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Historical Background

Recrossing the Lolo Trail—failure and success

Anxious to head eastward, on June 13 Lewis and Clark sent out two advance hunters, and began to round up and pack the horses, which numbered about 66. [132] On June 15, after about 6 weeks among the Nez Perces, the expedition set out over the Lolo Trail—without guides. That proved to be a mistake. Once in the mountains, each mile became more difficult. The snow-covered trail was sometimes traceable only by trees from which Indians had peeled the outer bark to obtain the inner bark for food. The horses were hampered by fallen timber and brush, and often slipped on the icy steep path. Snowbanks were sometimes 12 to 15 feet deep. The frigid cold numbed feet and hands.

Finally, Drouillard, the principal tracker, expressed doubt about his ability to find the way through the mountains at that time of the year. Catastrophe was near at hand. The expedition was nearly lost, barely able to move through the deep snow, short of food for steeds and men, and running the risk of losing all the papers and baggage as well as lives. On the morning of June 17, on a high mountain to the northeast of Hungry Creek and just west of Sherman Pass, the commanders decided to turn back to Weippe Prairie—one of the few times they ever retreated from an objective. [133] Most of the baggage, some food, and the papers and instruments were cached in the trees.

The next day, their anxiety to cross the Lolo Trail surprisingly undiminished, Lewis and Clark dispatched Drouillard and Shannon back to the Nez Perce villages to try to obtain guides with instructions to offer them as much as three guns and 10 horses. During the hazardous descent of the mountains, Potts and his horse fell in swollen Hungry Creek. The current rolled them over several times among the rocks, and one of Potts' knives badly slashed a leg.

Finally out of the mountains, on June 21 the party met two Indians who were planning to move over the trail. Uncertain as to the success of Drouillard and Shannon, the captains convinced them to wait for the expedition's return and act as guides. That evening, the exhausted party arrived back at the same camp on Weippe Prairie it had set out from. Two days later, Drouillard and Shannon brought in three young Indians, who had agreed to serve as guides for the price of two guns.

The next day, the 24th, undaunted by its recent failure, the expedition set out once again with the guides. At the foot of the mountains, it met the two others who had agreed to wait and plunged into the towering heights. Two days later, the cache on the mountain to the northeast of Hungry Creek was recovered. The snow averaged about 7 feet in depth, 4 feet or so less than before, but the frozen crust supported the horses. In the evening a sixth Nez Perce, who had been following the trail of the group in the snow, caught up and joined it. A rest halt was made in the mountain depths the next day at a place where natives had piled a conical mound of stones 6 to 8 feet high and at its peak placed a pine pole 15 feet tall. [134]

On June 28 the expedition passed the point where it had climbed up the trail from the Lochsa River the preceding year. This time, it kept to the mountain trail and did not descend to the river, where Old Toby had mistakenly gone the year before. The next day, the party rejoined its westbound route, passing through Packers Meadow just to the east of Lolo Pass and entering present Montana from Idaho.

The worst of the trip was over. Seven miles farther, a stop was made at Lolo Hot Springs, on the north side of Lolo Creek, which the Indians had dammed to create a bathing pool. Most of the men bathed in the steaming waters, whose temperature Lewis found comparable to the hottest of the hot springs in Virginia. The Indian guides, to the party's amazement, alternated dips in the hot water of the springs with plunges in the ice-cold creek.

The next day, June 30, the expedition arrived back at Travelers Rest campsite. In 6 days, averaging about 26 miles daily, it had traversed the Lolo Trail, whose length Lewis and Clark estimated at 156 miles. Because the route was better known, Old Toby's detour was avoided, and the crusted snow held up under the horses, the eastbound journey was much less harrowing and was accomplished much more quickly than the westbound, which had required 11 days.

Travelers Rest (Point of Seperation) — Point of Reunion. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Separation at Travelers Rest

As they had done the year before, Lewis and Clark stayed at Travelers Rest for a couple of days to allow the men and horses to recuperate. Once again, after a long period, game was abundant and the hunters were busy. The captains also took advantage of the time to work out the details of the forthcoming exploration—considerably different than on the westbound phase.

According to plans laid back at Fort Clatsop, from Travelers Rest two groups would separately explore the Marias and the Yellowstone. Lewis and a small party would travel over the shortcut to the Great Falls of the Missouri and investigate the Upper Marias. Clark and the bulk of the group would proceed via Camp Fortunate and the Beaverhead and Jefferson Rivers to the Three Forks of the Missouri, from which they would move overland to explore the Yellowstone. At the point that it was found to be navigable, canoes would be built, and Sergeant Pryor and a few men would travel ahead with the horses on a special mission to the Mandan villages.

Meantime, Lewis would leave a few men to recover the cache at the upper portage camp near the Great Falls, put the equipment in order, and await a detachment of the Clark party bringing up the canoes and the supplies from the Camp Fortunate cache via the Three Forks. Together the two detachments would make the portage, pick up the white pirogue and cache that had been left near the lower portage camp, and proceed to the mouth of the Marias to rendezvous with Lewis. The Lewis and Clark segments were to reunite at the mouth of the Yellowstone.

Pryor, on his special assignment, was to carry a message, apparently drafted by Lewis and Clark at Travelers Rest, to the North West Company's Hugh Heney, who had favorably impressed them the previous year at the Mandan villages. For a specified salary and expenses, as well as the promise of consideration for a position as U.S. Indian agent among the Sioux, Heney was asked to persuade some key chiefs of that nation—especially the hostile Tetons—to accompany him and the expedition to Washington. There the power of the U.S. Government would be demonstrated to the Indians. He was authorized to use some of Pryor's horses to purchase gifts for them from the village tribes.

The message also advised Heney that the expedition had descended the Columbia to its mouth and en route had discovered and named the Marias, which it planned to explore, as well as the Yellowstone, on the return trip. Lewis and Clark probably hoped that Heney would pass this information on to his company and governmental officials in Montreal, who would thus at the earliest possible moment be informed of investigation by the United States of its northern boundary and its claim to the Columbia country. If Heney was not at the Mandan villages, according to Pryor's instructions, he was to leave some of the horses there and take the others to the British posts on the Assiniboine River in Canada in the hope of contacting Heney there. Pryor would finally rejoin the main body at the Mandan villages.

None of these arrangements were to work out precisely as planned. This was the first and only time the expedition deliberately divided in such a manner to pursue different missions. The partition of the group quashed the spirits of all the men. They realized that the Lewis party, performing the most daring exploration of the entire expedition, was vulnerable to attack by hostile Blackfeet and faced many other dangers in an unknown area.

Lewis called for volunteers. From the many who offered to serve, he chose six men: Drouillard, Sergeant Gass, the Field brothers, Frazer, and Werner. He selected Thompson, McNeal, and Goodrich for the Great Falls portage assignment.

On July 3, 1806, the two elements of the Corps of Discovery started out from Travelers Rest. They were to be separated for 40 days—until August 12.