Left our B&B and drove up the Lemhi valley to where it joins the Salmon river. Drove for several miles down the Salmon, as Clark had gone. Although the route looked difficult, it did not look unnavigable, but Clark said it was unnavigable. It was very fast moving, so it would have been impossible to go upstream on a return voyage. In fact, the Shoshones called it “The River Of No Return.”
We passed what looked like a pole with a huge bird's nest. It turns out that it was a platform deliberately built to encourage eagle nesting. In the nest, which was made of limbs of trees, there was a young eagle! We got a picture of the eaglet, and one of his parents who was anxiously standing by waiting for us to leave.
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Lemhi river valley, Salmon, ID: Greyhouse B&B
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Salmon river valley, Salmon, ID
Dear Journal,
Today we had breakfast we began a big driving day through the last trail pass, the bitterroot valley, with the showy bitterroots looming on our left, and finally on to our lodge with seeing an eagle fledgeling in a nest on a special pole built to help eagles nest. When we finally got to our lodge, we went to a hot tub heated by a hot-spring. After that, we had dinner, watched A Bug's Life, and went to sleep.
Aron
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Salmon river valley, Salmon, ID: eaglet
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Salmon river valley, Salmon, ID: eaglet
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Salmon river valley, Salmon, ID: Mama eagle is watching us
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Salmon river valley, Salmon, ID: Mama eagle is watching us
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on the road to Lost Trail Pass, MT
Anyway, back to the Lemhi valley, and up to the top of the valley where we crossed into the Bitterroots at Lost Trail Pass. The Expedition would have been very apprehensive at the steep mountains and steeper canyons they would have to pass to the west. Up we go into the Bitterroots.
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on the road to Lost Trail Pass, MT: deer
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on the road to Lost Trail Pass, MT:
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on the road to Lost Trail Pass, MT: North Fork of the Salmon river
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on the road to Lost Trail Pass, MT: North Fork of the Salmon river
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Lolo Springs, MT:
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Lolo Springs, MT: Aron Cowen and Arthur Luehrmann in the hot tup
Coming down the other side of Lost Trail Pass, we followed the Bitterroot river up to Lolo Hot Springs, Montana, where we stayed in a very lovely cabin and had a hot tub.