From the Publisher

"This guide equips the many visitors to the Lewis and Clark country in Idaho who wish to hike and experience the same wild country where Lewis and Clark met the Nez Perce." The trails in this book will take hikers into that terrain of forests, mountains, rivers, and meadows that is virtually the same as it was when Lewis and Clark traversed it two centuries ago. The 220 pages include a descriptive text and topographic map for each trail, as well as historical and natural descriptions of the area. Only maintained trails are included.

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Hike Lewis and Clark's Idaho

University of Idaho Press

Chapter One

* The Bitterroots have been crisscrossed with trails since they were first inhabited. Animals left the initial tracks, their trails tracing routes to water, to feed, and to shelter. Then came trails made by people who traveled the area on foot, sometimes using dogs to help carry their food and supplies. They left but faint traces of their passing in the dirt. The arrival of the horse in the early 1700s, and the increased amount of travel that resulted from their use, led to trails that were deeply eroded in the soft, granitic soils.

The early human trails were different than those we travel today. They followed the ridge lines rather than detouring around the high points as do our roads and trails. Often, the direct route over the ridge was the shortest and fastest, and the ridge lines were easier to follow. The trails also stayed up and out of the valleys unless there was no choice, for the hard, unyielding granite rocks gave rise to rugged ridges and narrow, steep canyons that were difficult, if not impossible, to travel.

These early trails were used by Native Americans and other travelers until the twentieth century, when the technology for building roads along the creek bottoms was developed. Once those roads were in use, most of the old trails were largely forgotten, except for the ancient Lolo Trail.

What we call the Lolo Trail is actually a trail system rather than an individual trail. The term is generic and has been used since the late 1800s to denote the route from Lolo, Montana, to Weippe, Idaho, via Lolo Pass.

* The first Lolo Trail was that of the Northern Nez Perce, and it was used primarily by them and the Bitterroot Valley Salish. This is the trail that Lewis and Clark followed most of the time. The Bird-Truax Trail, built in 1866, followed the same route as the Northern Nez Perce Trail, but used a wagon grade. The erosion traces of the two trails coincide only where the ridge is narrow and flat.

* The Bird-Truax Trail was the result of a Congressional appropriation for the purpose of building a wagon road to link the commercial interests of Lewiston, Idaho, with the gold mining interests of Virginia City, Montana. (The expedition that worked on it also was called the Lewiston and Virginia City Wagon Road Expedition.) Wellington Bird was the supervisor and disbursing agent hired to head the project. Major Sewell Truax, once commander of Fort Lapwai, was hired by Bird to supervise the wagon road building.

Surveying and construction began early in the summer of 1866. Bird soon realized that the road could not be built for the $50,000 appropriation, but that it would be possible to do the survey and perhaps build a trail. It took more than a month to complete the survey for a grade suitable for a wagon road. Steve's research indicates they then were able to clear that route to the width of a wagon road from Musselshell, possibly all the way to Sherman Peak. East of that, they cleared a minimum pack trail.

The Bird-Truax Trail was used for more than 60 years as the main route through the central Bitterroot Mountains. In the many places where its erosion trace is deep, it still can be seen.

* The Lolo Trail National Historic Landmark also is a Lolo Trail, but the documents that created it were not specific as to which erosion trace it recognized.

* The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail is essentially the erosion trace of the Northern Nez Perce trail as it existed in 1805-1806.

* The Nez Perce National Historic Trail, which commemorates the 1877 war and flight, is the trail that was used that year by the Nez Perce and the U.S. Army. It generally follows the 1866 Bird-Truax Trail. (See hike 40.)

Note: Ralph Space, former Clearwater National Forest supervisor and Lewis and Clark scholar, gives two different explanations for the name Lolo. The first suggests that it is the Flathead pronunciation for a trapper named Lawrence. The second, that it is a corruption of the French name Le Louis, the name French trappers gave to Lolo Creek and Lolo Pass to honor Meriwether Lewis.

* * *

The U. S. Forest Service began using the Bird-Truax/Lolo Trail route about 1907, in the early days of fire suppression. Fire suppression necessitated lookouts and the ability to reach and supply them, as well as a network of trails that allowed rapid access to fires while they still burned small. The Forest Service adopted the Lolo Trail route where it was convenient, and built new trails where it was not convenient or did not go. They reopened the Bird-Truax Trail as the main trail from Montana to Musselshell via Powell, Idaho. As more lookouts were built, more trails were added to the system until the 1950s, when new fire-fighting technology made the lookouts obsolete.

Fire not only helped preserve a portion of the ancient trail system, it also influenced its character. Fire cleared the underbrush, making travel easier, and we know that the Nez Perce used fire to keep the ridges clear. However, fire could weaken trees so they were more easily blown down in storms, becoming the windfalls that made it impossible to get a horse safely through.

Today, almost a century of fire suppression has left us with trails that can be brush-choked. They must be cleared periodically or become impassable.

The use and maintenance of the trail system by the Forest Service helped preserve the Bird-Truax Trail and some small segments of the ancient route. What remains of it is used primarily for recreation, and it is maintained by hunters, other recreational users, and the Forest Service.

* * *

Between 1929 and 1934, the Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed a one-lane "truck trail" along the route of the Lolo Trail, generally parallel to but seldom actually on the Bird-Truax survey line, from Powell, Idaho, to Musselshell Meadows. It is what we now know as the Lolo Motorway. It was completed in the fall of 1934 and opened in the summer of 1935. Steve's grandfather outfitted out of Green Saddle and Howard Camp at that time, and he followed the road construction to its end each year.

Today, the Motorway and the trails leading off it are quiet for 10 months of the year. In the mid 1980s, when Steve began his trail research, he easily could spend a week along the Motorway without seeing another person or vehicle. By the late 1990s, it has become common to see one or two vehicles each day during the summer, most out huckleberry picking or following the route of Lewis and Clark. The exception, both then and now, is fall hunting season when the Motorway becomes a linear city, with hunters camped at all possible spots along its length.

* * *

Highway 12 is now the main "trail" through the area, and in a sense, it is the realization of President Jefferson's dream of a land bridge between the drainages of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers.

The road was started about 1925, as a one-lane dirt road from Lolo Hot Springs, over Lolo Pass, and down to the Crooked Fork of the Lochsa. It was extended to Powell between 1926 and 1928, after which construction on the east end stopped until the completion of a pioneer road from Powell to Papoose Creek. (A pioneer road is used during road construction for moving in equipment to cut and remove trees so that actual work on the roadbed can begin.)

Steve's grandfather and father cleared the first right-of-way from Powell Junction down the river. Construction was slow and expensive, and the working season was short. One winter the two were hired to keep the road plowed from the pioneer road east to Lolo Hot Springs so that work could begin as early as possible the following spring.

The road from the west was constructed primarily to provide access to timber harvest areas and to provide a supply road to what now is the historic Lochsa Ranger Station. By about 1920, a narrow dirt road reached Pete King Ranger Station, where the highway maintenance station now stands. Some parts of that section of the road were constructed by hand with pick and shovel. The road was continued on to Bimerick Creek in 1924, but no farther until 1941, when it was extended to Wildhorse Creek. It reached Fish Creek in 1951, Bald Mountain Creek in 1955.

The impetus to complete Highway 12 came in the early 1950s when the interstate highway system was built in response to national defense considerations. The final push came in the late 1950s, and the road was dedicated at Lolo Pass in 1962. Steve's grandfather was invited to and attended the dedication.

Chapter Two

When Lewis and Clark crossed Lolo Pass on Friday, September 13, 1805, and entered what is now Idaho, they entered a place that had been lived in and traveled for thousands of years.

Some of those who preceded them may have been the descendants of the people who migrated over the land bridge that existed more than 13,000 years ago across the Bering Sea between Asia and Alaska. Certainly Native Americans such as the Shoshone and Bitterroot Salish have lived in and near the Bitterroots for thousands of years, and the Nez Perce have occupied this land since the beginning of their people. More abundant human habitation, however, has come during the last few hundred years, after the climate warmed and the winters shortened.

The early inhabitants fished the streams, harvested berries and roots from the ridges and sidehills, and hunted game when and where it was available. They camped throughout the area and spent time in places of spiritual significance. Their travel was slow and difficult at first, for all supplies and possessions were either hand carried or packed on dogs. They lived off the land after their supplies were used, which was a difficult undertaking, especially during late spring. The Nez Perce and Salish even peeled the bark off trees to reach the cambium layer and chewed it for its sugar content.

The arrival of the horse in the early 1700s led to dramatic changes, for it became possible to carry the food and supplies necessary for longer journeys. The Nez Perce then were able to travel hundreds of miles into central Montana to join the Salish and to hunt buffalo.

The first written information about the area came from the journals of members of the Corps of Discovery: Lewis, Clark, Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and Joseph Whitehouse.

* * *

Lewis and Clark's hopes were high when they entered Idaho; the road they traveled was very fine, level, open, and firm, according to Lewis. They camped at the lower end of Packer meadows, near Lolo Pass, and expected to cross the mountains they saw before them to the west in no more than four days. Things changed rapidly.

The next day it rained, snowed, and hailed on them, and their guide mistakenly led them down the salmon fishing trail to the Lochsa River instead of staying on the main route along the ridges above the river. They camped, tired and hungry, near the junction of the two creeks, now known as the Crooked Fork and Colt Killed Creek, that join to become the Lochsa. They killed and ate a colt that night, the first of three that sustained them through "these terrible mountains."

Their trip the next day from the Lochsa up to the ridgetop is known for the loss of Clark's desk. The climb was steep, and there was a great deal of fallen timber. Several horses fell that day, including the one with Clark's desk and small trunk. Luckily, the horses were not injured. The group camped that night at Snowbank Camp, where they used snow to make water and then soup from the remains of the colt. (Note: Most of the Lewis and Clark camps were named by the USFS more than 150 years after the Corps of Discovery's journey.)

Then it grew worse. There was snow that night and during the days to follow, more fallen timber, more steep trails, and no game. The route was sometimes difficult to find, narrow, rocky, or on the edge of a steep precipice. They camped at Lonesome Cove, near Indian Post Office, on September 16 and at Indian Grave Camp, near the Sinque Hole, on September 17.

Lewis and Clark split on September 18, the latter going ahead with six men to hunt. Clark camped on Hungery Creek that night, Lewis near Sherman Peak.

Clark was almost out of the mountains on September 19, camping near the Lewis and Clark Cedar Grove on Cedar Creek, while Lewis camped on Hungery Creek. Lewis camped on the ridge above Salmon Trout camp on September 20 and on Lolo Creek near Lolo Campground the next night. By September 22, both were out of the mountains. Each met the Nez Perce on the Weippe prairie and was given much-needed food: camas and salmon. Unfortunately, all members of the Corps had difficulty digesting these previously unknown-to-them foods.

Their return trip in 1806 went better, for they had three Nez Perce guides who knew the route well and knew where to find grass for the horses. But prior to that trip, they had made an impatient, too-early start east and were turned back by deep snow in the mountain ridges near Hungery Creek. During their successful trip they camped on Hungery Creek June 25, at Bald Mountain the next night, at Bears Oil and Roots Camp at Spring Mountain on June 27, 13-Mile Camp on June 28, and at Lolo Hot Springs in Montana on June 29.

There were many reasons the Corps' journey through these mountains was so difficult, and certainly the terrain was one of them. There was no single pass that would take them from one side of the Bitterroots to the other, that is, from the Missouri River drainage to that of the Columbia. When they crossed Lolo Pass, they could not continue along the two-lane highway that parallels the Lochsa, as travelers today can. There was not even a trail along the river in 1805-1806, just the Northern Nez Perce Trail, which was comprised of erosion traces along the ridgetops that had been followed by the ancient Native Americans. These ridgeline traces translated into a great deal of steep up and down travel across six major and many more minor saddles. There was snow, early and late, during the years they traveled, for the ridges are high enough through this corridor that snow can stay into July and return in September. Timber was dense, and usually much blew down during the winter. And there was little or no game on the ridge at that time.

It did not take long after Lewis and Clark returned east for increasing numbers of white men and women to move into the area. Many who came were explorers, trappers, and miners, but there were also surveyors, settlers, and military men. Several fur companies launched an intense competition-"fur wars"-and most early whites who came to the area were, in fact, trappers.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Hike Lewis and Clark's Idaho by Mary Aegerter Steve F. Russell Copyright © 2002 by University of Idaho Press. Excerpted by permission.
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