Lolo Pass -- The Lolo Trail (Lewis & Clark Trail and Nez Perce Trail)

We left Missoula on Sunday, July 1 heading back down Hwy 93 to the city of Lolo.  From Lolo we turned west on Hwy 12 which parallels the Lewis and Clark Trail and part of the Nez Perce Trail as well.  This was the passageway that Lewis and Clark took through the Bitterroot Mountain Range on their epic journey to find the ‘fabled’ Northwest Passage.

It was by far the most difficult part of their entire journey. Horses fell on the steep trail, often there was no game to be found, sometimes there was no water and nothing to eat at all. Very weakened the expedition finally made it through the Bitterroot Mountains to the Nez Perce Indian Village. The Nez Perce shared food with the expedition and helped them on their journey through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean.

The Lolo Trail was also the route the Nez Perce Indians followed each year from Oregon into Montana to hunt buffalo and trade with the plains Indians. It was the route they took when they were trying to elude the US Army and repelled the attack on their sleeping village at the Big Hole River.

Highway 12 winds through the high point at Lolo Pass (5, 525 feet) and is just one curve after another seemingly endless set of curves.  The road is lower down the mountains than the original Lolo Trail and it follows the Lochsa River much more closely. It was much too densely wooded, rocky and boggy down near the Lochsa River and its many contributing creeks for travel until Hwy 12 was completed in the 1960’s.

Devoto Cedar Grove Nature Trail

It is possible to drive the higher portions of the original Lolo Trail (it was turned into a road, the Lolo Motorway in 1925) but it is a rough, primitive dirt road that often is impassible with snow until mid July.  It still had too much snow on it for safe travel, so we did not take the road. There are many interpretive signs and trails along the highway and we had a grand time hiking the nature trails and remembering our history