Ghosts in the Wind : In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark

Ghosts In The Wind - by the best selling author of Alone In The Wind.
The #1 New Release in Adventure Travel.

In the footsteps of Lewis & Clark.

The garage door cranked open as the Harley Davidson engine warmed and I stared out at the black emptiness beyond - the whole of the trip was out there, waiting in the darkness. I pulled on the helmet as my daughter waved goodbye. “When will you come home?”
“I’ll be back before the last leaf falls.”

In April 1804, Captains Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their men, pushed off into the Missouri River at St Louis and began their great voyage of discovery. They clawed their way against the current in a large keelboat and canoes into what was for Americans a vast empty hole on the map, known only to the indigenous tribes living there. Arguably the most talented group ever assembled for an independent US command, three dozen men, one woman, one infant boy, and a Newfoundland dog composed the Corps of Discovery.

For almost eight weeks and 8500 miles, I’d be immersed in American history, geography and culture, following Lewis & Clark to the Pacific, George Custer along Rosebud Creek to the Little Bighorn, exploring the northern lands and working my way to the western sea. There would be time to circle the Great Lakes into Canada, ride the Dakota high prairie, time for Yellowstone, Beartooth Pass, and Mt. St. Helens. I’d roam the Rockies, Bitterroot, Cascades and the Sierra, running down more backroads than I would have thought possible. I had the luxury of getting away alone, immersing myself in the trip, discarding phones & calendars, anything that might distract me from what I was seeing and doing.

Thomas Jefferson handed Lewis a list of objectives unlike anything a military commander had ever seen, a mission of complete isolation and autonomous command lasting for years. Moving through societies that had never seen white or black men before, they would face warrior nations that could overwhelm them at will with no prospect of support beyond their own abilities. Their priorities were to explore, establish good trading relations, and document everything they found. Lewis would identify over a hundred and thirty animal species unknown to science and over 170 new plants. Clark produced more than a hundred new maps, and logged thousands of celestial readings. Several Corps’ members kept daily journals along the way and five of them have survived. Conspicuous by its absence in their instructions was no mention of finding gold & silver, or the need to convert native tribes to Christianity.

The Corps was also a close knit community, bound by their common objectives and exposure, a disciplined company passing through and interacting with native societies in the most amazing ways. Thanks to the journals we know the names & personalities of many of the tribesmen and women who stepped into the light of history and then vanished forever without another whisper.

Ghosts In The Wind - complete with pictures and maps.