August 9…. Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark

And let’s not forget to mention Lewis and Clark.

EVERYWHERE you turn around here, there’s another something named after Lewis and Clark. Parks. Streets. Hills. Banks. Trails. You name it, and something is called Lewis and Clark (fill in the blank).

Never Lewis Street, or Clark Avenue, ALWAYS “Lewis and Clark”.

Needless to say, I’ve been exploring all of the historical L&C sites I can find.

The first big one is Fort Clatsop, their winter quarters after making it to the Pacific and before they started home.

There’s a big visitor center telling all about the expedition and the fort. And a lot of trails they supposedly used around this area. Side note: all of the land surrounding the fort was owned and logged in previous years, being fully clear cut. So none of the trees are more than 100-150 years old.

The fort in the pictures is a recreation of a recreation. The original rotted away and debris was eventually cleared and burned by the landowners, then it was recreated in 1955, and then destroyed by fire in 2005. Rebuilt again in 2006.

I visited all of their notable sites on the south side of the Columbia, the fort, their canoe landing, the salt works where they boiled seawater to make salt. And then moved over to the north side. There are actually more significant places over there than I realized. Station Camp where they camped for several weeks while exploring the cape. Dismal Nitch where they were forced ashore by a storm and stranded for almost a week. That was a hard one…. It was November, it was constantly raining and blowing hard and cold as heck. They could barely get on the shore and couldn’t climb up the cliffs any higher, so they were constantly wet from crashing waves. No fire. No shelter. Starving. No hope of getting out of there in their dugout canoes. And all of a sudden, several native canoes full of Chinook people showed up, gave them some food, traded for a few items, and then paddled away into the storm. Crazy.

One of the things I noted about those guys…. They were some serious iron men. 33 guys, paddling and pulling and packing and dragging tons of crap across an unknown country. Up rivers, around rapids or waterfalls. Up and down, hills and mountains. No roads, few trails, nobody to call on when it hit the fan.

When they came to a hill, they didn’t mess around looking for an easier way, they just climbed the hill. No switchbacks, no circles, just straight up the hill.

Their winter fort was about 5 miles to the ocean, where they went every day by a roundabout 7 mile trail. The salt works was almost 15 miles from the fort. No horses, no carts, just feet and strong backs. I make comments about how I’ve been walking 15-20 miles a week, those guys were walking 20 miles a day. And then again tomorrow. And the next day. They traveled over 4000 miles EACH WAY, in just over two years.

When Susy returns, she’ll bring my copy of Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose so I can read it again. The story of the expedition, there and back again. Their journey has always fascinated me. The story of opening the west. Exploration. Mountain Men. The Oregon Trail. Traveling the Lewis and Clark trail across the country is on my bucket list. If I could go back 200+ years, I’d look them up and volunteer for the expedition.

Or maybe not. I do like my queen bed, AC, and bathroom six feet away. 😉