Lewis and Clark on Lolo Creek

On the way up this creek in September 1805, the journals kept noticing trees. On the 11th the party passed a pine painted with figures, a white bearskin hung on it, which Joseph Whitehouse took for a place of worship. Pines along the bottoms had been peeled as high as a man could reach, and the men guessed the inner bark was eaten with dried fruit. Clark, camped on the 12th after a day of what he called most intolerable road, was told the bark was taken in spring. The journals' editors identify the tree as ponderosa.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Fizzle — steps away
  A log barricade built to stop the Nimiipuu in 1877. They climbed the ridge behind it and walked around.
• Travelers' Rest State Park — 4.0 mi
  The one Lewis and Clark campsite with proof in the ground: hearths, gun lead and a latrine still laced with mercury.
• Fort Missoula — 8.5 mi
  An 1877 Army post that held Italian seamen and Japanese immigrant men behind its fence in World War II.
• A Carousel for Missoula — 12 mi
  A cabinetmaker's promise to the city council: give it a home, and he would carve the horses.

More markers nearby

• Fort Fizzle — steps away
• The Nez Perce Sikum — 2.6 mi
• The Lolo Trail — 4.2 mi
• The Bitterroot Valley, Homeland of the Selíš — 4.3 mi