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Pleasure More Conceived that Expressed

By: LC200 staff

Almost as soon as the Expedition set out from Traveler’s Rest over the Lolo Trail, the route became rough and step. Clark comments that the road is “very bad very hilly, fallen timber, etc. most intolerable.” It would get much worse before it got better. This was September 12 when the Expedition traveled 21 miles for the day. It apparently was a mistake on Clark’s part to push ahead so aggressively. The Expedition did not travel in a tight group that might be expected of a military unit. Instead they were strung out over a long distance. Clark, who was leading, stopped at 8 pm and made camp, but the last of the men didn’t make it into camp until 10 pm. Clark reported the ‘horses and men much fatigued.” For the remainder of the trip across the Rockies until they reached the Nez Perce at the Weippe Prairie the Expedition traveled shorter distances, averaging about 15 miles.

The camp for September 12 was near Lolo Hot Springs. The next day when they passed the Springs, Clark stopped to examine them. He tested the water temperature with his finger then tasted the water reporting it tolerable. Some of the Springs were near the boiling point while others spouted small geysers. He also found where Indians had used the Springs for bathing in. The party continued on, crossing Lolo Pass and camping for the night at the far end of Packer Meadow. They are now back in Idaho.

What little food the Expedition had managed to store up at Traveler’s Rest was gone by the 14th so they killed a colt for supper. Food was a major problem until the Expedition reached the Nez Perce. In addition to an extremely rugged and difficult trail, snow began to fall and continued for the next several days. Clark notes on the 16th “we are continually covered with snow. I have been wet and as cold in every part as I ever was in my life.” That day they killed a second colt for food. Their camp that night was at a rock mound called the Indian Post Office.

Clark tried to shoot a deer, but his gun misfired; in fact it misfired seven times while the deer disappeared. Too late, Clark discovered his flint was loose. This he fixed and was not to repeat that problem.

On several days they were able to kill a little game, but not nearly enough to feed the entire group. Hunger was as common to the group as the steep snowy trails. Entries in the journal say they killed “a few pheasants” or “a prairie wolf” no large aminals like deer or elk. Consequently on the 17th a third colt “fell prey to our appetites.” They camped that night east of Indian Grave Peak “at a cinque hole full of water.”

After a week of horrendous travel through the mountains with minimal amounts of food, the Captains decided that Clark would take six hunters and go ahead to try to find an open plain and get some meat. They set out the 18th and by the 20th they had covered 67 miles reaching the Nez Perce at the Weippe Prairies. The only game they had found was a stray horse, which they killed and ate part of, leaving the rest for Lewis and the main party. Lewis and the main party followed Clark’s route but traveled slower because of the baggage they were carrying. On the 18th and again on the 19th Lewis and his party were forced to eat portable soup. This soup was only eaten if there were absolutely no alternatives available. They were facing starvation. The next day Lewis found the horse Clark had left so everyone “dined well” for two days on it. By the time the horse meat was all gone Lewis and the main party had also reached the Weippe Prairies and the villages of the Nez Perce. The ordeal in the Rockies was over. Lewis recorded in his journal that day “the pleasure I now felt in having triumphed over the Rockies can be more conceived than expressed.”

The Expedition’s trail from Travelers Rest generally followed U.S. Highway 12 over Lolo Pass then down to Wendover Campgrounds. From there the Expedition turned to a more westerly route to Weippe then Orofino. This route is north of Highway 12. At Orofino the Expedition traveled by canoe down the Clearwater River to Lewiston.

The next three days were spent moving slowly across the Weippe Prairies from village to village talking with the chiefs, trading, and trying to regain strength that had been so completely used up from the rugged trail and severe lack of food. Although there was some fresh fish caught or purchased and a number of deer were shot by the Expedition’s hunters, most of the food they got from the Nez Perce was dried salmon and roots. The Expedition was finally all together by the evening of September 25 when they set up camp at the Clearwater River where the North Fork flows into the main river near Orofino, Idaho. They stayed in this camp until October 7 while they built five canoes out of ponderosa pine for the downriver trip to the Columbia and then on to the Pacific Ocean. This camp they referred to as Canoe Camp.

The dried salmon and roots were a welcome food source, since there were not enough game animals to feed the party. Even the dogs purchased from the Indians would not have been adequate. Lewis and Clark were almost totally dependent on the Nez Perce for food during their 15-day stay at Weippe. The salmon and roots saved the Expedition from starvation. However, it also caused a great deal of sickness among the men since they were not used to that type of food. They eventually recovered as their systems adapted to the new diet and if they were careful not to overeat, they remained reasonably well. However the men had not regained their full strength so work activities took longer than normal. On October 5th Clark records the two Captains had supper of boiled roots “which filled us so full of wind we were scarcely able to breathe all night.”

Even during this terrible ordeal through the mountains, the Captains maintained their journal writing and kept an ever-watchful eye on the plant and animal life they passed. Clark described the spruce grouse, which was new to science, and of course investigated the Lolo Hot Springs. He also spent considerable time with the Indians at Weippe talking about the geography of the area. They drew a map that Clark dutifully copied, adding it to a stack of sketches he had already made. Clark’s calculations showed the distance they traveled from Travelers Rest to Canoe Camp to be 190 miles. Lewis recorded that he identified eight different species of pine trees along the way. He also described the Steller’s Jay, blue grouse, Oregon ruffled grouse, mountain huckleberry, and wavyleaf alder which were all new to science.

By the morning of October 7th 5 canoes had been built and the party’s 38 horses had been branded and turned over to the Indians for care. The Expedition loaded its baggage and pushed their canoes off into the Clearwater, on their way to the Pacific at last. Although they were water borne again and going downstream, the 100 miles to the confluence of the Snake was not without difficulties. The river was very rocky and full of rapids. Clark notes that they negotiated at least three dozen very difficult rapids. In one instance one of the canoes was beaten about on the rocks so much that it nearly broke apart. The men in that canoe all came close to death.

But this part of the trip was very different from most all the miles the Corps of Discovery had traveled before. From the time they left Wood River until they departed from Canoe Camp they were the only humans to be seen most of the time. However, during the trip down the Clearwater Small groups of Indians were all along the shore. These people lived in semi-permanent lodges at every rapids in the river. The rapids made excellent opportunities to gig salmon. Some of these villages have been subjected to archaeological digs which show people have lived there for 8,000 to 10,000 years. At every point these Indians were very helpful, but the farther downriver they traveled the more the Indians expected to be paid for any help whatsoever, even trivial things.

The Expedition camped for the night of October 10th at the confluence of the Snake River having traveled 58 miles that day.