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The Journey Begins
Lewis and Clark began there journey upstream the Missouri River. Them and there 20 men discovered crops along the way. -
Racing Against Winter Approcach
Lewis and Clark had to cover many miles beofre the Missouri froze over. Before the first snowfall they reached a tribe and set up casmp there. The temperatures reacher 0 degrees F. During the Winter the food supplies began to run low. -
Into Grizzy Country
They were now in grizzly country. The Indians had warned them about these creatures, but Lewis remained unimpressed. He thought that while grizzlies posed a real danger to Indians armed only with bows and arrows, they would prove no match for a man with a rifle. -
Among the Shoshone
The Shoshone led the expedition to his chief, who in a dramatic stroke of luck turned out to be Sacagawea’s brother. The captains also secured information from the Shoshone. An old man of the tribe described a trail that led across the Continental Divide. -
Deadly Crossing:The Bitterroots
Snow began to fall as the expedition set off for the Continental Divide. Game was scarce in the Rockies, and food supplies ran low.After 11 days in the Bitterroots, the horses were near starvation, the men—who resorted to eating three of the colts—not much better. On October 7 they broke camp and started down the Clearwater. At last the expedition had a river's current at it its back. -
Winter on the Pacific
Lewis and Clark decided to make camp south of the Columbia. On a slight rise along the banks of a small river. Their time at the fort was monotonous, spent making moccasins and buckskin clothing, storing food, and working on journals and maps -
Readying for the Return
The members of the expedition were all keen to go home. The timing of the return journey, however, would be critical. Only when the snow melted would they be able to get back across the mountains. But if they waited too long to cross, the Missouri River would be frozen by the time they arrived and the expedition. -
Among the Nez Perce
Almost out of food, the expedition arrived back in Nez Perce territory, where it had to wait until the weather improved before trying to cross the snow-covered Bitterroots.During the wait with the Nez Perce, Lewis busied himself with ethnography and nature studies, Clark with treating sick members of the tribe -
Riding The Missouri
On August 11 one of Clark's group, while out hunting, shot at what he thought was an elk—and hit a buckskin-clad Lewis instead. The shot passed through Lewis’s left thigh, inflicting a painful but not fatal wound. -
Given up for Dead, Hialed as Horses
Now on the home stretch of the journey, the expedition was making as much as 80 miles (130 kilometers) a day. On the morning of September 23, the Corps of Discovery entered the Mississippi River and at noon disembarked at St. Louis—two years, four months, and ten days after they had left
