A River Runs Through It

The East Fork of the Bitterroot River is not the river of Norman Maclean's beautifully written novella, but they end up in the same place. Maclean's river was the Blackfoot, which joins the Clark Fork a few miles east of Missoula. The Bitterroot joins the Clark Fork a few miles west of Missoula. This is the East Fork of the Bitterroot at Ross's Hole near Sula, where Lewis and Clark met and camped with the Flathead Indians in September 1805.  The term "hole" was used by early trappers to describe an open area, usually a valley, protected by mountains.