Coolidge Ghost Town

About 50 or 60 miles south of Anaconda is the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway. Along this byway are beautiful forest service campgrounds. Many have paved roads and paved camping sites. There are also many points of interest along the byway to stop and admire along with some great designated picnic areas. We were on this road several times going to the Crystal Park digging area and were amazed at all the great camping places and they never seemed very busy -- at least during the week.

Several miles north of Crystal Park is the turnoff for the Coolidge Ghost Town. We followed the road and it turned out to be a pretty nice gravel road. It goes up a mountain about 4 miles and turns into a one lane road with "turnouts". There were not a lot of turnouts to use to move over and let someone pass but luckily we only met up with one road grader. You park and walk about 15 minutes to the actual ghost town. They mined gold here and we walked up to the old mine. It is blocked off and gated so you don't get any silly ideas of trying to explore inside it. The town was good sized and had lots of old buildings with many of them still at least partly standing.

It was very interesting place to walk through and imagine what life was like for the people living and working here. This place is so isolated and at least now there is a nice road to it but back in the day it had to be a nightmare to go and get supplies.

Montana Flowers

Wildflowers in the mountains are so beautiful. At Logan Pass which is at the highest part of the Going to the Sun road there was a carpet of yellow glacier lilies. You can see the snow at the left edge of the picture of the lilies -- and its August. The orange flowers in the foreground of the other picture are called indian paintbrush. Indian paintbrush is the Montana state flower.

We loved every minute of Glacier and went over the Going to the Sun road four times. After leaving the Kalispell area on the west side of Glacier we took highway 83 south. This is another scenic byway that goes along mountain lakes and wildlife management areas. We followed it down and then wound over to Missoula and from there south to Anaconda.

We are going to stay in Anaconda until after Labor Dy weekend. We found an orthopedic doctor in Butte for Jim to see to get his cast changed to a removeable splint in another week. We've been up to Gem Mountain west of Phillipsburg and found some more sapphires. We got all excited because we found one that was four carats -- but it was too flawed to make into jewelry. Someone the week before had found a 19 carat sapphire there -- they said it was worth a six figure sum of money. No such luck for us.

We are close to the Big Hole River which is very famous for trout fishing. We went by it and there were rafts filled with people every 200 feet in the water. People come from all over to fish here and most fly fish. The river is shallow and rocky so only rafts and those funny shaped river boats with curved bows on each end can be used. We haven't done any fishing since Washington.

We did get some good news. We got hired as volunteers at the Imperial National Wildlife refuge down by Yuma, Az. We get a site for our rv with full hookups in exchange for working in the visitor center 3 days a week. We start November 1st and the job runs until the end of March. There is a boat launch close to the visitor center so we will try doing some fishing in the Colorado this winter.

Glacier National Park

The Going to the Sun road in Glacier is one of those things that should be on everyones to do list. I got to drive our big truck on the twisty, narrow road that climbs up the side of a mountain and then follows along the edge for quite a while. There is road construction going on which turned out to be a good thing. You are stopped on the road for awhile waiting for your turn to go through the construction and you can get out of your car and take pictures. Otherwise there aren't many pullouts to stop and look at the scenery. There were times when I'm sure I passed another vehicle with only an inch of clearance between us. There is a free shuttle service you can ride instead of driving your vehicle if you just want to enjoy the views without the excitement of driving.

We got to the top of Logan Pass and there were big horn sheep wandering around in the parking lot. I took a picture of one that was "parked" illegally by the no parking sign. We also got some great pictures of the mountains reflecting into St Mary's lake on the east side of Logan's Pass.

We have moved on from Kalispell and are now back in Anaconda which is a small town 20 miles west of Butte. We will be here for a few weeks before heading to Utah.

Gold and Cedars

Before Jim broke his wrist we were having a good time gold panning at a site along Libby Creek. The area was mined for gold in the past and is now a gold panning site the forest service supports. You dig out some dirt from a big hill of gravel and pan it out. We found a small amount of gold and may have found more if we could have kept at it.

We did some more sightseeing around Libby. We went to the Ross Creek Cedar area. You walk along the trail and see the most amazing cedar trees. They are very old and as you can see HUGE. It is just a mile loop trail nice and level so Jim could manage it. The drive to the area was equally beautiful. Overall the whole northwest corner of Montana is great. The summer weather is usually in the 80s with low humidity and few biting bugs. We would love to go back to the Libby area in the future.

We are now back in Kalispell and finally getting our chance to go on the Going To The Sun road.