200 Miles on Foot Through Montana’s Prairie – Exploring the High Country in American Prairie Reserve’s Burnt Lodge Region

It is day nine and we have slowly landsnorkled about 120 miles. The scenery has been spectacular. As expected, we have not experienced much wildlife such as elk, mule deer, big horn sheep, wolves or grizzly bears. We have enjoyed some prairie dog towns, the occasional raptor and howls of coyotes at night. And we’ve talked numerous times about the contrast between what we are seeing wildlife-wise during this transect and the notes from the journal of Lewis and Clark as they traveled these same prairies and canyons 210 years ago. Each day, the expedition covered roughly 15 river miles by wading and towing boats by hand, upstream, against a 3-mile-per-hour current on their way to the Great Falls. The journal talks about how late each afternoon, most of the men would set up camp, while 2 or 3 hunters were dispatched to kill enough elk, deer or bison to feed the party of roughly 40 men. (Apparently elk was their favorite. Estimates are that each man ate up to 9 pounds of it per day.) Each day the hunters were successful within an hour or two.

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