surrounding terrain including the distant Rocky Mountains that the Corps had just crossed.  Clark described the pillar as a “remarkable rock” with an “extensive view in every direction.”  We climbed the two hundred steps built by the National Park Service and had a view almost identical to Clark’s.  We saw his signature on the rock which is the only remaining on-site physical evidence of the Corps of Discovery’s expedition.  It was very cool.

240 Steps to Pompey's Pillar

Yellowstone River

William Clark's Signature

 



The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Pompey’s Pillar was one of the best we visited.  The exhibits explained Clark’s return route and the obstacles he overcame, as well as information

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Pompey's Pillar

 

on the Shoshones, Sacajawea’s native tribe before she was kidnapped by the Hidatsa and taken to the Mandan villages.  We especially liked the air conditioning.  After our climb up two hundred steps on a ninety-five degree day, we were both spent and ready for our hotel.

We sank into the car and Russ drove the remaining miles to Billings, one of the largest cities in Montana.  He had booked a suite at the Country Inn and Suites, and it was our first time to have a living room and bedroom instead of just a bedroom.  I checked in at the reception desk and felt dizzy.  Apparently the heat, climb up Pompey’s Pillar and Billings’ altitude of 3100 feet had taken its toll on me.  (I am almost seventy years old.)  I told Russ I was feeling woozy as we hauled our ‘stuff’ up to the room.  Russ put the key in the door, and I stepped into paradise.

Before me was a refreshingly cool, darkened living room with a couch and chair opposite a coffee table.  Beyond the furniture were two glass curtained doors inviting entry into a separate bedroom.  After nearly three weeks of living in single hotel rooms (the last one was Williston), I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  The plan was to leave in the morning for Butte and I turned to Russ and asked, “can’t we stay more than one night?”  Russ shook his head, he was anxious to move on, because the next stop was the headwaters of the Missouri.  “There is nothing to see here”, he explained.  Did I care?  The headwaters would still be there if we stayed another day.  “We could spend a day doing absolutely nothing,” I suggested.  The man shook his head.  He was on a mission and not to be deterred.  Disappointed, I sank into a chair before beginning to organize our ‘stuff’.