Flowing Free for Miles

Flowing Free for Miles. . Below Morony Dam, the Missouri River runs free for more than 200 river miles, past Fort Benton and through the White Cliffs, much as it did in 1805. , (arrow pointing to:) Lower Portage Camp, beyond view, was located one mile downstream from the mouth Portage (Belt) Creek. It served as a staging site for the portage around the five falls. , (arrow pointing to:) The Sulphur Spring water reportedly cured Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who served a vital role as an interpreter in later securing horses to cross the Rocky Mountains. , (arrow pointing to:) At the mouth of Portage (Belt) Creek, the men felled a lone cottonwood tree and cut solid wheels for carts to transport the canoes over the portage. , (sidebar on right:) , Where are the Falls? . , Morony Dam spans the rapids that halted Lewis and Clark's upriver journey and this is one of two dams, in a set of five, built between narrow canyons where no waterfalls existed , , Great Falls: The First Waterfall , On June 13, 1805, Meriwether Lewis was "saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water... I saw the spray arrise above the plain like a collumn of smoke." Lewis and his men were greeted with "a roaring too tremendious to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri." , The Great Falls is four miles upriver, Watch for the left-hand turn to Ryan Dam just 4.5 miles drive on your way back back to Great Falls.