



|
Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
Ever a dim track through a primeval land, this trail
across the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana is in wilderness
country even today. Being interpreted in conjunction with Nez Perce
National Historical Park, Idaho, under a cooperative agreement between
the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, it is a National
Historic Landmark primarily because of its relations with the Lewis and
Clark Expedition (1804-6). Long before that time, however, the Nez Perce
Indians followed it en route from Idaho to their buffalo hunting grounds
in Montana; and in 1877 the nontreaty Nez Perces traveled over it on
their eastward flight during the Nez Perce War.
The trail extended eastward across some 150 miles of
rugged terrain from Weippe Prairie, Idaho, through Lolo Pass into the
Bitterroot River Valley of western Montana to the junction of Lolo Creek
and the Bitterroot River. For most of its distance, the trail passed
along the high backbone of the mountain mass between the north fork of
the Clearwater River and its middle fork the Lochsa River. Along the
stream courses, cascades and rapids made the river gorges impassable,
and the steep rock walls of the gorges prevented the establishment of a
practical foot trail along the streams. U.S. 12, known as the Lewis and
Clark Highway, parallels the route today but for the most part runs
south of it.
 |
View from the Lolo Trail in
Idaho. (photo by Jonathan Blair, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation,
Department of the Interior) |
The eastern part of the trail is in the Lolo National
Forest of Idaho and the Bitterroot National Forest of Montana; its
middle and western parts in Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. A dirt
fire-access road constructed by the U.S. Forest Service in 1939,
ordinarily suitable only for trucks and four-wheel-powered vehicles,
generally follows a large portion of the trail. The road runs from the
vicinity of Powell Ranger Station, on U.S. 12 about 12 miles southwest
of Lolo Pass, to Pierce, Idaho. Its western portion runs north of the
trail, but its central and eastern portions closely conform to it.
The trail was the traditional route of the Nez Perce
Indians from their homeland along the Clearwater River, in north-central
Idaho, to their buffalo hunting grounds in Montana. For this reason, the
trail is sometimes known as the Nez Perce Buffalo Road. In September
1805 Lewis and Clark moved over it, the most arduous and critical
portion of their 4,000-mile journey to the Pacific. Hampered by sleet
and snow, dense underbrush, dangerous terrain, lack of food, and
exhaustion, the men found the crossing to be a terrible ordeal. The
lateness of the season threatened to strand them in the midst of the
Rocky Mountains for the winter. On their return trip in June 1806 they
once again followed the trail. The other dramatic incident involving it
occurred in 1877, when about 700 nontreaty Nez Perces crossed it after
the Battle of the Clearwater, Idaho. Resisting confinement to an Idaho
reservation, they moved into Montana, pursued by Gen. Oliver O. Howard's
slow-moving Army, but were finally vanquished at the Battle of Bear Paw
Mountains, Mont.
The U.S. Forest Service has placed historical markers
along the trail at sites associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition
and the Nez Perce War.
NHL Designation: 10/09/60
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/soldier-brave/siteb5.htm
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
|