"Fog banked into crevices amid the Bitterroots softens the edges of these 'most terrible mountains.' The scant Indian path through this range filled with snow as the Corps of Discovery struggled through the treacherous terrain, and small avalanches fell on the men as they brushed against snow-laden pines. The men's abbreviated journal entries only hint at the Corps' desperate, week-and-a-half trek over the mountains: 'The Mountains which we passed to day much worst than yesterday....' 'verry cold Snow Storm....' 'nothing to eate.'"
—From the National Geographic book Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery, 1998
