so what was your favorite part of 
Pompey's Pillars in Montana
i'd say was the Marmot they're really
cool they were cute
or fat they were fat i wonder what
marmot tastes like
I bet Lewis and Clark know
somebody help me
don't forget to subscribe so you don't
miss a minute
of Colorado Martini so we're at
Pompey's Pillar, Montana and we are gonna go
um down the walkway and we're gonna go
see
Clark's um engraving of his name
up on the rock Clark who Clark Griswold
no it's not Clark Griswold from the
movie Vacation this is not Wally World a
note william clark as
in lewis and clark expedition that was
that was his first name was william
then who the heck's herbert that's
what's written on the rock
aloysius Clark
what would be really cool is sacagawea
was with him
and if she had you know knew how to
write
do it did an axe
that's your mark actually i think i've
written things where
she would do an x for her mark and stuff
so but that would have been really cool
if there was an x up there and it was
Sacajawea's signature. Most are gone and have
melted away because the sandstone and
from the water
and the weather the heat a lot of the
rock is broken away
um so right now there's about 2000
carvings
but think about how much more there was
and what was lost
but you know pretty cool stuff let's go
take a look
i am with you i brought that guy in with
me that mosquito
yeah see the blood on the windshield
uh-huh i'm leaving him and the blood
there as a reminder to the others
so they won't bug us don't go i guess
get it
you don't want to go in that car let
somebody smoosh you
look at baby i've got all these mosquito
bites from me
from the pompeii pillars yeah it's
amazing what a journalist will do for
her uh
story i can see it now i'm here in the
montana outback
flirting with no virus just to get my
story about the pompeii pillars
and you paid the price of journalism
do note that throughout the video it
sounds like i'm saying
palmpades pillars but it's
pompey's pillars
pompey's pillars claim to fame
is its prominent sandstone rock face
that contains the signature of captain
william clark
of the lewis and clark expedition
clark's
1806 inscription is the only
physical evidence remaining of the lewis
and clark
expedition which is also known as the
core of discovery
the rock also contains around 2
000 other carvings from various
historical expeditions
camps and points in history
it includes everything from petroglyphs
to the class of 1923.
the pillar overlooks the yellowstone
river
and can be found about 25 miles east of
billings montana
and only an hour northwest
from the big horn battlefield national
monument
pompey's pillars is so close
to the little bighorn battlefield that
we were able to do
both sites in one day
lewis and clark decided to divide the
party into two groups
clark took one of the groups down the
yellowstone river
and arrived at pompey's pillars
on july 25th 1806.
clark decided to name the pillars
pompey's
tower after sacajawea's son jean battis
charbonneau whose nickname
was pomp
clark found that the native americans
had engraved
figures of animals so he decided to
engrave his
own name into the rock
he wrote in his journal that he placed
his name
date of the month and year near the
native american markings
which authenticates the carving
so as you come in there's a really nice
picnic area so
if you're looking to have a picnic lunch
they have a nice display of the sugar
beet
industry that was here um back at the
turn of the century and they have some
nice
uh ah
they have some nice men here
um they have a nice display of the
equipment they used to use
um but it's nicely shaded um because it
does get warm out here
um so if you there's no services out
here so make sure that you bring a
picnic lunch with you
so you're able to bring your pooches um
as long as they're on a leash
pooches if you got them
what is that some merman
so if you come here he they live under
that rock
so there's the tp display and
here is the visitor center
wow that's a loud sound hear it chirping
that's coming from that see him under
see him under the rock he's making that
sound
so they have a really really nice
visitor center here
unfortunately it's closed today um
you know it's fourth of july um right
now
uh but there are people working here in
ranger stations and it's also
kind of during culvert so um
not all the national parks museums are
open
quite yet so after
traveling by horseback over 100 miles in
five days
clark finally found cottonwood trees
large enough to build canoes
the corps had plenty of experience
making these canoes
since they had already made 13 eight of
them
out of the cottonwood tree
most likely five core members spent
most of three days carving
this type of canoe it took the blm
staff 200 hours with modern tools
to make these demos that you see in
front of us
so if you're wondering what cottonwood
is this is cottonwood
so it's very prevalent in colorado it's
actually our state tree it's so
prevalent but
it obviously grows here too in montana
the leaves actually kind of look like a
little bit like an aspen tree
and you always find it by water it loves
growing by creeks and if you always look
at the creepy trees that i have in my
videos like my haunted and paranormal
videos
there was always cottonwoods without
leaves on them because they are so
creepy in the wintertime but this is
what they made the canoes out of
as you can see the cottonwoods get
really big i mean they get
super big the older they get the wider
they are so they're perfect
for making canoes and if you look right
there you'll see why they call it
cottonwood and colorado it snows
in the summertime with that it drives us
crazy
so that's cottonwood as i said it snows
cottonwood when you have them around
so unfortunately the um stairs that take
you
up onto the the pillars um have been
compromised recently
in other words they're becoming unstable
so
they haven't blocked off but you still
can see
some of the signatures so let's see what
we can see
so this very nice ranger is going to
show me where the picture graphs are
um they're around the corner
yeah because we can't get up top you
normally can get up top right here and
be able to see
um clarks
signature but unfortunately
the railing is compromised so we can't
get up there right now
so if you come here and the stairs are
still closed off
um when you're at the log cabin there
you want to turn right down a path
um away from the pillars and there's
this wonderful
replica of the carving
along with some of the petroglyphs that
you're looking for so
if you have the telephoto and the
binoculars you might want to stop here
first
so you know what you're looking for up
on the rock
because there's so many signatures i
mean every time i put my camera up there
my telephoto i keep finding more and
more and more i keep
missing ones it's like i thought i was
just in that area and i find more
so really make sure
that you bring something so you can see
since the stairs
um are closed off i don't have a date
when those are going to be open again um
but with a copied
epidemic um you know things have been
really slowed down
so you want to walk a little further
beyond the replica
that i just showed you the rock is
behind me
because you're going to find the
yellowstone river
the river they came down with the canoes
sacagawea was with him
she didn't go with clark she i'm sorry
she went with clark
she can go with louis so she's the one
that was directing him in this
area but it's definitely worth seeing
this river that they went down and it's
quite an
impressive river also it's accessible
uh you can't get a wheelchair you can
see i've got like a concrete path behind
me
so let's take a look
the yellowstone river
that beautiful that's a roaring river
i'll tell you that much
whatever you do bring bug spray
oh my goodness it's 11 o'clock in the
morning right now and i didn't think i
need to put any on
i am being eaten alive so
bug spray whatever you do they have this
wonderful
tv display right in front of the
interpretive center
what's really cool is i have never seen
the flags
of the montana native american tribes
and so that's really cool i just love
seeing that
they have this nice display that shows
you what the flags
um look like and where the different
tribes are from
so in the area that we're in is the crow
agency area
so she's taking me to the left
of the pillars
to show me where i can use my telephoto
lens
oh i can see something right from here
some of those signatures
there's 2 over 2000 signatures on this
rock
and are there any other i mean where who
are these people are they like pioneers
or are they
so about four to five different tribes
what were the tribes
so crow hidatsa uh i believe maybe
lakota sue and cheyenne and then
i believe they thought it was also
possibly black feet
okay but of course they're not sure you
know the meanings who they were
is not definite okay
and then there was the fur trade that
came here the yellowstone expedition
the us army um there's frequent camps
here
the natives would camp here occasionally
and so would
you know the us army
and then
the one of the first main steamboats
came up here the josephine
um that was signature but it fell off oh
no that's disappointing
so there's yellowstone expedition
signatures on here
yeah um i in their journals i talked
about how everyone you know
all these major groups who come here
they always came up here
but that louis i mean sorry clark
signature
um they carve their names up there
maybe a settler here but i think someone
told me that that is a grave area
i have no idea so there's no headstone
over there
maybe it's where they believed it the
grave is
but it's do they and they don't know who
it is
no they do know who the the settler was
i don't know if it's
that okay even is great but someone did
tell me that they were
protecting a grave so yeah they're
protecting something there and most
likely is a grave
so they've had a lot of problems with uh
rock coming down
from the rain um there's like over 2 000
carvings on here
it's really neat from you know all
decades class of 23s up there 1923
um but you definitely have to come down
around the rock so if you come from the
visitor center and go
left you're going to see quite a few
bring binoculars bring telephoto lenses
because when you come the stairs may be
not fixed yet
but they are fixing them so it will be
open at one time
so two things that you want to make sure
you have when you come out here
binoculars or a telephoto lens
uh we're gonna picnic lunch there's
nothing out here
um plenty of water and sunscreen
and whatever you do marine bug spray
oh my god the mosquitoes are so bad it's
fourth of july
today um and it's not even dusk
or early morning and
we're all being eaten alive i've have so
many wells i can't even take a picture
without them like flying in my ear
so dad bug spray big time
also be aware when you go down some of
the dirt trails that have some high
grass
like this uh there are a lot of rattled
snakes in this area
uh y'all you see signs quite a few signs
um but just be very careful that
um you're probably perfectly fine on the
concrete path this is pretty wide
they like the grass the snake in the
grass um but there's a lot of trails
that you can go off in
um that have a lot of tall grass so you
need to be very careful
of that if you're not familiar with
rattlesnakes because of where you're
from
they have to be coiled you know wound up
um to be able to bite you
i mean they can be in any position by
you
but to really like make distance and get
you
and they usually warn you with the
rattle so listen for the rattle
so pompey's pillar totally recommend it
it is definitely worth a stop so if you
are in
uh the little big horn battlefield area
billings montana
driving through on highway 90
going west or east definitely
make this stop to pompei's pillar
it's not far from the 90 like not far at
all
so it's definitely a look-see i wish the
visitor center was open
so i could show it to you but the
national park system is still going
through their opening phases from colvid
so i'm just lucky enough that the parks
are open why i'm up here
so hopefully when you're here the
visitor center will be back open
um so i haven't seen there are outdoor
bathrooms
um in case you need to do that
um but they do have some vending
machines i've seen
outdoors here um so if you forget
something to drink
um but it is warm in this area in the
summertime so
uh definitely bring lots of water
make sure that you catch all our videos
on the great
state of montana
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appreciate it
you
