At the mouth of the Snake River, the Corps finally made satisfactory connections with the Wallulas. Chief Yelleppit, who welcomed potential trade in firearms from the Americans, sold them horses and provided directions for an overland shortcut that eliminated what would have been a brutal ascent of the lower Snake to the Nez Perce camps and the horses they had left behind in 1805.
At their old camp along the Clearwater River, the captains reunited with the Nez Perce but found themselves far too early to cross the snow-laden Bitterroot Mountains. With the Nez Perce, Lewis and Clark displayed more patience, realizing that this tribe could well play a significant role in future relations with the United States in territory that it claimed jointly with Great Britain. The Nez Perce offered “that they were pore but their hearts were good [and] we might be assured of their sincerety.” The captains offered to take a Nez Perce representative to Washington, D.C., but Indian negotiators demurred, asking for firearms first. Delayed by nearly a month waiting for the snow to melt in the high country, the Corps camped along the Clearwater and interacted with Indian families, while Clark used his medicine kit to doctor ails among their hosts.
While the Corps settled into Camp Choppunish, their name for the Clearwater resting place, Sergeant John Ordway and two others went on a week-long exploring mission to find a route to the Snake River. Ordway and his companions struck the Salmon River instead, and then looped back to the Clearwater, thereby providing Clark with more geographic information. By the time Ordway returned, the Corps’ eagerness to head east over the mountains led the captains to once again leave a camp too early. On June 17, as Ordway recorded it:
when we got half way up it [mountain trail] the ground was covred with Snow 3 or 4 feet deep as we ascended higher it got deeper until we got to the top of the mountain where it was 12 or 15 feet
Faced with impossible conditions, according to Sergeant Patrick Gass, “we therefore halted to determine what was best to be done, as it appeared not only imprudent but highly dangerous to proceed without a guide of any kind.” Trading one of the “Short rifles,” the Corps secured guidance from two Nez Perce for the trek over Lolo Trail. Reaching the hot springs at Traveler’s Rest on June 29, the Expedition stopped, indulged in a soak to refresh themselves, and prepared for their return to United States territory.
© William L. Lang, 2004
