A Haunted Weekend - Part 1

Throughout the week, I watched the weather. Friday was supposed to be stormy, and one of the areas I contemplated visiting even had a fire warning  - from possible dry lightning.  I didn't relish camping way out in the woods, only to find a wildfire had cut off my route back. I dithered about only doing day stuff, but I live too far away for anything to be closer than about 4 hours.

Friday morning sky

I got up to see a red sky Friday morning, and finally decided to go to Bannack State Park, the best preserved of Montana Ghost towns.  My rationale was that I could always just come back home if the weather turned really bad. I piddled around and finally left around 9:A. M.  I needed to mail a package to first went to the post office at Dillon. Then I had to make a detour into the Dairy Queen for a Blizzard before going on to Bannack.

When I got to Bannack, the sky was partially cloudy but the sun was extremely harsh and the temperature was too hot. So I decided to go find a campsite and come back in the evening.  On the way out, I took a left turn too soon and got to see a lovely huge pasture full of both sheep and hay bales.

I finally reached a main road and got myself oriented and headed back to the correct road.  The road I was looking for was The Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway.  It has lots of camping along it. And it even has a public hot springs with a swimming pool.  I would have checked it out Friday night, but found I'd forgotten my swimsuit.  

The first campsite I found was Grasshopper Campground. It has water, which a lot of the Forest Service campgrounds don't have, and pit toilets. The site was in the woods with most of the tables in the shade, and with large campsites. I soon found a site with only a trailer on one side of me and only two sites from a restroom. The view was back to a mountain of falling bounders and tall evergreen trees. 

The sky was getting blacker and lightening was flashing as I ran to get my tent up.  While I was setting up, a few fat drops of water landed on me. I managed to get the tent completely up before a short shower commenced.  When that one was over, I got all my bedding into the tent, and blew up my pad. Another shower started so I just lay down and read for a few minutes. Minutes later, the sky was mostly clear, so I headed back to visit Bannock. 

There, I found most of the visitors gone and I had an almost solitary experience with the buildings. If I squinted, I could almost see it when it was the capital of the Territory of Montana and many of its occupants were busy mining gold or running stores or saloons. There have been many sightings of ghosts, especially in the Hotel Mead, but none of them showed themselves to me. 

Dr. Rayborn's house is the only one furnished

Bedroom

Baby carriage

Mason's - upstairs and school - downstairs

This desk brought back memories of ones I bought for end tables - and my almost three-year-old daughter who caught her leg in one.  We had to saw her out of the desk.

Hotel Meade

The beautiful staircase inside the hotel

Street view with a few visitors

The Methodist  Church - only church in town

The jail - usually just held a man a few hours before he was hanged

View behind the street

One house had several wallpapered rooms - all flowers

Grasshopper Valley is most ranching - the cows are grazing on government lands while the ranchers are stockpiling hay for winter

This is a haying machine  - think it's called a beavertail

Hay bales were thick

The evening sky promised an end to the rain, even though it was still in the forecast.

An Unexpected Visit to a Ghost Town

There are not many trees that turn colors in the fall on the Bison Range, just several shrubs, some only inches high are providing red, yellow and orange colors. I wanted to photograph big trees in their brilliant fall color, so looked up some scenic drives and hikes before leaving at dawn on Saturday morning.

I drove towards Missoula still dithering between two drives, and finally decided on Highway 200.  But when I saw the turn for Hwy 210 which was running along a stream, I took it.  A few minutes into the drive, I saw several bighorn rams grazing along the side of the road. I ended up making a U-turn and trying to get pictures.  But most of them were in the shade of the mountain - the sun was barely up then.

Ram feeding just off the highway

Several miles further, I saw a sign for Garnet Ghost Town Byway.  The description of an old gold mining town sounded interesting and I hoped the road would climb to aspens,  so I started climbing on a paved road that soon became dirt. I took several smaller side roads for a while, looking for fall photo opportunities, until I reached a washout that was too deep and wide for my little fit to navigate. I had to back down the road, next to a few hundred foot drop, until I reached a place almost wide enough for two cars to pass, where I managed to get the Fit pointed back downhill.  The views were hazy mountain vistas of a totally coniferous forest.  After that episode,  I stayed on the main road.

I was disappointed in that I was STILL only finding colored shrubs, not the glorious gold and orange trees I wanted. Then I came to an area of cliffs and exposed rocks with  small  shrubs growing profusely, all covered in green, red, yellow or orange leaves of various sizes and shapes. I spent some time on a trail in the area before finally arriving at the ghost town of Garnett. Here I enjoyed the fall colors that were everywhere.

Near Garnet

Finally I arrived at the parking lot which reveals nothing of what is left of the town, except for a informational kiosk. But a short walk down an easy slope gets you to an overlook of what is left of a town that once numbered about 1000.

Part of the exhibit in the kiosk

View looking down at the town - shot with my wide angle lens that screws to the lens on my camera

I would have liked to have come here earlier when the Visitor Center was open and, hopefully, taken a guided tour. I did find an excellent brochure that both gave the history of the town and told about each of the still standing buildings. They closed last weekend and the entire park will close in two more weeks.

The town is named for the Garnets that often occur with gold and quartz.  It is build very haphazardly with no evidence of private yards.  Many of the cabins were built at mine claims. The town was in its heyday in the late 1800's.  It has been a ghost town since 1947.

Many of the buildings are empty but some of the public ones held a few artifacts, which helped me picture life here.

Loved how long the Blue Ribbon Beer sign has lasted

The Adams family lived here from 1904 to 1927 - one of the nicer homes and had covered extensions no longer standing

I liked this simple composition on the McDonald cabin - one of two that can be rented in the winter

At the time it was built (1896-1900) this was one of the nicer houses and even had picket fence around it. It used to have a covered passageway to the woodshed and outhouse.

Thought this might have been a church but it was one of 13 bars offering
male-oriented entertainment - seen from the back

Frank Davey started his store about 1898. It sold everything and had an office to weigh gold. The meat and other perishables were stored in the ice-house which also had three hidden compartments in which to store gold. The next four pictures show parts of the interior of the store which had two large rooms as well as the ice room.

There are very few actual displays

Kenmore has been around a LONG time

Shoes in the general store

A place to gossip and probably play checkers

A hotel kitchen

Very faded glory of the most elegant building there - a hotel

One of the rooms to let in the hotel

A carriage that belonged to the owner of the general store

The Ole Dahl house, built in 1938 - the other cabin that can be rented in the winter

I also walked the trail that has some of the mining artifacts around it and one visible mine. However the brochure box was empty so I couldn't make much sense of of what I saw.

Some of the mine artfacts

Orecrusher?

This looked like a well but I think it brought ore to the surface. 

I suspect this might have been used to pull cars of ore out of the mines

This kind of gold was the only gold I saw today

A Visit to the Past in Montana's Smallest State Park

This past weekend I visited my friend Kathy, a long-time birding and paddling buddy, who lives near Corpus Christi in the winter and in Bozeman in the summer.  She graciously took me to several places, one of which was Elkhorn State Park within the ghost mining town of Elkhorn, Montana, west of Bozeman.

We missed our turn but found an even better road a few more miles down Interstate 90.  It was a well-maintained dirt road with farms and hills along it. At one spot, there was a scenic rocky outcropping with lots of flowers. in small fields among the trees. We had to stop and take pictures.

Rock formation

Then we had to cut across to our original road.  The crossover road had an old hot spring that had been developed into a hotel with swimming areas top of the springs.   We stopped to check out the old hotel.  I couldn't talk Kathy into taking a soak, so we continued on to Elkhorn.

Beautiful old hotel at Boulder Hot Springs

Elkhorn is an old mining town which primarily mined silver but also mined lead and a little gold.  It was unique in that whole families lived here, rather than mostly just men as was normal in mining towns.

View of Elkhorn and part of the mine and tailings from a hill above the town

These wheels seemed to hold a story of a terrific wreck

The town itself has always had a few residents and most of the old buildings are on private land and are almost gone. The state owns only Fraternity Hall and Gillian Hall.  Mixed among the derelict buildings are weekend cabins a a few full-time residences.

Almost gone

Better days are long gone

Part of mine operation

The mine entrance building

The State Park - Fraternity Hall and Gillian Hall

Kathy 

One of the most poignant parts of our tour was a visit to the cemetery.  Most of the tombstones were on graves of children who died in the diphtheria epidemic of 1889. Many of the tombstones held the names of two children who died days apart. One family lost six children and the mother in one week.  I was glad that most modern families don't have to live with this kind of tragedy today.




The town had a high population of about 2500 people but it rapidly died away as mining slowed in the early 1900's. Tailings were still treated until 1937.

Hope no one was in this car when it was shot up.