Day 2, April 27, Eastern Washington to Lolo Pass

    

 

Thursday

 

Early morning light at Tri Cities... in camp near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers...

 

 

Crossing the Columbia River at Tri Cities...

 

     

 

Crossing the Snake River...

 

Proceeding on from Tri Cities toward Walla Walla...

 

 

The site of old Fort Walla Walla...

 

     

 

 

Proceeding on across eastern Washington to Walla Walla...

 

       

 

 

 

 

Walla Walla...

       

 

 

 

Dixie...

 

     

 

 

Proceeding on across eastern Washington, south of the Snake River...

 

       

 

       

 

       

 

 

 

 

On the Lewis & Clark Trail...

 

     

 

 

Alpowa Summit...

 

     

 

 

Rejoining the Snake River...

 

       

 

   

 

 

Clarkston, Washington...  on the Idaho border...

 

       

 

 

Crossing the Snake River into Lewiston, Idaho...

 

After all the left-wing rubbish one encounters in Seattle it was highly refreshing to behold a proudly displayed, patriotic slogan such as this: Sovereignty Forever - UN Never! I concur!

 

Lewiston, Idaho is my kind of town...

 

 

Crossing and then following the Clearwater River...

 

       

 

     

 

 

The Nez Perce Heart of the Monster...

 

 

Proceeding up the Clearwater...

 

At the junction of the Lochsa and Selway Rivers. These two rivers meet to form the just ascended Clearwater...

 

 

Joining the Lochsa River... up the western slope of the Bitterroot Mountains toward Lolo Pass...

 

       

     

 

Lolo Pass, on the Idaho / Montana border. The visitor center was still closed for the season but paths had been cleared through the snow to allow for turnarounds...

 

       

 

Lolo Pass

 

I spent the better part of the night camped at Lolo Pass on the grounds of the visitor center pictured above, in a space that had been scraped out of the accumulated snow. The ice walls on either side were nearly as high as Bigfoot's roof. After dark I stood outside and beheld a sky as dark and full of stars as any I had ever seen. Except for the occasional creaking of a tree, the pass was completely silent. About one vehicle per half hour went over the pass and in the extreme silence I could hear them coming from a fair distance. Upon my arrival at Lolo Pass the wind was naught but it picked up considerably by midnight... at times the howling of the wind over the terrain sounded like a pack of ghost wolves...

 

While camped at Lolo Pass I thought of Lewis & Clark struggling over the same ground back in September of 1805. This painting depicts the Bitterroot crossing and this is the image I held in my mind's eye: