UPDATE 7-4-07 Someone has
placed a letterbox cache not to far from my cache. The
letterbox is a small Tupperware style container. My geocache
is a prescription pill container.
From the Dayton Chamber
website:
The expedition spent the night of May 2nd a few miles southeast of
Dayton on the Patit Creek. They noted..."We killed nothing but a
duck, though we saw two deer at a distance, as well as many
sand-hill crows [cranes], curlews, and other birds common to the
prairies and there is much sign of both beaver and otter along the
creeks." Columbia County is still home to all these
animals.
The next morning, May 3rd, 1806, the explorers set out at an
early hour. Still following the old Nez Perces trail that Chief
Yellpt had told them about, they..."crossed the high plains,
which we found more fertile and less sandy than below; yet, though
the grass is taller, there are very few aromatic shrubs
[sagebrush]."
After continuing for another 12 miles they again came to the
Tucannon River. "This creek rises in the southwest mountains,
and though only twelve yards wide discharges a considerable body of
water into Lewis' [Snake] river, a few miles above the narrows. Its
bed is pebbled....in its narrow bottoms are found some cottonwood,
willow and the underbrush which grows equally on the east branch of
the Wollawollah [Touchet]."
After lunch on the Tucannon River, the expedition climbed out of
the valley and continued northeast into present day Garfield
County.
You can find more info on Lewis & Clark's journey HERE