Clay slopes above Judith Landing (Montana)
Sunday May 26th 1805.
"...I beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time....these points of the Rocky Mountains were covered with snow and the sun shone on it in such manner as to give me the most plain and satisfactory view. while I viewed these mountains I felt a secret pleasure in finding myself so near the head of the heretofore conceived boundless Missouri; but when I reflected on the difficulties which this snowey barrier would most probably throw in my way to the Pacific, and the sufferings and hardships of myself and party in them, it in some measure counterballanced the joy I had felt in the first moments in which I gazed on them;...."
Meriwether Lewis
The above quote is taken directly from the Gary Moulton, University of Nebraska version of the Lewis and Clark Journals.
