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To the Great Falls of the Missouri

By: LewisAndClark200 Staff

When Captain Lewis swung his pack and set forth with his little party, he was determined to find the great falls of the Missouri the Mandans had told him about. Both he and Captain Clark were convinced the South Fork was the correct river course to follow, but there had to have been a little nagging doubt in his mind. Six days of reconnaissance and two more spent studying the results had failed to actually find those falls. All the evidence said the Captains were right, but nobody had actually seen them. All the rest of the Expedition was convinced the other river, the North Fork, was the right course. Adding to the situation, Lewis was just starting to recover from a severe case of diarrhea that had left him quite weakened.

The party’s course followed a valley with the Missouri River (South Fork) on the left and the Marias River (North Fork) on the right. The Teton River, Lewis named it the Tansey, soon branched off the Marias. The Marias continued in a northerly direction while the Teton went west. The party followed the valley between the Missouri and the Teton as these rivers meandered towards the west, sometimes close to each other them sometimes farther apart. After about nine miles the two rivers came so close they were only separated by a high ridge. The party climbed the ridge to discover the rivers were only 200 yards apart. From there the ridge opened to a “modest plain”. From that vantage point they spotted a small herd of elk which would serve well for dinner. However Lewis had a return of his illness accompanied by strong stomach pains such that he could not eat or continue the journey. They camped there by a small spring. Having left all their medicine with the main party, Lewis called upon his herbalist training and prepared a chokecherry drink that cured him. By the next morning he was totally recovered and ready to continue his march to the falls.

This narrow point where the Missouri and Teton Rivers come the closest to each other is what we now refer to as the “crocondunez”, a corruption of a French term for “bridge of the nose”. The spring is known as “grog spring”.

The next morning Lewis and his party continued up the little valley, but after about five miles the valley gave way to a large open plain. They went out on this plain one or two miles, far enough to bypass the coulees and ravines that form the river breaks. After traveling another seven or eight miles in a westerly direction, they swung a little to the south to get back down on the Missouri. That plain was getting quite large with no water on it and the temperature was getting higher. Another hour’s march and the party was back down to the river where they ate and rested for two hours. They had traveled fifteen miles that morning.

Lewis remarked that the place they stopped was a nice little bottom on the river. There they also had a confrontation with two grizzlies who thought the party was intruding. Both grizzlies were killed, each requiring only one shot. Lewis noted in his journal entry that day that was “a circumstance which I believe has never happened before.” Most grizzly kills required a much greater number of shots.

When the group continued they came back up on the plain away from the river breaks heading northwest. Once on the plain they turned west. By now the Missouri’s course is fairly regular to the southwest, while the Teton flows to the west and a little north. After about six or seven miles the party climbed a ridge that runs east to west through their plain. Lewis recorded “from this height we had a most beautiful and picturesque view of the Rocky Mountains.” Which run from the southeast to the northwest. He discovered that they were made of “several ranges, each getting higher.” He must have had second thoughts about the view since he continued to say it was “an august spectacle” still more formidable because they had to get through those mountains.

Today we call the mountains he saw, from east to west, the Highwoods, then the Little Belts, Big Belts, and the Lewis Range all of which are lesser ranges before actually reaching the final range Lewis saw that he said reached into the clouds. Those were the main range of the Rockies.

Lewis’ view of the Highwoods was into the side so to speak since they are a smaller mountain range that runs east to west. He saw the ends of the Little and Big Belts and the Lewis Range as they run more southeast to northwest. By the time he turned his view to the main range of the Rockies, he was again looking into the side of that range since it runs more north to south.

From that ridge Lewis adjusted his course to the southwest to get back down to the Missouri River. After another two hours traveling the party reached that river. They had gone a total of twenty seven miles that day.

The third day on the trek from the Marias started shortly after daybreak as the little group left their camp on the Missouri and headed back out of the river breaks onto the prairies. They traveled southwest for about six miles pausing at a small rise. They noted the river now turns to the south. Before them was a large open plain of fifty or sixty miles in length. Lewis’ gaze fixed on “two curious mountains” in front of them. He described them as “square with sides perpendicular to the ground, 250 feet high and of yellow clay with a flat grassy plain on top.

Lewis directed his companions to spread out in an attempt to find the necessary game for dinner and to head south so as not to lose sight of the river and risk bypassing the great falls. In his journal entry for June 13, Lewis says he heard the roaring of the falls well before he reached them at noon. They had traveled fifteen miles that morning.

The party made camp near the falls to wait Clark’s arrival. That afternoon Goodrich caught “six very fine trout.” Lewis examined them carefully recording the descriptions in his journal. Today we know these trout to have been cutthroat trout, which were a new species discovered by the Expedition. The cutthroat trout is Montana’s state fish. Also that afternoon Lewis pondered over the various colors of the grizzly bear they had seen, but concluded they are all of the same species.

Clark departed from the mouth of the Marias with the boats and the rest of the Expedition on June 12. Their course was also up the South Fork. Today we know it as the Missouri River. Their first camp was about three miles upriver from the Grog Springs where Lewis had camped the night before. By the evening of June 14, Clark and the main body of the Expedition had made it to the place Lewis camped on the 12th, near present day Floweree. The next day Clark arrived at the great falls. Clark’s party had traveled 54 miles by river in 84 hours compared to Lewis’ 51 miles over land in 52 hours.


When the two Captains were trying to determine which was the right river to follow, Lewis went up the North Fork (Marias River) and Clark up the South Fork (Missouri River). Neither one actually saw the great falls on those trips, but they each decided the South Fork was the correct choice. Curiously enough, if Clark had not been so quick in making his decision and had continued on another twenty miles, he would have reached the falls, confirming the correct river about a week earlier that they eventually did.

The Expedition spent the next month in the great falls area as they portaged around a series of five falls. They set out up the Missouri to find its headwaters on July 16, 1805.

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Passing on Our Heritage
Legacy of Lewis and Clark
Naming The Five Falls of the Missouri