The expedition reaches their ‘first gate’ of the Rockies. Lewis, traveling ahead of the boats, climbs Tower Rock to get a better view. Both captains see recent signs of Indians, and they hope a Shoshone encounter is imminent.
Tower Rock, First Gate of the Rockies
To see labels, point to the image.
© 2003 Robert G. Rumney.
Wishing for Horses
early this morning we passed about 40 little booths formed of willow bushes to shelter them from the sun; they appeared to have been deserted about 10 days; we supposed that they were snake Indians. they appeared to have a number of horses with them—. this appearance gives me much hope of meeting with these people shortly.
—Meriwether Lewis
Eating the Guts
Drewyer killed a buffaloe this morning near the river and we halted and breakfasted on it. here for the first time I ate of the small guts of the buffaloe cooked over a blazing fire in the Indian stile without any preperation of washing or other clensing and found them very good.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Climbing Tower Rock
Missouri River below Tower Rock
© 24 July 2013 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Above: Tower Rock is to the right of the dark mountain in the distance.
at this palce [Tower Rock] there is a large rock of 400 feet high wich stands immediately in the gap which the missouri makes on it’s passage from the mountains . . . . this rock I called the tower. it may be ascended with some difficulty nearly to it’s summit, and from it there is a most pleasing view of the country we are now about to leave.
—Meriwether Lewis
Bothersome Mosquitoes
the Musquetoes are extreemly troublesome this evening and I had left my bier, of course suffered considerably, and promised in my wrath that I never will be guily of a similar peice of negligence while on this voyage.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Clark Brings the Canoes
Capt. Lewis and 2 men was gone on a head. the current Swift towards evening we Came 20 miles this day and Camped near the entrence of the Rocky Mountain, which appear verry high & rocky. Some pine &C.
—John Ordway
Weather Diary
State of the thermometer at rise
Weather at Wind at State of the Thermometer at 4 P.M. Weather at 4 P.M. Wind at 4 P.M. State of the river 53 [above 0] fair S W. 80 [above 0] fair S W. fallen ¾ in. —Meriwether Lewis[1]To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the date column, merged the “State of the river” columns, and spelled out some abbreviations.
Tower Rock is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The site a Montana State Park.
Notes
| ↑1 | To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the date column, merged the “State of the river” columns, and spelled out some abbreviations. |
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