Chapter 25
Waiting for the Snow
Camp Chopunnish, near present-day Kamiah, Idaho
On the way home the Corps stayed with the Nez Perce for about a month, from mid-May to 10 June 1806, near present-day Kamiah, Idaho, waiting for the snow to melt on the Lolo Trail. They got their horses back, raced and played games with the Nez Perce, and Clark treated the sick in return for food.
Early May 1806
In early May the Corps reaches the Nez Perce country again. Twisted Hair and the other Nez Perce leaders have kept their promise. Many of the horses the Corps left with them in October are rounded up and returned, most of them fat and healthy after a winter on good grass.
But there is a problem. The snow on the Lolo Trail is still deep, far too deep to cross. The Nez Perce tell them to wait until the next full moon, when the snow will have melted from the south sides of the hills and there will be grass for the horses. The Corps has almost no food and almost nothing left to trade.
May 1806
So Clark becomes a doctor. Many of the Nez Perce suffer from sore eyes, and some from aching joints and old wounds. Clark treats them with eye-wash, ointments and pills from the medicine chest. Patients come from all around, and pay in food: dogs, roots and bread. Lewis writes that “my friend Capt. C. is their favorite phisician and has already received many applications.”
The captains know Clark’s medicine can do little for most of these illnesses. Lewis admits it in the journal: “in our present situation I think it pardonable to continue this deception,” because the Nez Perce will not give them food without something in return, and they have nothing else left to give.
Meanwhile, little Pomp is ill, with a high fever and a swollen neck. The captains treat him with poultices of wild onion. After a week Lewis writes that “Shabonos child is better this day than he was yesterday, he is free from fever.”
June 1806
The Corps settles into its camp beside the river, which the captains call Camp Chopunnish, after their name for the Nez Perce. The weeks pass with races, games and trading. The Nez Perce are superb riders, and their horses are fast.
The soldiers run foot races against Nez Perce young men. Afterwards, Lewis writes, “the men divided themselves into two parties and played prison base, by way of exercise which we wish the men to take previously to entering the mountain.” Everyone knows what is coming.
15–17 June 1806
On 15 June, too impatient to wait any longer, the captains set off into the mountains without Nez Perce guides. Two days later they are standing on snow ten or fifteen feet deep, the trail completely buried and no grass anywhere for the horses.
Lewis writes: “here was winter with all it’s rigors; the air was cold, my hands and feet were benumbed.” They cannot find the way. They hide some of their baggage on platforms in the trees and, for the first time on the whole expedition, turn back. “We began our retrograde march,” Lewis writes.
24–30 June 1806
This time they hire guides. Three young Nez Perce men lead them across the Bitterroots, following landmarks buried under the snow that only they can see. Where the Corps took eleven days going west, they now cross in six.
On 30 June they come down to Travelers’ Rest, the creek where they rested before the mountains nine months earlier. They have crossed the Rockies for the second time. Now the captains have a new plan.