All in Good Time

I've been pondering the season in which we should undertake our great adventure. Summer is the obvious -- the only -- choice.

At this point, my rough estimate is that we'll spend somewhere between two and three months on the Nez Perce Trail. If we travelled 15 miles every day, we'd cover the 1,170 miles in 78 days; 20 miles per day would get us across in 60 days. However, reality won't be so simple. Some days will be longer, some shorter, and we'll throw in some layover days to let the horses rest. Everything from terrain to weather to the hospitality of strangers will impact our schedule.

Speaking of terrain: The first few hundred miles of the Nez Perce Trail lead through the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hell's Canyon, then on into north central Idaho and the Bitterroot-Selway Wilderness. These miles will feature a number of river crossings, most notably the Snake River at Dug Bar and the Salmon River at Billy Creek. A lifelong whitewater rafter, I have floated past these crossings many times, and I confess that I regard the prospect with some trepidation.

...which leads me back to seasons. Crossing big rivers on horseback is not something to be undertaken during the spring melt. The Wallowa Band of Nez Perce crossed at Dug Bar on May 31, 1877, and I think they had it about right.

An early June departure sounds good to me. Nighttime temperature will be sufficiently warm, even in the high desert, to make for comfortable camping. The Bitterroots should be clear of snow by the time we reach Lolo Pass (elevation 5,233 feet), and even if our trek takes three months, we'll finish before Montana's deer hunting season begins in early September.

As for the Nez Perce, they took until early October to reach what became the Bear's Paw Battleground in Montana, 40 miles short of the Canadian border. But then, theirs was not an expedition undertaken by choice, for the sake of adventure. It was a desperate, if skillful, retreat from their homeland. To them and the pursuing soldiers, it was not history but real life -- and death.

Would they, I wonder, have been comforted to know that we remember?