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.
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