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The Lewis & Clark Trail

Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean
 

The Smoking Place, Lolo Trail, Idaho, September 22, 2002

[View: east.  46º 29’ 13” N - 115º 09’ 11” W]

 

[Lewis]                                                                                Friday June 27th 1806.

. . .on an elivated point we halted by the request of the Indians a few minutes

and smoked the pipe.  on this eminence the natives have raised a conic mound

of stones of 6 or eight feet high and on it’s summit erected a pine pole of 15

feet long. . . from this place we had an extensive view of these stupendous

mountains. . . we were entirely surrounded by those mountains from which to

one unacquainted with them it would have seemed impossible ever to have

escaped; in short without the assistance of our guides I doubt much whether we

who had once passed them could find our way to Travellers rest. . .after smoking

the pipe and contemplating this seene sufficient to have damp the spirits of any

except such hardy travelers as we have become, we continued our march. . .

 

©IMAGES COPYRIGHT BRENT PHELPS