Weary of boiled elk and dog meat, Captain William Clark and a dozen other explorers left their winter encampment at Fort Clatsop on January 6, 1806, in search of a whale beached on present-day Cannon Beach. This trek was the farthest west traveled by any member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Guided along Indian trails by a native guide, the party scaled the north slope of Tillamook Head, which Clark called on January 7, 1806, "the Steepest worst and highest mountain I ever ascended." After passing Ecola Creek, which Clark named ekkoli, the Chinook word for whale, they continued south and found the "monstrous fish," which Clark described as nothing more than a skeleton 150 feet long. Local villagers were boiling the blubber and extracting oil, and Clark bartered for 300 pounds of blubber and a few gallons of oil. Sacagawea eagerly joined the party after insisting that she had traveled a long way to see the great waters and wanted also to see the monstrous fish.