Lewis & Clark Discovery Trail

Lewis and Clark Discovery Trail. . , In 1804-06, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led 31 men and one dog on an epic journey. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned this "Corps of Discovery" to find a route to the Pacific Ocean through the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Along the way, they mapped the land, recorded its resources and native peoples. The journey took two years, four months, and ten days; they covered over 8,000 miles. , The Corps of Discovery reached the Columbia River – at its Confluence with the Snake River – on October 16, 1805. They descended the Columbia in five dugout canoes leaving behind an almost treeless desert climate and entering a world of lush green vegetation – fir, spruce, ash, and alder trees – lining the riverbanks and covering the hills. The expedition followed the Columbia the final 325 (river) miles to the Pacific. They first noticed tidal influence at Beacon Rock. , The Corps passed the rocky bluff, today's site of St. Helens on November 4, 1805. Violent weather, however, pinned the party down along the river's banks, west of St. Helens, for days. The last sixteen miles down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean took ten days due to the bad weather. The explorers huddled among the rocks and driftwood of the river's north shore (Washington) for nearly three weeks before taking the historic vote on November 24, 1805, to spend the winter on the south shore (Oregon). The explorers arrived to establish winter quarters at Fort Clatsop on December 7, 1805, where they spent a long, dreary, wet winter. The parry departed for home on March 23, 1806, and passed through the St. Helens area again in late March 1806.