Thursday, 26. Having collected our horses, and taken breakfast, we set out at six o’clock, and pursuing our former route, at length began to ascend, for the second time, the ridge of the mountains. Near the snowy region we killed two of the small black pheasants, and one of the speckled pheasant. These birds generally inhabit the higher parts of the mountains, where they feed on the leaves of pines and firs; but both of them seem solitary and silent birds, for we have never heard either of them make a noise in any situation, and the Indians inform us that they do not in flying drum or produce a whirring sound with their wings. On reaching the top of the mountain, we found our deposit perfectly untouched. The snow in the neighbourhood has melted nearly four feet since the seventeenth. By measuring it accurately, and comparing it by a mark which we then made, the general depth we discover to have been ten feet ten inches, though in some places still greater; but at this time it is about seven feet. It required two hours to arrange our baggage and to prepare a hasty meal, after which the guides urged us to set off, as we had a long ride to make before reaching a spot where there was grass for our horses. We mounted, and following their steps, sometimes crossed abruptly steep hills, and then wound along their sides, near tremendous precipices, where, had our horses slipped, we should have been lost irrecoverably. Our route lay on the ridgy mountains which separate the waters of the Kooskooskee and Chopunnish, and above the heads of all the streams, so that we met no running water. The whole country was completely covered with snow, except that occasionally we saw a few square feet of earth, at the roots of some trees, round which the snow had dissolved. We passed our camp of September 18, and late in the evening reached the deserted spot, and encamped near a good spring of water. It was on the steep side of a mountain, with no wood and a fair southern aspect, from which the snow seems to have melted for about ten days, and given place to an abundant growth of young grass, resembling the green sward. There is also another species of grass, not unlike a flag, with a broad succulent leaf which is confined to the upper parts of the highest mountains. It is a favourite food of the horses, but at present is either covered with snow, or just making its appearance. There is a third plant peculiar to the same regions, and is a species of whortleberry. There are also large quantities of a species of bear-grass, which, though it grows luxuriantly over all these mountains, and preserves its verdure during the whole winter, is never eaten by horses.
In the night there came to the camp a Chopunnish, who had pursued us with a view of accompanying us to the falls of the Missouri. We now learnt that the two young Indians whom we had met on the twenty-first, and detained several days, were going merely on a party of pleasure to the Ootlashoots, or as they call them, Shallees, a band of Tushepahs, who live on Clarke’s river, near Traveller’s-rest. Early the next morning,
Friday, 27, we resumed our route over the heights and steep hills of the same great ridge. At eight miles distance we reached an eminence where the Indians have raised a conic mound of stone, six or eight feet high, on which is fixed a pole made of pine, about fifteen feet. Here we halted and smoked for some time at the request of the Indians, who told us, that in passing the mountains with their families, some men are usually sent on foot from this place to fish at the entrance of Colt creek, whence they rejoin the main party at the Quamash glade on the head of the Kooskooskee. From this elevated spot we have a commanding view of the surrounding mountains, which so completely inclose us, that although we have once passed them, we almost despair of ever escaping from them without the assistance of the Indians. The marks on the trees, which had been our chief dependence, are much fewer and more difficult to be distinguished than we had supposed; but our guides traverse this trackless region with a kind of instinctive sagacity; they never hesitate, they are never embarrassed; yet so undeviating is their step, that wherever the snow has disappeared, for even a hundred paces, we find the summer road. With their aid the snow is scarcely a disadvantage, for although we are often obliged to slip down, yet the fallen timber and the rocks, which are now covered, were much more troublesome when we passed in the autumn. The travelling road is indeed comparatively pleasant, as well as more rapid, the snow being hard and coarse, without a crust, and perfectly hard enough to prevent the horses sinking more than two or three inches. After the sun has been on it for some hours it becomes softer than early in the morning, yet they are almost always able to get a sure foothold. After some time we resumed our route, and at the distance of three miles descended a steep mountain, then crossing two branches of the Chopunnish river, just above their forks, began to mount a second ridge. Along this we proceeded for some time, and then, at the distance of seven miles, reached our camp of the sixteenth of September. Near this place we crossed three small branches of the Chopunnish, and then ascended a second dividing ridge, along which we continued for nine miles, when the ridge became somewhat lower, and we halted for the night on a position similar to that of our encampment last evening. We had now travelled twenty-eight miles without taking the loads from our horses or giving them any thing to eat, and as the snow where we halted has not much dissolved, there was still but little grass. Among the vegetation we observed great quantities of the white lily, with reflected petals, which are now in bloom, and in the same forwardness as they were in the plains on the tenth of May. As for ourselves, the whole stock of meat being gone, we distributed to each mess a pint of bear’s oil, which, with boiled roots, made an agreeable dish. We saw several black-tailed or mule-deer, but could not get a shot at them, and were informed that there is an abundance of elk in the valley, near the fishery, on the Kooskooskee. The Indians also assert that on the mountains to our right are large numbers of what they call white buffaloe or mountain sheep. Our horses strayed to some distance to look for food, and in the morning,
Saturday, 28, when they were brought up, exhibited rather a gaunt appearance. The Indians, however, promised that we should reach some good grass at noon, and we therefore set out after an early breakfast. Our route lay along the dividing ridge, and across a very deep hollow, till at the distance of six miles we passed our camp of the fifteenth of September. A mile and a half further we passed the road from the right, immediately on the dividing ridge, leading by the fishery. We went on as we had done during the former part of the route over deep snows, when having made thirteen miles we reached the side of a mountain, just above the fishery, which having no timber, and a southern exposure, the snow had disappeared, leaving an abundance of fine grass. Our horses were very hungry as well as fatigued, and as there was no other spot within our reach this evening, where we could find any food for them, we determined to encamp, though it was not yet midday. But as there was no water in the neighbourhood, we melted snow for cooking, and early in the morning,
Sunday, 29, continued along the ridge which we have been following for several days, till at the end of five miles it terminated; and now bidding adieu to the snows in which we have been imprisoned, we descended to the main branch of the Kooskooskee. On reaching the water side, we found a deer which had been left for us by two hunters who had been despatched at an early hour to the warm springs, and which proved a very seasonable addition to our food; for having neither meat nor oil, we were reduced to a diet of roots, without salt or any other addition. At this place, about a mile and a half from the spot where Quamash creek falls in from the northeast, the Kooskooskee is about thirty yards wide, and runs with great velocity over a bed, which, like those of all the mountain streams, is composed of pebbles. We forded the river, and ascended for two miles the steep acclivities of a mountain, and at its summit found coming in from the right the old road which we had passed on our route last autumn. It was now much plainer and more beaten, which the Indians told us was owing to the frequent visits of the Ootlashoots, from the valley of Clarke’s river to the fishery; though there was no appearance of their having been here this spring. Twelve miles from our camp we halted to graze our horses on the Quamash flats, on the creek of the same name. This is a handsome plain of fifty acres in extent, covered with an abundance of quamash, and seems to form a principal stage or encampment for the Indians in passing the mountains. We saw here several young pheasants, and killed one of the small black kind, which is the first we have observed below the region of snow. In the neighbourhood were also seen the tracks of two barefoot Indians, which our companions supposed to be Ootlashoots, who had fled in distress from the Pahkees. Here we discovered that two of the horses were missing. We therefore sent two men in quest of them, and then went on seven miles further to the warm springs, where we arrived early in the afternoon. The two hunters who had been sent forward in the morning had collected no game, nor were several others, who went out after our arrival, more successful. We therefore had a prospect of continuing our usual diet of roots, when late in the afternoon the men returned with the stray horses and a deer for supper.
These warm springs are situated at the foot of a hill, on the north side of Traveller’s-rest creek, which is ten yards wide at this place. They issue from the bottoms, and through the interstices of a gray freestone rock, which rises in irregular masses round their lower side. The principal spring, which the Indians have formed into a bath by stopping the run with stone and pebbles, is about the same temperature as the warmest bath used at the hot springs in Virginia. On trying, captain Lewis could with difficulty remain in it nineteen minutes, and then was affected with a profuse perspiration. The two other springs are much hotter, the temperature being equal to that of the warmest of the hot springs in Virginia. Our men as well as the Indians amused themselves with going into the bath; the latter, according to their universal custom, going first into the hot bath, where they remain as long as they can bear the heat, then plunging into the creek, which is now of an icy coldness, and repeating this operation several times, but always ending with the warm bath.