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Creek.
    Just across the Clearwater from Kamiah, Idaho, they set up Long Camp, where they would stay while they rounded up the horses they had left with the Nez Perce and waited for the snow level to dropin the towering Bitterroot Mountains to the east. In the meantime, Sergeant John Ordway led a small scouting expedition back west across the middle of the Camas Prairie to search for “Lewis’s River,” the Snake River south of Lewiston, and to bring back salmon for provisions. Ordway’s group left Long Camp on May 27 and crossed the route of Highway 95 between Craigmont and Ferdinand through Lawyer Creek Canyon, en route to Wild Goose Rapids on the Snake. On their return they skirted the Salmon River, which joins the Snake just a few miles south of Wild Goose Rapids. This was the river on which Clark had ventured downstream while looking for a way across Idaho from the Shoshone village near Salmon, Idaho. Ordway’s men had taken just three days to reach the Snake River, but they needed another week to complete the reconnaissance and return to Kamiah by way of Cottonwood. They generally followed Cottonwood Creek, north of Grangeville, down to the South Fork (Clearwater) Canyon to Stites, then north to Kooskia and Long Camp across the Clearwater River from Kamiah.
    In mid-June the Corps of Discovery, outfitted with supplies and horses, moved up out of Clearwater Canyon to the Weippe Prairie and the path the group had taken across the mountains in 1805. But on June 17 they had to turn back from “Hungery Creek” because snow banks still obscured the Lolo Trail. After obtaining the services of Nez Perce scouts, the group set out again. This time they easily made it along the ridges to Lolo Pass and down to the hot springs on Lolo Creek (“Traveler’s Rest Creek”), where they bathed and relaxed on June 29. A day later they emerged from the shadows of the Bitterroot Range and rejoined the Bitterroot River at Traveler’s Rest, where they split into two groups. Clark led the main body southward over Chief Joseph Pass into the Big Hole Valley and back down to Camp Fortunate, where the dugouts had been cached after the journey up the Missouri. Then the group retraced the outward-bound route down the Beaverhead and Jefferson rivers to the Three Forks.
    At the Three Forks Clark divided the men once again. Sergeant Ordway took one party down the Missouri River, northward, with the canoes. Clark and the remainder, including Sacagawea and her infant son, Jean Baptiste, went up the Gallatin River past the site of Bozeman, Montana, and over Bozeman Pass to the Yellowstone River at Livingston. At that point the Yellowstone River, flowing north from Yellowstone National Park, bends to the northeast. With difficulty, because they had insufficient horses and could find no adequate cottonwood trunks to make into dugouts, Clark’s group worked its way down the Yellowstone past Big Timber and Columbus. On July 20, 1806, near Laurel, Montana, just east of Billings, they finally found trees suitable for canoes. A few days later the group came to an unusual and noticeable sandstone tower, upon which Clark carved his name and the date. He named it Pompey’s Pillar, after the nickname he had bestowed on Jean Baptiste—“Little Pomp.” They continued on in late July and early August past the future sites of Miles City, Fallon, and Glendive, Montana. On August 3 Clark’s party camped at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, where they planned to reunite with Lewis’s group, which would be coming down the Missouri. 20

    Fig 2.10
Vicinity of Long Camp, looking west across the Clearwater River to Kamiah, Idaho. Photo by Peg Owens. Courtesy, Idaho Department of Commerce.

    Fig 2.11
William Clark’s party, returning by way of the Yellowstone River in July 1806, came upon this monolith. Photo by Donnie Sexton. Courtesy, Travel Montana.

    Back at Traveler’s Rest,