First stop was Camp Fortunate where Lewis and Clark stopped in mid-August 1805 because they ran out of navigable water. Now they needed horses to cross the mountains and look for the Columbia River draining into the Pacific Ocean. They went on foot from here looking for Sacajawea’s people, hoping they could barter with them for horses to cross the mountains. They stored their canoes underwater here, and picked them up on the way back on their return trip.
After yesterday’s news, this is who showed up for today’s bus tour (out of 48). The lack of interest also may have had something to do with an un-air-conditioned school bus on dusty, bumpy, dirt roads. Our history guide is front right and we are standing by a replica of one of L/C’s hollowed out canoes.
Lewis and Clark did meet up with the Shoshone. When they did, Sacajawea recognized her brother as the Chief of the Shoshone. After Camp Fortunate, we headed up to Lemhi Pass.
This is what Lewis and Clark saw when got to the top of the mountain and looked into Idaho. (That is the dirt road we came up on in the school bus.) Pretty grim if you were expecting to see the Colombia River on the other side.And this is what it looks like when you turn around and look back at Montana.I like this sign because the bottom graphic shows Lemhi Pass as the high point and the elevation they climbed from the Gulf of Mexico and what they can expect to descend from Lemhi Pass to the Pacific.Lemhi Pass is also on the Continental Divide hiking trail, a trail much like the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trail.
The fences out here are different than the barbed wire ones I grew up with. There are endless miles of these post fences shaped like pyramids. Our guide told us the French and Japanese have huge ranches out here to provide their countries with beef. There was also recently a large land transaction nearby where the Koch brothers sold Rupert Murdoch about 4000 acres for $200 million.Fly-fishing is also very popular in this area. Doesn’t this look just like a River Runs Through It.
Bannack is another ghost town, started back in the 1860 during the gold rush. Since it’s a State Park, it had a different flavor than the ghost town I saw yesterday at Virginia City, Montana.
Store fronts at Bannack State Park, Montana.These small random one room huts were what they called bachelor quarters.These two buildings were the jail. Justice was pretty grim back then. On the hill behind were the gallows.This schoolhouse has the number 5874 at the top which is the altitude and it was also built in 1874 and used up to 1950.It had a church.And a hotel.None of us could guess what this was. It is a calf weaner. Yikes!Mining equipment left behind.
