Day 11: Missoula MT - Clarkston WA

So at the close of play yesterday we left the Corps of Discovery at Travelers Rest, where nowadays US-93 meets US-12.  From here they ascended the Lolo Pass in much the same way as US-12 does, but once they'd reached the top of the pass they kept going up, following an Indian trail the followed the ridgelines across the mountains and into Nez Perce territory in what's now Idaho.  Their Shoshone guide - variously referred to as "Tobe", "Old Toby" or just plain "Toby" - assured them that it was an Easy Stroll for a Lady or similar nonsense.

Lolo Pass.  L & C went off through the trees on the opposite
side of US-12, because US-12 wasn't finished until 1962.

It wasn't.  Now the guidebok tells of the existence of something euphemistically referred to as the "Lolo Motorway" but the M1 it ent.  There is a picture of an ordinary Honda saloon on the said road, which consists of Forest Service road, but it also recommended taking an axe and a shovel and having a high ground clearance which in my case I had not got.  And it rained overnight.  Also US-12 down the valley of the Lochsa and Clearwater rivers is brain-meltingly pretty to look at.

You have to go more than a hundred downhill miles before reaching Greer and the turn-off for ID-11, then another ten or fifteen up the valley side to Weippe¹.  All in all a bit easier than our heroes had it because, although it was only September the snow came early, the edible animals buggered off to warmer places at the expedition took the thick end of a fortnight struggling through the wilderness and having to scoff some of their precious horses to avoid starving utterly to DETH.  They finally made it to Weippe Prairie, a

beautiful upland prairie field of about two by three miles bordered by farmland made from cleared pine forests

where they met the Nez Perce and gorged themselves on dried salmon and camas roots to such an extent that most of them became ill.

Weippe Prairie with the offending mountains in the background

The Nez Perce, being an all-round sound bunch of dudes, led the party down to the Clearwater River and, at a camp near present-day Orofino, helped them build canoes for the rest of the trip down to the Pacific and back.

From here on in the route is easier to follow on account of there mostly being actual roads that track the Snake and Mighty Columbia rivers all the way.  Now, "Nom Nom" - purveyors of petril and toothy comestibles in Clarkston WA - if you could see your way clear to selling milk in containers of less than one gallon, why, that'd be just peachy!

1. Pronounced "WEE-ipe".  Look, I only work here.