On That Route, The Chopunnish Inform Us,
There Is A Passage Not Obstructed By Snow At This Period Of The Year."
On their return to Quamash flats the party met two Indians who,
after some parley, agreed to pilot them over
The mountains;
these camped where they were, and the party went on to the flats,
having exacted a promise from the Indians that they would
wait there two nights for the white men to come along.
When the party reached their old camp, they found that one of
their hunters had killed a deer, which was a welcome addition
to their otherwise scanty supper. Next day, the hunters met with
astonishing luck, bringing into camp eight deer and three bears.
Four of the men were directed to go to the camp of the two Indians,
and if these were bent on going on, to accompany them and so mark,
or blaze, the trees that the rest of the party would have no
difficulty in finding the way, later on.
Meanwhile, the men who had been sent back for guides returned,
bringing with them the pleasing information that three Indians
whom they brought with them had consented to guide the party
to the great falls of the Missouri, for the pay of two guns.
Accordingly, once more (June 26), they set out for
the mountains, travelling for the third time in twelve days
the route between Quamash flats and the Bitter Root range.
For the second time they ran up against a barrier of snow.
They measured the depth of the snow at the place where they
had left their luggage at their previous repulse and found
it to be ten feet and ten inches deep; and it had sunk
four feet since they had been turned back at this point.
Pressing on, after they reached their old camp, they found
a bare spot on the side of the mountain where there was a little
grass for their horses; and there they camped for the night.
They were fortunate in having Indian guides with them;
and the journal says: -
"The marks on the trees, which had been our chief dependence,
are much fewer and more difficult to be distinguished than we
had supposed. But our guides traverse this trackless region
with a kind of instinctive sagacity; they never hesitate,
they are never embarrassed; and so undeviating is their step,
that wherever the snow has disappeared, for even a hundred paces,
we find the summer road. With their aid the snow is scarcely
a disadvantage; for though we are often obliged to slip down,
yet the fallen timber and the rocks, which are now covered,
were much more troublesome when we passed in the autumn.
Travelling is indeed comparatively pleasant, as well as more rapid,
the snow being hard and coarse, without a crust, and perfectly hard
enough to prevent the horses sinking more than two or three inches.
After the sun has been on it for some hours it becomes softer
than it is early in the morning; yet they are almost always
able to get a sure foothold."
On the twenty-ninth of June the party were well out of the snows
in which they had been imprisoned, although they were by no means
over the mountain barrier that had been climbed so painfully during
the past few days. Here they observed the tracks of two barefooted
Indians who had evidently been fleeing from their enemies,
the Pahkees. These signs disturbed the Indian guides,
for they at once said that the tracks were made by their friends,
the Ootlashoots, and that the Pahkees would also cut them
(the guides) off on their return from the trip over the mountains.
On the evening of the day above mentioned, the party camped at
the warm springs which fall into Traveller's-rest Creek, a point
now well known to the explorers, who had passed that way before.
Of the springs the journal says: -
"These warm springs are situated at the foot of a hill on the north
side of Traveller's-rest Creek, which is ten yards wide at this place.
They issue from the bottoms, and through the interstices of a gray
freestone rock, which rises in irregular masses round their lower side.
The principal spring, which the Indians have formed into a bath by
stopping the run with stone and pebbles, is about the same temperature
as the warmest bath used at the hot springs in Virginia. On trying,
Captain Lewis could with difficulty remain in it nineteen minutes,
and then was affected with a profuse perspiration.
The two other springs are much hotter, the temperature being equal
to that of the warmest of the hot springs in Virginia. Our men,
as well as the Indians, amused themselves with going into the bath;
the latter, according to their universal custom, going first into
the hot bath, where they remain as long as they can bear the heat,
then plunging into the creek, which is now of an icy coldness,
and repeating this operation several times, but always ending
with the warm bath."
Traveller's-rest Creek, it will be recollected, is on the summit
of the Bitter Root Mountains, and the expedition had consequently
passed from Idaho into Montana, as these States now exist on the map;
but they were still on the Pacific side of the Great Divide,
or the backbone of the continent. Much game was seen in this region,
and after reaching Traveller's-rest Creek, the hunters killed six deer;
great numbers of elk and bighorn were also seen in this vicinity.
On the thirtieth of July the party were at their old camp of September
9 and 10, 1805, having made one hundred and fifty-six miles from
Quamash flats to the mouth of the creek where they now camped.
Here a plan to divide and subdivide the party was made out as follows: -
"Captain Lewis, with nine men, is to pursue the most direct
route to the falls of the Missouri, where three of his party
[Thompson, Goodrich, and McNeal] are to be left to prepare carriages
for transporting the baggage and canoes across the portage.
With the remaining six, he will ascend Maria's River to explore
the country and ascertain whether any branch of it reaches as far north
as latitude 50'0, after which he will descend that river to its mouth.
The rest of the men will accompany Captain Clark to the head
of Jefferson River, which Sergeant Ordway and a party of nine men
will descend, with the canoes and other articles deposited there.
Captain Clark's party, which will then be reduced to ten men
and Sacajawea, will proceed to the Yellowstone, at its nearest approach
to the Three Forks of the Missouri.
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