Corp of Discovery Campsite July 5, 1806
When returning from the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark came east over Lolo Pass and down to Travelers Rest (Lolo Montana) where they stayed for three nights. Lewis then took a smaller group north so that he could explore the Marias River. Clark took the rest of the Corp of Discovery and headed south up the Bitterroot Valley following the west side of the Clark's River (now we call it the Bitterroot River).
This cache is close to where they camped the third night after leaving Travelers Rest. Let's see now, I used the date they camped on #1 and Pomp's birthday on #2. How about the day Capt. William Clark died on this one? Research that day and put in the form of MM/DD/YYYY and assign AB/CD/EFGH to those numbers and put them into the cords below to find the cords for the cache.
N 45* (G+E) B . A F G
W 113* (F-G)(F-E) . G (D+E)(H-G)
This was not the first time these people had been here. They had camped in this valley, not far to the north, with the entire Corp of Discovery in September of 1805. This is a smaller group and there were no Indians camped here this time. The area has changed a lot, but I think you can still imagine what it must have looked like without the highway and buildings. While you are imagining just try to imagine how many blue beads Capt. Clark would have given for just one copy of a topo map of this area like we have today. He knew where he was and he knew where he wanted to go and he knew that he did not want to go there the same way he got here last time. He was about to take a chance on a better route. As he put it he felt "our rout can't possibly be much wors.” Be sure to look northwest to see the saddle, just east of Sula Peak, that they went over leaving this Hole (round shaped valley) in 1805 and re-entering this time in 1806. Remember that the river route that we drive now was not practical back then.
Take a moment while you are here and read the paper in the cache that I have written with Clark's writings from the journals. You are welcome to take one even without trade. There is of course a logbook and I ask you to log your entry and make any comments you may like to make. Any trade items will work but it would be nice if they related even remotely to The Corp of Discovery or this area in those days.
I have put a cache at each of the Corp of Discovery campsites in the Bitterroot Vally - er, I mean Valley! There are seven campsites in our valley. There is one more that is debatable as to just where it is! That one is for September 3rd 1805. There is a lot of disagreement on where it was located. I have put a cache at Lost Trail Pass to represent that campsite and so I have eight Lewis and Clark Campsite Caches in all.
Other things to research: What is this about blue beads? Just who was York, and in what ways did he help the expedition? What did York, Seaman, the compass, and the airgun have in common? Who was Peg Leg Shannon?
WINTER NOTE: This cache would only be a little more difficult in the winter - not much!
NOTE: You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
Or you may do a "check sum" by adding the minutes of the north and south cords and the sum should be 106.408.