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Trapper Peak
Trapper Peak, in the Bitterroot Mountains
Photo by J. Agee
On September 7, 1805, the day after they left the Salish people at Ross's Hole, the Corps proceeded north down the Bitterroot River valley. "The foot of the Snow toped mountains approach near the river on the left," wrote Clark.
Among the more awesome features on the western skyline was the profile of Trapper Peak, the highest mountain in the entire Bitterroot Range. At 10,157 feet, it's not high in comparison with some of the pinnacles of the Colorado or Canadian Rockies, but nonetheless the Bitterroot Mountains presented the most challenging terrain the Corps encountered, and—fortunately for those who value wilderness--it has changed but little since then.
The main Bitterroot Range, which extends 200 miles along the Montana-Idaho border from the Snake River Valley in Idaho to the Clark Fork River in Montana, can be crossed today in only three places. The expedition used two of them. The shortest, near the south end, is via U.S. Highway 93, over Lost Trail Pass, from North Fork, Idaho, to Conner, Montana.
U.S. 12 between Lolo, Montana, and Kooskia, Idaho, once known as the Lewis and Clark Highway, roughly parallels the Northern Nez Perce Trail that the expedition used. The modern highway distance is only 110 miles; Lewis and Clark calculated the Northern Nez Perce Trail at 157 miles.
The third option is the narrow, rugged, tortuous gravel road (Forest Road 468) from Conner, Montana, to Elk City, Idaho. This route generally follows the ancient Southern Nez Perce Indian Trail, skirting Trapper Peak on the south (left in this photo). In the 1850s Lieutenant John Mullan, of the Corpsof Engineers, surveyed it as a possible route for an emigrant road, and ultimately a transcontinental railroad right-of-way, but considered it too expensive. In the early 1860s, prospectors leaving Elk City, Idaho, for new gold strikes around Virginia City, Montana, considered it the most direct route. In 1866 Wellington Bird and Major Sewell Truax, a government surveyor, considered it as part of a wagon road from Lewiston, Idaho, to Helena, Montana, but decided in favor of the Northern Nez Perce route. The southern road, passing through the so-called Magruder Corridor that marks part of the southern boundary of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, is said to be the northwest's longest unpaved road without services--113 miles.
Why didn't the Corps' Shoshone guide, Toby, lead them over the Southern Nez Perce Trail? Since the option is not mentioned by any of the expedition's journalists, we may assume it was never suggested to the captains. Perhaps the Indians didn't want the strangers to know of it.
--Joseph Mussulman
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View From the Highway