Growing up in Montana and living in the northwest, I often find my path crossing with the trails of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In 1805 the expedition traveled up the Missouri River, crossing the Continental divide and wintered on the Pacific Coast of Oregon. In 1806 they left the coast in the spring, working their way up the Columbia River and its drainage's, crossing back over the continental divide, then down the Missouri River and Yellowstone Rivers making their way back to St. Louis, Missouri. Their accomplishments were remarkable and they covered a huge geographical area with the help of their Indian Guides.
This summer we decided to follow a portion of the Lewis and Clark trail over Lemhi Pass, from Idaho into Montana. Leaving the paved road at Tendoy, Idaho, we turned onto a gravel road that follows Agency Creek. The road heads east and crosses the famous Lemhi Pass, about a 24 mile trip from pavement to pavement. The canyon is very narrow, lined with dense brush and cottonwood trees, and the water in the creek was running high, cold and clear. The lower end of the canyon is steep with open prairie.
About half way up the canyon we came to a Forest Service signpost that indicated the location of the first encampment in Idaho, for the expedition. On Monday August 12th, 1805 Lewis and 3 of his men, in an advance party, traveled west over Lemhi Pass, and camped at that location. The continued their trek the next day, leaving Agency Creek following the Indian trail that climbed to the top of the main ridge to the south.
We continued our trip up the mountain on the narrow winding road. Silver sage dotted the green, grassy slopes and the north facing slopes became heavily forested with Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, spruce, and small stands of aspen. At the top we reached Lemhi Pass, which was fairly open with spectacular vistas in several directions.
At 7,373 feet Lemhi Pass is an ancient gateway, a hole in the mighty Bitterroot Range, the continental divide separating the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic. This passage was well known to the Indian tribes and their well worn paths traversed this gap. Lemhi Pass is a convenient passageway through this region, and the boots of mountain man, pioneers and stagecoach wheels soon followed the moccasin traces, in the decades to come.
The Lewis and Clark expedition was overjoyed to reach the headwaters of the Missouri River after toiling for many months, towing, poling and rowing their canoes upstream. They had hoped to find an easy water passage by canoe to the Pacific, but what they saw looking out to the west from the top of Lemhi Pass was one snow capped mountain range after another. An endless archipelago of peaks and ridges. The only water route through this region to the waters of the Pacific was the Salmon River which was impassible by canoe or horse.
I heard the screech of a hawk and spotted two Red-Tailed Hawks flying in tandem directly over the pass, as if they were playing tag, darting back and forth, wingtip to wingtip. Perhaps it was a mother hawk teaching a young bird the finer arts of aerial acrobatics or a mate teasing its partner. The birds lingered over the high ridge, in a timeless ritual of gliding wings, propelled by thermal updrafts, against a hazy blue sky.
The paths of warriors and pioneers has long grown over by bunch grass and trees and only the gravel stage coach road remains, and the remembrance of explorers and hunters. The view from the pass was spectacular, with mountains in all directions, many of them snow capped, and shawled with forest. It was quiet with only the sound of the wind in the tree tops, and the birds at play. We didn't see a single person on our passage over the mountains, which was all the better as far as I was concerned. Lemhi Pass is a place I could linger for several days, in all its natural splendor. But like Lewis and Clark I have places to go, trails to conquer and journals to write.
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