On May 2, 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped in the small valley below this viewpoint along Patit Creek after following an ancient overland trail between the Columbia and Snake rivers that American Indian tribes had long traveled. Known as the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery, the Expedition included thirty-three people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and each had important responsibilities and duties. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark served as captains, and the corps also included soldiers, interpreters, hunters, scouts, craftsmen, journal keepers, York, Sacagawea, Toussaint Charbonneau, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, and Lewis's dog Seaman. John Ordway wrote that several hunters went up the branch hunting and several men went in different directions to look for a lost horse, while Lewis recorded that they passed a small creek and encamped on the north side in a little bottom after traveling 19 miles that day, at a place where the road left the creek and took the open high plain.