Month: July 2017

Pic: The mighty Missouri River. Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Great Falls, MT. Larger image

Like many Americans, I had heard of Lewis and Clark and their famous 1804 journey into the newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase[1]. And, like many Americans, I knew little else about the matter. My interest grew as I saw their names, Thomas Moran-like, attached to highways[2] and roadside souvenir shops and show caves throughout Montana.

I must have mentioned my curiosity to someone on a trail or at a lunch counter because an uncredited stranger suggested I check out the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on my way to Glacier. Great Falls itself was not particularly memorable — my notes mention only that it was “balls hot” — but the Interpretive Center was one of the indoor highlights of the trip.

The museum was thoughtfully laid out, leading from the political and economic motivations for the Corps of Discovery Expedition, through the hardships the team faced in a vast and indifferent wilderness, to the impact of their discoveries on the fledgling United States and its contemporaries. It discussed the Corps’s confrontations and collaborations with the native people during their journey to the headwaters of the Missouri River and beyond. It recounted the time Lewis almost got his ass kicked by a grizzly bear but then fended it off by standing in the middle of a river with a spear. It told of Sacagawea and her friend Naya Nuki, whose namesake peaks I’d hiked the week before.

I learned all this and more, but here are three of my favorite Lewis and Clark facts:

3. The expedition included an African-American named York. A slave owned by Clark, York’s story is largely lost to history. We know that he enjoyed many of the same freedoms as the men he worked alongside in the North American hinterlands, but was forced back into a slave’s life when the group returned to civilization.

Anyway, some of the first Indians the group encountered had never seen a black person; when they met him, they tried to rub the paint off his skin. The novelty of York’s appearance proved useful in breaking the ice with the locals.

2. The Interpretive Center is located at Great Falls because this is where the crew, rowing their heavy, gear-laden boats up the Missouri, found their route blocked by a half-dozen waterfalls rising 800 feet over the next fourteen miles of river. With winter in the Rockies only a few months away and no time to seek an alternate route, the men spent weeks hauling their boats and equipment up the steep, V-shaped sides of the valley, an event now memorialized as the Great Falls Portage.

1. Lewis and Clark kept meticulous records. Their detailed maps “provided the first accurate depiction of the relationship of the sources of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers, and the Rocky Mountains”.[3] They described flora and fauna and brought specimens back to Washington. But best of all, they journaled.

They wrote about everything: fights with horse thieves[4], the place where they ran out of butter[5], and — still the bane of outdoors enthusiasts two hundred years later — mosquitoes. Neither man had much formal education and written English was less formalized at the time, so some of the spelling is quite creative:

“Clark came up with no fewer than 19 variations, including mesquestors, misquestors, misquitor, misquitoes, misquitors, misqutors, misqutr, missquetors, mosquiters, mosquitors, mosquitos, muskeetor, musqueters, musquetors, musquiters, musquitoes, musquitors, musqueters, and musqutors.”

—Lewis & Clark Versus the Mosquito

It’s not really fair given all they accomplished, but for me William Clark will forever be “the guy who wrote about ‘musquetors'”.

 

[1] Better known today as the midwestern states, North Dakota and Minnesota to Texas and Louisiana. Better known to the people Lewis and Clark encountered as “the place our families have lived for generations”.

[2] “US 12 in Montana has been defined as the Lewis and Clark Highway, despite not being the route followed by Lewis and Clark across the state.” #fakenews

[3] Wikipedia

[4] “July 27th 1806 Sunday”, Meriwether Lewis

[5] This one is also a great example of how the group named the geographic features they found: “I call this Island Butter Island, as at this place we mad[sic] use of the last of our butter…” —“July 19th Thursday 1804”, William Clark

Pic: I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights. Capital Hill Mall, Helena, MT

I’m not a big fan of malls — overpriced, fluorescent-lit cathedrals of consumerism — but empty malls in particular give me the creeps. I blame Dawn of the Dead (both the 1974 Romero original and the 2004 remake).

What I am a fan of is state capitol buildings. Helena’s is a good one featuring a splendid rotunda, a staircase under painted glass, views of the Sleeping Giant in the mountains to the north, and the sprawling Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole by famed Montanan painter C. M. Russell.

Pic: Russell’s “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole” behind the podium of the Speaker of the Montana House of Representatives. Capitol Building, Helena, MT. Larger image

My tour guide, a charming and knowledgeable poli sci/government double-major at a two-named liberal arts college I had heard of but didn’t write down, claimed that there was bad blood between Russell and the Speaker of the House at the time this painting was commissioned. Consequently, Russell placed the lone wolf at the bottom of the frame so it would spook the Speaker whenever he caught a glimpise of the predator prowling over his shoulder.

Apocryphal or not, I respect the hustle.

Pic: Burying the lede. Helena, MT

I started my in-town day with a free continental breakfast and a complimentary copy of the Helena Independent Record. Lessons learned: do not post spoilers or go outside naked in central Montana.

Pic: Today’s the day the nudists can have their piiiiiiicnic. Helena, MT

Pic: Not this motel’s first time. Howard Johnson Helena, Helena, MT

Friends know that I enjoy hobbies which are somewhat dangerous — including but not limited to solo backpacking in griz country — but that I take safety seriously. During my adventures, I always told Ben and Matt where I was and when I expected to make contact again. It became a habit, even for nights in civilization:

Me: I’ll be in Helena for the next night or two, then on to Great Falls.

Matt: Helena… Isn’t there some song like that?

Me: Uh, is there?

Matt: [singing] Helena, Helena!

Me: I–

Matt: [still singing] She’s a Helena, Helena!

Matt was thinking of “Helluva”, a lesser-known specimen of early 90s hip-hop by The Brotherhood Creed. And he sang it every time I mentioned Helena for the next three weeks. He still does it today.

The result is that even though I now live in Montana and see or hear the name of my capital city at least once a week, I think of this song every single time. Thanks, Matt. You’re a helluva, helluva guy.

Pic: You’re not helping, Howard Johnson Helena! Helena, MT

Pic: Then why did I bring my snowmobile?! Hidden Lake Trail, Helena NF, MT

The trip to Hidden Lake had kind of an odd profile. The Forest Service write-up was descriptive, if prosaic:

From Duck Creek Pass the trail climbs steadily, gaining 1100 feet in the 3.1 miles to an overview of Birch Creek Basin. From the overview the trail drops very gradually, 13 switchbacks to the junction with Trail #150. The last two miles … are nearly level.[1]

Anyhoo:

Pic: Rewards. Hidden Lake, Helena NF, MT. Larger image

 

[1] Source: a packet of photocopies I received at the Forest Service office. Its terse, smudgy, invaluable contents do not appear to exist on the internet.

Pic: Dat grass, doe. Mule deer, Duck Creek Rd, Helena NF, MT

At $28 a night, Lewis & Clark Caverns Campground was my most expensive campsite of the trip[1]. I’m so out of touch with developed camping that I had to (re-)learn a lesson the hard way: just because there are showers and you paid twenty-eight American dollars, it doesn’t mean there are warm showers. At least the math checks out:

Pic: In case you wanted a linear interpolation problem to go with your morning shower, this machine accepts fifteen quarters. Lewis & Clark Caverns Campground, MT.

Lacking any obvious landmarks to fix my path across midwestern Montana, I stopped at the Forest Service office in Townsend. The knowledgeable woman behind the desk pointed me toward remote Duck Creek Road and a 14-mile hike to Hidden Lake. Then, we had a pleasant chat about bears, mountain lions, being from California, and wolves. Her position was lay in between those of my previous conversation partners, and she taught me a rancher saying about dealing with wolves: “Shoot, shovel, shut up.”

After two nights in the awkward middle ground between proper outdoor solitude and a motel room of one’s own, I was happy to have an evening with just me, some grazing deer, and a view of the Missouri River valley:

Pic: Meadow above Canyon Ferry Lake. Duck Creek Rd, Helena NF, MT. Larger image

 

[1] The effective price was only $22 since it included the $6 park entry fee, but it still edges out Mammoth Campground in Yellowstone and Atlatl Campground in Valley of Fire, both $20 per night.

Pic: Limestone formations. Lewis & Clark Caverns SP, MT

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park contains a show cave with all its associated bright lights and metal railings. Thanks to some internet sleuthing and lucky timing, however, I took the more intimate “wild cave tour”. Equipped with helmets and headlamps, overalls and kneepads, ten of us toured the cave like actual spelunkers. With the overhead lights off (except to allow the above picture), we squeezed and crawled through areas not ordinarily seen by the public. We saw soda straws and cave bacon and even a couple of bats sleeping on the ceiling.

Derrick, the ranger who established the program in 2015, was a terrific and knowledgeable guide. 5 stars, would wild cave again.

Pic: Good advice in almost all situations. Lewis & Clark Caverns SP, MT

Pic: A pretty girl steals the show. Mountain goat on Naya Nuki Peak, Custer Gallatin NF, MT

My next target was another Bill suggestion: Sacagawea Peak. Being so close to Bozeman on a Saturday evening, I struck out on obvious dispersed camping but landed the last spot at Fairy Lake Campground. Unfortunately, it was directly across from some guys who wanted everyone in a quarter-mile radius to know about their bad taste in music.

From verdant Fairy Lake, the trail rose ceaselessly up switchbacks through forest and valley to Sacagawea Pass then steeply up to the highest point in the Bridger Range, Sacagawea Peak, four miles and 2000′ from the trailhead. The views here were spectacular in all directions, but I noticed that the cool kids continued along the ridge to a second summit to the south, Naya Nuki Peak. I hiked all of Naya Nuki (come on!), so you can take that Naya Cookie and stick it up your (yeah!), stick it up your (yeah!).

This area is known for its population of mountain goats, an animal I was eager to observe in daylight. So as I crossed paths with another pair of hikers while picking my way across the side-sloping talus field, I asked them if they had spotted any.

“Just that one,” one of them said, pointing over my shoulder. Sure enough, there was a white shape on the brown rocks, way up on the ridge where I’d been fifteen minutes before. Crap.

I summited Naya Nuki, unpacked my lunch, and sat down to enjoy the marvelous views. I watched hopefully as the goat casually picked her way across the loose rocks, coming closer and closer until finally she climbed straight up the ridge within five yards of me, pointedly ignoring me in her quest for tender plants. I spent the next hour refueling for the descent while she nibbled her way past me a few times during her tour of the peak.

On the way back to the pass, I found two snowboarders and a skier hiking up. Allegedly there is a double-walled couloir on Naya Nuki’s northern aspect that guards a few skiable turns well into summer. I wished them luck and told them to look out for my new friend. Meanwhile, I had a date with a cave.

Pic: C’mon, man, even *I* wore a tie to my graduation. Big T IGA, Big Timber, MT

Pic: Roscoes everywhere. MT-78, Roscoe, MT