Sula to Camp Fortunate
Clark's 1806 Return

Sula, Montana is located at the south end of the Bitterroot Valley, on the East Fork Bitterroot River. It is 16 miles north of the Idaho border on US Highway 93.

Sula is literally a one store town. In fact, there really isn’t a town at all. Sula is a Post Office that serves the surrounding ranching community. Lodging is available at Lost Trail Hot Springs, a private campground, a nearby lodge, and a few vacation homes.

On September 4, 1805 the expedition had crossed near modern-day Lost Trail Pass and descended into an open valley, now called Ross’ Hole, where Clark estimated there to be 400 Salish Indians with 500 horses encamped. The Salish, called “Flathead” by members of the expedition, gave them a warm welcome

On July 6, 1806 Clark would camp near the same site.

Ross’ Hole was later named for Alexander Ross, a fur trader with the Hudson Bay Company who camped there on March 12, 1824. The site is currently experienced as a wayside stop along US Highway 93, next to the Sula Country Store. A roadside pull-off is lined by an array of interpretive signage that detail the story of Lewis and Clark’s visit, later exploration and development, and the settlement of Sula.

Clark’s party then followed an ancient Indian route that rose from the valley floor to what is now Gibbons Pass and descended into the Big Hole Valley. Chief Joseph and other non-treaty Nez Perce would traverse this same route to reach the Big Hole Valley during the Nez Perce War of 1877. Present facilities include interpretive signs along the Bitterroot-Big Hole Road and a toilet at the top of Gibbon’s Pass.

The Gibbons Pass road begins behind the Sula Ranger Station off Highway 93 at Sula, MT. Road Advisory: The Bitterroot-Big Hole Road (Forest Road 106) from the Sula Ranger Station to the top of Gibbons Pass is a steep, winding and narrow road with few turnouts and is not suitable for vehicles over 25 feet.

If you prefer a paved highway – continue south on US 93 to Lost Trail Pass and turn east on MT 43.  This will allow you to visit the rest area on US 93 where there are covered picnic tables and interpretive signs explaining how the 1805 westbound journey went against their Shoshone guide Toby’s advice and attempted to cross the divide near here. They encountered freezing temperatures and white-out conditions and wandered along the divide before finding a suitable way down.

Big Hole National Battlefield marks the site of the battle that occurred on August 9 and 10 during the Nez Perce Flight of 1877. (NPS website) By early August, over 800 nímí·pu· (Nez Perce) and more than 2,000 horses were passing peacefully through the Bitterroot Valley after crossing Lolo Pass(NPS website) into Montana. Their leaders believed the military would not pursue them, despite many having premonitions that suggested otherwise. When the nímí·pu· arrived at ?ıckumcılé.lıkpe (known today as Big Hole National Battlefield) on August 7, they were unaware that the military was close behind them. On the morning of August 9, 1877, U.S. troops launched a surprise dawn attack on the sleeping nímí·pu· encampment.

In 1806, Captain William Clark and his crew traveled through here on horseback moving quickly on their return trip to St. Louis. Arriving at present day Jackson Hot Springs in the afternoon of July 7th, they stopped to experiment with cooking in the water that Clark later wrote “bubbers with heat.” That night, camped less than a mile east of where you stand now, Clark noted in his journal that “this butifull extensive valley” is “extreemly fertile” – and he called it “the hot spring Vally.” French trappers referred to it as the “Big Hole,” their term for a large mountain-surrounded valley – and the name stuck.

Today, the tiny town of Jackson, Montana has made a name for itself as a winter sports destination for the adventurous. The luxurious Jackson Hot Springs Lodge hosts the Montana Snowkite Rodeo, a three day extravaganza and the Northwest’s premier snowkiting competition. Participants come from as far away as Norway and Sweden to compete in the Montana Snowkite Rodeo’s festivities.

In addition, the Jackson Hot Springs Lodge makes the perfect place to stay while exploring the ghost town of Bannack and the Big Hole National Battlefield, site of and memorial to the 1877 Battle of the Big Hole, a turning point in the Nez Pierce War, a sad yet important era in the region’s history.

In July 1862, prospector John White and his partners arrived in the area and discovered gold in a creek, unknowingly renaming it Grasshopper Creek, despite its prior naming for Alexander Willard of the Corps of Discovery. White struck gold on July 28, and word spread quickly, attracting hundreds of fortune seekers within weeks. By early autumn, around 400 settlers had arrived, staking claims around White’s camp.

By spring 1863, the population had swelled to 3,000, and on November 23, 1863, the growing settlement was officially named Bannack and designated a U.S. Post Office. The name derived from Bannock, a Northern Paiute tribe from the region. In May 1864, Congress established the Montana Territory, naming it after the Spanish word for “mountains,” and Bannack became its first capital. However, a gold strike 50 miles east in Virginia City lured many prospectors away by 1865, leading to the territorial capital’s relocation and Bannack’s decline.

On 10 August 1805 Captain Lewis, George Drouillard, Hugh McNeal, and John Shields were more than fifty river miles ahead of Clark and the canoes. Following a well-traveled Indian road in search of the Shoshones, Lewis and his men arrived at this “hadsome open and leavel vally where the river divided itself nearly into two equal branches.” Today the confluence of the Beaverhead River and Horse Prairie Creek is submerged in Clark Canyon reservoir, beneath eighty feet of water when the reservoir is full.

The cached supplies retreived in 1806 provided a welcome treat for the rugged travelers

“as before mentioned the most of the Party with me being Chewers of Tobacco become So impatient to be chewing it that they Scercely gave themselves time to take their Saddles off their horses before they were off to the deposit”
—William Clark

Continue your journey toward the Yellowstone –  Jefferson and Beaverhead Rivers – 1805 0utbound journey