PLAN YOUR EXPEDITION Whether you're looking for spot to camp out along the famous trail, a festival or event, or you would like to acquire a guide for your voyage west, we're your best outpost for gearing up. Today, much of the Montana landscape they crossed remains unchanged. Rivers and highways flow past scores of landmarks related to the expedition. Use this page as guide to these sites and the many opportunities to enjoy Montana's beauty and recreation.				Lewis and Clark Trail Corridors

A hopeful Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to find the fabled River of the West. From the time of Columbus, explorers and statesmen had dreamed of a Northwest Passage, an all-water route connecting the trade routes of the Pacific to the Old World of the Atlantic. As president of a still-young nation, Jefferson had pressed for the Louisiana Purchase to strengthen American trade and settlement. The final $15 million-dollar agreement with France doubled America's size overnight. As co-commanders of the Corps of Discovery, Lewis and Clark would lead the first scientific expedition into the new land. The trip would take them from frontier outposts in the east across thousands of miles of rivers and mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Near the future border of Montana, they would make their first contact with a new culture. They would leave their own world behind for almost two years. The Northwest Passage was not Jefferson's only priority. In fact, of the tasks assigned them, Lewis and Clark accomplished the most within the modern borders of Montana. Contact and negotiations with native tribes, the reconnaissance of suitable sites for trading posts and forts, and scientific accounts of the land's plants, animals, and scenic resources were all in keeping with Jefferson's hopes for the expedition.