Up very early this morning. It is raining lightly and 44ºF. Arthur and Aron had some breakfast while I worked on photos. Then we started off to the Madison west exit from the park at 7:30am.
Stopped to view the Yellowstone River falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone at Artist's Point. Also saw buffalo, mule deer, white pelicans, Canada geese, and mallard ducks on the way.
Stopped at the Madison exit ranger station to replace the junior ranger badge Aron lost.
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Yellowstone Park: Yellowstone river
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Yellowstone Park: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone River Falls
Dear Journal,
Today we packed up and drove to the falls of the Yellowstone. They were mostly frothy white, but there was a small streak of sea green, which made it just gorgeous! Then we drove to a ghost town that lasted 6 years! After that, we went through the lemhi pass, and I poured water on the contidental divide and stood on it, leaning to the pacific, then the atlantic, then the pacific, then the atlantic, etc! It was so windy, though, that I almost blew over!!! After that, we drove to our B+B, had dinner, and fell fast asleep.
Aron
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Yellowstone Park: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone River Falls
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Yellowstone Park: Arthur Luehrmann at Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone River Falls
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Yellowstone Park: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone River Falls
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Yellowstone Park: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone River Falls
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Yellowstone Park: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Beautiful drive past Hegbren Lake and Earthquake Lake (formed when there was an earthquake that brought down half the mountainside to dam up the Madison River. We saw snow-capped mountains (thar be mountains!) and glacial moraines and plains.
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on the road, Montana
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on the road, Montana
We stopped at Virginia City and Nevada City, two old mining towns. Virginia City has many old mining era houses, but it is still a living town. Nevada City, Montana, on the other hand, is a real ghost town. We checked out a dry goods shop, a blacksmith's, the jail, the assay office, the post office, hotel, saloon, and many other buildings. It had once been a thriving, large town.
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: Aron Cowen and Arthur Luehrmann at the dry-goods store
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: a hearse in the Wagon Shop
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: Assay Office
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: Aron Cowen and Arthur Luehrmann at the barbershop
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: the Saddlery
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: Aron Cowen at the top of a 2-storey 4-seater outhouse at the Nevad City Hotel
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Nevada City, MT ghost town:
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Nevada City, MT ghost town: near the barn
On to Twin Bridges, Montana where we saw Beaverhead Rock, a rock formation that Sacagawea recognized as being near her tribe's (Shoshone) hunting grounds.
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on the road, Dillon, MT: Beaverhead Rock, which Sacagawea recognized
On to Lemhi Pass, where Lewis went on foot searching for the Shoshone Indians, leaving Clark and the boats on the Beaverhead River (which becomes the Jefferson River downstream.) It was at Lemhi pass that Lewis suddenly saw the large mountain ranges to the west and realized that there would not be a Northwest passage.
He proceeded on foot down the far side of the pass along the Lemhi River which joins the Salmon River in Salmon, Idaho. - Well, we proceeded likewise down from the Lemhi pass on a crazily steep dirt road past a park devoted to Sacagawea and down to the place where Lewis met 3 old Indian women who led him to the Shoshone hunting camp. Lewis persuaded the Shoshone hunting party to come back with him over the Lemhi pass again to Camp Fortunate to meet with Clark and the others. Unfortunately, Clark and the others were off hunting, which made the Indians more suspicious of Lewis. But Clark and his party came back the next day, and Sacagawea first recognized her friend, Jumping Fish, who had been abducted by the Hidatsas along with Sacagawea, but had managed to escape, thus earning the name Jumping Fish. There was much rejoicing at the two girls finding each other again.
Then, it turned out that Sacagawea recognized the Chief of the Shoshone group as her brother! With this, mutual trust between the Shoshones and the Corps of Discovery was re-established. Nonetheless, the Shoshones were reluctant to help the Corps because they needed their horses for the annual buffalo hunt in Montana, and they were worried about the Hidatsa and Blackfeet that they might encounter. In the end they left the Expedition with one old man (named Old Toby by the expedition) for a guide, and some of the older tired horses in return for a musket and some shot.
Both groups moved back over Lemhi Pass into the Lemhi Valley, where they rested and restocked before leaving each other to go their ways: the Shoshone back over the pass to hunt for buffalo; the Expedition up the Lemhi and Salmon river valleys.
Just south of the town of Salmon, we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast called Greystone Inn.
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Clark's Lookout, Dillon, MT:
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Clark's Lookout, Dillon, MT: Aron Cowen
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Clark's Lookout, Dillon, MT: Aron Cowen
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on the road, MT: settler cabin on way to Lemhi Pass
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID:
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID:
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Aron Cowen pours water directly on the continental divide at Lemhi Pass between Idaho and Montana, as Arthur Luehrmann watches
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: Aron Cowen stands on the continental divide
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID:
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: Aron Cowen is blown by the wind
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: the scary road down
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: the scary road down
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: lava intrusion
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Lemhi Pass, between MT and ID: the scary road down
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Lemhi river valley, ID:
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Salmon, ID: Aron Cowen