2025 ROADTRIP — RETRACING THE LEWIS AND CLARK TRAIL

Kicking off on May 6th at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest in Lynchburg, Virginia, Clay set out to retrace Lewis and Clark’s celebrated 1804-1806 expedition across the continent. Clay will trace the Lewis and Clark expedition from Virginia, where it was conceived in the imagination of Thomas Jefferson, all the way down the Ohio River, up the Mississippi and Missouri, over the Bitterroot Mountains, down the Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia rivers — and back again.

Traveling in a 23-foot Airstream, Clay’s expedition is a central part of LTA’s big initiative to take the pulse of America as it approaches its 250th birthday. You can follow Clay’s Lewis and Clark adventure in the stories and videos linked below and on the LTA Facebook site. Also, subscribe to our newsletter.

Down the Salmon: A River Journal

Every summer I lead a cultural tour on the Lewis and Clark Trail in Montana and Idaho. Usually, we canoe through the White Cliffs section of the Missouri for a couple of days, regroup, head west, and then climb up to the ancient Lolo Trail. But occasionally we switch things up by floating the Salmon, the “River of No Return.” This was such a summer.
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Sorting Myth From Fact: Can We Truly Know Sacagawea? 

You cannot think about the Lewis and Clark story without trying to come to terms with Sacagawea. She is the most statued woman in American history. And she is one of the two most prominent Native American women in American memory. And yet, to borrow Winston Churchill’s famous description of the Soviet Union, “she is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
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Dan Flores

With the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation

As the editor of the Lewis and Clark quarterly journal, We Proceeded On, I attended the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation annual meeting in Missoula at the end of June.
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Book cover: Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road

Lands of Lost Borders

Because I am gearing up for years of travel across America, especially the West, I am reading books of adventure travel. I have reread Travels with Charley of course, and the published journal of John Wesley Powell’s 1869 descent of the Green and Colorado Rivers.
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A Visit to Camp Disappointment

Browning, Mont. — Wandering about what is called the “Hi-Line,” U.S. 2 and the tracks of the Great Northern Railway, I came upon this obelisk monument to Lewis and Clark.
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Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark

The Luxury of Reading the Lewis and Clark Journals

Gary Moulton edited a definitive thirteen volume set of the Lewis and Clark expedition journals. Over the Christmas holidays, because I was alone this year, I decided to read all the journals of Lewis and Clark, John Ordway, and Patrick Gass for the return journey of the Corps of Discovery, from March 23 to September 23, 1806.…
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Lewis and Clark

The Tortuous Trail to Publish Lewis and Clark’s Journals

President Thomas Jefferson entrusted Meriwether Lewis with the first great exploration of the American West. At the journey’s successful completion, both men held high expectations for a book worthy of the singular accomplishment and the Age of Enlightenment of which it was a part.
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Lewis and Clark at Columbia

Just Who Is Buried on the Wind River Reservation?

Sacagawea has become a giant figure in American memory and mythology. There are more statues of her than any other woman in America. But we know little about the facts of her actual life.
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Book cover: Sacagawea: They Got it Wrong

Book Review — Our Story of Eagle Woman, Sacagawea: They Got It Wrong

Out Story of Eagle Woman, Sacagawea: They Got it Wrong. By Gerard Baker, Calvin Grinnell, Bernard Fox, Carol Fredericks Newman, and Wanda Fox Sheppard. The Paragon Agency, 2021.…
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