Lolo Motorway this year

I read " Across the Snowy Ranges" a few days ago and relaized how much history I had missed riding over the Lolo Motorway and all around me.

The book talks about the Lewis and Clark expedition and focuses on the Western Montana and Idaho portion.

Lawyers Creek, Canoe camp, the Weippe prairie, all will make me think about Sergeant Ordway , Twisted Hair, Seaman the dog, Sacajewea and her baby, and little things like how the hunters shot some steelhead in Lolo creek but didn't like the taste compared to salmon they had eaten.

I will be taking my time this year, looking for traces of the horse trail and other features.

If you want some more history "Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose" is a real good read. Got hooked with L & C history in 1999. Told gal need to go to Yellowstone. Been there in the 60's,70's, 80's and the end of the 90's was closing in. Got there and keep runnin' across all the L&C signs. Was at Teton Visitors center chatting to a senior member and mentioned all the L&C signs to him. He said I needed to read THE book on L&C. Did so, and set the hook. I been to the coast and back tracked to where they made the boats, been across LoLo motorway, Lemhi Pass, Beaver head and Yellowstone. Sure is nice to have a story to follow along on a trip.
I stopped at every wayside L&C sign in Wa. EZ PZ on a bike, solo, that is.

I took a class at U of I a number of years ago where we traveled the Lewis & Clark trail through Idaho. We camped where they did and raft rather than canoe the river. The professors were experts in history, flora and fauna. It was a week class. It was really interesting sitting where the members of the expedition sat and hearing the professors talk about the history and the plant and animal life then and now.

We also had to read several books, including Ambrose and others. It was probably the best class I ever took.

Thanks for the info, I will look up that book.

While at Pierce this weekend we checked out the camas plants, which are in bloom, making the big meadows look like lakes. Screwed up and didn't get a picture of a big meadow. The bulb on the plant is quite a ways down, as my cousin found out when he was trying to look at one.



The upper end of Grangemont road is in the background.

Mustangshelly and I have been considering riding the Lolo Motorway on our way over to LB's Hells Canyon gig.

Snow is melting fast all around, hope it's ready for us that early!

Windfalls will probably be a bigger problem than snow. Bring a chain saw and strong back.

This focuses on issues and history of land use and management in that area (N/C Idaho and W Montana), but was interesting from a historic perspective.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listi...LA-_-Book_25To44-_-Q000000633-_-2694564875792

Some snow in the roads at 3800 feet last weekend and plenty in the shade. I know Indian Post Office is 7000' so I would say you aren't going to do the whole thing in late June this year. As sorebutt says the wind falls generally are a bigger delay.

I was given the Lewis and Clark book and a bunch of other ones by an uncle who passed away recently and I need to read my way through a bunch of them.
First book I read was Vintage Farm Tractors and it made me wish I had a big enough shop and land to have a Massey-Harris GP or a caterpillar 2 Ton to play with.

We are riding the Lolo motorway in early August this year. It will be a little later trip in the year for this ride as we were cut short last year by lots of snowdrifts and windfalls not yet cleared. We will see if we can complete it this year. I love the history and remoteness of the whole area, it rocks.
TB

More to see...

Oh man! How's that setup work? If you designed and made it yourself you are my hero.

reading the story of the Lemhi Pass descent, and the return to her homeland, finding her brother still alive,Wow!,heavy stuff when you stand on that ground and try to imagine her emotions,,looking down that beautiful valley,,,HOME!
I like both roads down from the top,,the new road is a good one for "coaster races", bikes in neutral,, push off and coast down to the hotsprings at the bottom!
The old twisty road makes you just want to ride up and down it a dozen times so yer shure you didn't miss anything,, I love it!

Report in my sig line. Worked well and I tested it more than most.

The trailer is manufactured in Springfield Oregon by inmate Mr. Bracket. It is a moto-mule trailer.

He sells them at http://motomule.com/

I can imagine that there was a lot of second guessing the Captains in having a woman and a 6 month old baby with the expedition until August 17, 1805 when Sacajewea found her long lost brother and he was Cheif Cameahwait , head of the Shoshone.
Lewis had already been doing pretty good with Cameahwait before Clark and the rest of the party ( along with Sacajewaea )came up, but that had to be one heck of a good bonus. The fact that the captains treated her well and got after Charbeneau if he hit her probably helped.
The expedition would have very likely failed without horses from the Shoshone. They still had to do tough trading to get horses, but they completely depended on horses for the mountains ahead.

Thanks for the update, we are planning to do it(east to west) the last week of June, I guess if there is still snow we just stay on 12…..

I tried that last year and there was not only snow but too many blow down trees that time of year to do the whole thing. Later would be better... YMMV.

You should pack your trail saw and extra gas. We tried the Lolo around July 4th last year made it to Indian Post Office heading West and bailed out after riding over many snowdrifts and sawing out many 6" + trees off the trail with hand saws. The longest day riding on that trip was this day, we were spent! We are going 2nd week in August in hopes of completing Lolo and Macgruder, can't wait.
TB

Some of those trails through the drifts and over and around the downed trees were from me in June

A friend of mine just did the Salmon River Road from Grangeville to Florence. They road some atv trails to make a loop. They ran out of chain saw gas after 8 fills and still couldn't complete the loop to the main road.

That gives you some idea of what those mountain roads are like after winter. They weren't in an area that burned. Burned areas would be much worst. The forest circus doesn't clear trails anymore so unless some atv people have gone through there will be lots of windfalls.

I used to figure three fill ups to a pickup load of fire wood. That was a lot of work they did, thank them for all of us and invite them to ride the Lolo motorway soon !