IDAHO
LEWIS & CLARK TRAIL

On August 12, 1805, Meriwether Lewis and three of the expedition's best men crossed the Continental Divide here — the first members of the Corps to enter what is now Idaho. Expecting to see the Columbia River system flowing west, Lewis instead saw range after range of snow-covered mountains stretching to the horizon. The next day, fortune turned: Lewis's party encountered Chief Cameahwait and the Shoshone — and in one of the expedition's great coincidences, Cameahwait turned out to be Sacagawea's own brother, separated since her capture years earlier.

A 71-acre park and interpretive center dedicated to telling the story of Sacagawea and the Agai'dika Shoshone-Bannock Tribes from their own perspective. A beautiful bronze statue depicts Sacagawea holding her infant son Jean Baptiste. Short scenic trails wind past a recreated fishing weir, sweat lodge, and ancestral village site, while interpretive signage explains the Shoshone homeland that the expedition depended on for survival — without their hospitality and horses, the Corps could not have crossed the mountains ahead.

William Clark and a reconnaissance party camped here on August 21, 1805, after determining that the Salmon River — which Clark himself explored 12 miles downstream — was far too violent and narrow to navigate by canoe. The river is known today as the 'River of No Return.' This discovery forced the difficult decision to abandon the river route entirely and instead cross the mountains overland on horseback, with a Shoshone guide named Toby leading the way. Now a BLM campground, visitors can wade into the Salmon River and imagine Corps members fishing here while planning their next desperate move.

After Toby's guidance through brutal, snowy terrain, the expedition struggled across Lost Trail Pass and descended into the broad valley the Salish people called Ross' Hole, near present-day Sula, Montana. The Corps fortunately encountered a friendly band of Salish (Flathead) Indians here, who traded horses and provided crucial food and guidance before the party continued north toward the Bitterroot Valley and Lolo Trail. The pass straddles the Idaho-Montana border and remains one of the most remote, difficult-to-access sections of the entire trail.

Straddling the Idaho-Montana border at the crest of the Bitterroot Mountains, this pass had been used for centuries by the Nez Perce traveling east to hunt buffalo and the Salish traveling west to fish salmon. The Corps of Discovery crossed here outbound on September 13, 1805, beginning the most brutal stretch of the entire journey. The visitor center offers exhibits on the natural and cultural history of the pass and sweeping mountain views that convey the daunting scale of what lay ahead.

A remote, unpaved 100-mile road following the actual ridgeline route the expedition traveled roughly 2,000 feet above the modern US-12 highway. Due to the steep canyons below, Lewis and Clark could not follow the river valleys and instead stayed on Nez Perce ridge trails. The Motorway passes The Smoking Place (a site sacred to the Nimiipuu, where Lewis described smoking a pipe at an elevated point with a Nez Perce-built stone cairn), Indian Post Office, and Sherman Peak — accessible only by high-clearance vehicle and only seasonally, but the most authentic way to retrace the expedition's actual path.

A series of stacked stone cairns built by Nez Perce travelers as trail markers and message points along the ridge — used long before, during, and after the expedition's passage. A one-mile trail from the Motorway climbs 700 feet to the summit of Sherman Peak, a popular stop for Lewis and Clark Trail enthusiasts seeking the closest approximation of the panoramic mountain views the expedition described in their journals.

Some of the most harrowing campsites of the entire expedition. Patrick Gass described these mountains simply as 'the most terrible' the Corps encountered. Clark wrote of arriving at the top of a ridge with no water, forced to camp and melt snow to cook the remains of a colt — the men reduced to eating their own pack horses to survive. Four inches of fresh snow greeted them the next morning. Today's hikers along the Motorway can find these creek crossings and imagine the desperation of a starving, freezing party with no clear end to the mountains in sight.

One of the most pivotal moments of the entire 4,900-mile expedition. On September 20, 1805, Clark's advance party emerged from the brutal Lolo Trail onto this high camas prairie — shimmering blue with wildflowers in bloom — and encountered the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) people for the first time. The friendship that began here, with the Nez Perce providing salmon, roots, and crucial route information, almost certainly saved the expedition from starvation and failure. The nearby Weippe Discovery Center tells this story in depth, with Nez Perce artifacts, expedition tool replicas, and the actual plant species Lewis collected and described growing on the grounds.

After crossing the deadly Bitterroots, the exhausted and weakened Corps camped here on the banks of the Clearwater River, where they spent nearly two weeks recovering and, with guidance from the Nez Perce, learned to burn out five large ponderosa pine logs into dugout canoes using the Indian method — far faster than carving by hand. Sergeant Patrick Gass noted the men adopted this technique to save the weakest among them from hard labor. Today managed by the Nez Perce National Historic Park, the site features a short interpretive trail, a full-scale model dugout canoe, and — notably — the only reliable cell phone signal between Lewiston and Kamiah.

Brings the Lewis and Clark Expedition story to life through displays, murals, and artifacts focused on the Corps' passage through the Clearwater region in 1805 and 1806. A great complement to a visit to nearby Canoe Camp, providing deeper historical and cultural context for the Nez Perce nation's role in the expedition's survival.

Clark camped opposite the Clearwater fishing camp of Nez Perce headman Twisted Hair on three separate nights in late September 1805. Clark's journal records giving Twisted Hair a peace medal and smoking with him 'untill 1 oClock a.m.' Twisted Hair would later draw the expedition a crucial map of the Columbia River system on a white elk skin. His campsite island is now a large rock bar accessible on foot from a parking area at Tunnel Pond, with a 2005 surveyor-placed marker commemorating the spot.

On the 1806 return journey, deep snow blocking the mountain passes forced the expedition to wait nearly a month here in the Kamiah Valley — by far their longest single stop since Fort Mandan. The Nez Perce taught Lewis basic medical treatments and the men recovered their strength while waiting for the snow to melt. The Kamiah Valley Museum nearby provides further context on this extended, crucial waiting period that ultimately allowed the Corps to cross safely.

The premier institution for understanding the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) Nation — the people whose hospitality and guidance made the Lewis and Clark Expedition's survival through Idaho possible. An outstanding collection of clothing, tools, weapons, and ceremonial objects tells the tribe's history alongside an outdoor interpretive trail covering the tragic 1877 Nez Perce War and forced flight, when the U.S. government betrayed the same nation that had saved the expedition seven decades earlier.

The confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers — a geographically critical point where the Nez Perce called the meeting of the waters 'Tsceminicum.' The expedition's October 10, 1805 campsite is marked along the levee path with historical markers, open-air interpretive displays, and a full-scale dugout canoe replica. Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington — sitting directly across the river from each other — were both named for the expedition's captains.

The Lewis and Clark Discovery Center within this state park features indoor and outdoor displays plus a documentary film recounting the expedition's full journey through Idaho — from the desperate mountain crossing to the relief of reaching navigable water on the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. A fitting final Idaho stop before the trail continues into Washington along the Snake and Columbia Rivers.