Northwest Passage Scenic Byway begins on US-12 at Lewiston, ID and traverses the Clearwater River Canyon, passing through Nez Perce areas of Spalding and Kamiah (where the Heart of the Monster site is) and the towns of Orofino and Kooskia. At Kooskia, the byway splits, one segment going south on Idaho Highway 13 toward the Camas prairie and the town of Grangeville. Another segment continues eastward on US-12 along the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River and culminating at the Lolo Pass.
We joined the byway at Grangeville on ID-13 and on reaching the fork, turned west for a few miles till Kamiah before turning back and heading for Lolo Pass." />
The reference to the Northwest Passage is from 1803, when Thomas Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to find the Northwest Passage - a link between the Missouri River and the Columbia River through the unexplored Rocky Mountains. Of course, we now know that such a route does not exist, Continental Divide and all that.
This 202-mile byway, stretching across north-central Idaho, parallels the explorers' route through the ancestral homeland of the Nez Perce people.
From the west, the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway begins on US-12 at Lewiston, ID and traverses the Clearwater River Canyon, passing through Nez Perce areas of Spalding and Kamiah (where the Heart of the Monster site is) and the towns of Orofino and Kooskia. At Kooskia, the byway splits, one segment going south on Idaho Highway 13 toward the Camas prairie and the town of Grangeville. Another segment continues eastward on US-12 along the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River and culminating at the Lolo Pass.
We joined the byway at Grangeville on ID-13 and on reaching the fork, turned west for a few miles till Kamiah before turning back and heading for Lolo Pass.