Ghost Town Day

On the map were several Montana ghost towns held over for the pleasure of those gold diggers that missed the 19th Century adventure. These are predictable, a few old store fronts held up by, well, who knows. There are treasured artifacts from the past inhabitants and a creepy element or two bordering on the dastardly or macbre. There's the hangman's gallows in Bannack visible from the jail. The old haunted Masonic Hall populated by young souls dying of a yesteryear plague plays well against the oldest hotel in commemorative MT history. But I had to remember, the Brits regaled us in the hangings and choppings and other public bludgeonings from the past when we were in refined London. One should not be hasty in criticism. The street of tipsy stores in Virginia City, MT, still open as sweet shoppes, espresso coffee shops and the ever present T-shirt factory. Around in back is the side street theater playing a melodrama set in 1856. Feeling deprived of the tribulations of yesteryear, we plunged forward, unaware of how many more such opportunities awaited on the road home.










The train figures large in these exhibits and the slow, slow train from Virginia City to Nevada City both still in Montana was deemed necessary for the transition between these two old-time outposts. Later I clocked this on my odometer as 1.5 miles to cover a time period sufficient to fly to any other western state. Carole received a sewing lesson on a hand powered sewing machine and I had the benefit of a volunteer fur trapper describing the curing and marketing of beaver pelts, buffalo robes and several other beauties. We stayed for the mock court but had to rush to the train station before the villain of the village was duly convicted. Upon reflection we could have stayed for conviction and sentencing and still beaten the train back by walking.

So there we had it, three ghost towns in one day and finding the same corrupt sheriff had figured in the history of all of them. Or was he guilty at all? http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-bannack.html

Cabin Creek Trail

Paint brush livens up many a trail with it's lively color. Maybe you know the secret life of this death-sucking plant that parasitizes others while photosynthesizing to look normal. Last spring we flashed by an eager digger stealing a Paint plant from the roadside against nature and California law and thought how disappointed this miscreant is going to be when she places this beauty in her back yard and finds it soon black as it's true love it was sapping. This lovely plant dracula can't live without it's host. However, it requires no wooden stake to kill, simply remove it from it's pray and it's dead plant!

Also along the Cabin Creek Trail was this colorful snag holding court over the solitude of the forest. Not far from here logs blocked the trail that would stop most equestrian enthusiasts. That made it all the more quiet, but might be disturbing to those riders from the further side of the Forest intending to make a through trip to Cabin Creek and find the way blocked near the end of a 30 mile route.


We hiked many trails this summer, but this is one of a few I actually photographed. I love the trails that take me places, but they rarely appeal as photo material. It was such a pleasure to explore so many new trails as I've seen the local trails near home so often. Still, there is an occasional new trail and many new discoveries on the old to enjoy.

Galatan River Scenic Highway

The scenic highway route north from West Yellowstone follows the Galatan River . This road makes "scenic" an understatement. This would be National Park country if it weren't so close to Yellowstone. We came upon the community of Big Sky and took the detour to go look at it. This is one of the more recent mega-ski resorts with several Inns, condos and the average $5M chalet. It seems to all be for sale, but the prices are still as high as the country. Most places were closed awaiting the ski season.
The spectacular sited resort was empty of tourists and the surprised staff could hardly bring themselves to welcome us. "Hello, are we invisible?" Strange response from the hospitality industry.

I suppose it is popular to bash ski resorts that are on land better left to wilderness area, so I won't. Given the amount of board footage for real estate signs one has to wonder if this place was necessary.


On the other side of the mountain is this great valley with a little town named Ennis. Did they almost get that right? While the town had plenty of tourist attractions, the greater landscape remains recognizable Montana.

This loop up near Bozeman and back to Cabin Creek was a full day of sight seeing complete with a river full of floaters. A modern Armada of water revelers floated and bounced down the river near Highway 84 on the lower Madison River. Plan to take part next time in these parts.

At home at Cabin Creek, I smoked out the skeeters with a green smoker while reading outside. It's probably carcinogenic, but I hope that means skeeters and not me.

Cabin Creek

Here in the photo it is late July and the lupines of spring are riding the crest. The Endless Spring is the analog for the botanist to the Endless Summer of the surfer.



Below this vantage point is the valley spreading out below Quake Lake (MT) which provides some perspective on the effectiveness of this choke point for stopping up the Madison River. A little lower and the effect would have been minor.




Turning upstream is Quake Lake with the visitor center and on the large boulder deposited by the quake is a plaque to those who perished in the night in 1959 unable to escape to safer ground.

Nearby, we camped at Cabin Creek with fewer than a dozen sites. People came and went daily while we stayed on hiking and exploring. The trail up the creek was most pleasant and I "invented" several new tunes to keep the grizzlies entertained and apprised of our location. We later learned from friends that Cabin Creek was, in their experience, a certain site to observe those of the large furry persuasion.



Here we learned of the bark beetles decimating the woods. Our guide found live ones for our observation and produced hormone patches the Forest is placing on the trees they want kept safe. I later noted there were several patches in trees in our campground. Our guide was impressed with the $50K being spent to protect a small number of high priority trees. I wonder how much is lost by not protecting more. Grizzlies will likely go to burrow less full this fall due to the beetle destroying the white pines they depend on for pine nuts gathered kindly by the squirrels. The broken web may be more powerful than those we weave.

Our neighbor camping for the weekend from Ennis, MT claims the rivers here are appallingly short on fish. He was here when it all was fairly teeming (isn't that how the phrase always goes?) and will never see such largess again. That same day, the Forest staff estimated there are 3,000 pounds of trout per mile in the Madison. They seemed impressed with the magnitude of fish flesh. Hard to know what it compared with 17 years ago when Ennis-man emerged on the river bank.

The recommended diner across the hiway was nearly our undoing. We made to turn in there when I spotted in the rearview mirror a truck and trailer bearing down on us with no place but ours to sweep through. I gave up on waiting my turn for a traffic break and sped up the road out of his wake as quickly as the turbo would take us. We escaped a crash and went back to find the cafe under seige from the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality. I suspect they didn't approve their water and the business was closed until further notice. Maybe we dodged a nasty bullet there too?

West Yellowstone outside the park

West Yellowstone offered those civilized distractions we didn't know we missed until we landed there. Never have so few (1500) served so many (15,000) per night. While we visited Gardiner a few days earlier, the pulse here was closer to the pocketbook. All those denied lodging in the park washed up here and threw themselves at the open doors of those accommodations still available.



The Union Pacific Dining Hall is evidence of a longstanding assault on this gateway to YNP. The railroads exploited the National Parks and vice versa to create business for the newly built lines across the West when UP and the others weren't otherwise gainfully employed promoting homesteading to the unwary in the bruising plains north of YNP in Montana. This dining hall was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the architect of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. Even though overlooked in the annals of wilderness architecture, this handsome "lodge" served masses of visitors before or after their YNP experience.


Hegben Lake expands behind a dam going back to pre-earthquake formation of it's partner lake sharing the same canyon. Carole plies the waters near Rainbow Campground, our home base for three nights after leaving YNP. Several would-be park campers were fellow neighbors when they were turned out of the park to look for a home for the night.


From Horse Butte on the peninsula, Lake Hegben stretches to the mountain ridges. Mosquitos here chased us back inside the truck even though far from the water and high on the butte.



In 1959 I learned of the earthquake creating a new lake at Yellowstone. That was an exciting event since I distilled from the dry school books that geology was something that was OVER and therefore something I had missed completely. Here was evidence that the world was more alive than I knew and might be attended greater respect. I took a 51 year journey to this shore to see what happened. On the way I diverted from a possible career in geology (and many other likely choices) to become a psychologist, but this might have turned the tide the other way.


The landslide crossed the canyon creating Quake Lake filled with trees preserved still standing in the cold lake water. In another 80 years, predictions suggest further pilgrimage here will go unrewarded, as the Madison River will erode through the landslide, returning to it's free running course of 1959. Got here just in time!

Three Weeks in the Park come to an end

Only YNP has it's own archive and library in Gardiner, MT. The Park Service mentions a museum, but on site, run by the Nat'l Archive, it is considered something of a storage facility open to tours on a limited basis. We went to see the building and inspect the holdings ( this is what happens when you have more time than the average visitor) and found an interesting selection of books on Yellowstone and a willingness by the staff to unearth documents from the archive for specific requests. A great place to hideout in a rainstorm with terrific views from the windows facing the northern edge of the park.


The Petrified Forest is in the national forest in Montana adjacent to the north of the YNP. Ralph got us a permit to collect petrified wood, dimension not to exceed 2.5 cubic inches. We failed to find anything that large that wasn't embedded in hard lava. A grizzly -bear-phobe complained more than we did about the arduous climb on an uncertain trail through certain grizzly country for such small evidence of petrification. It was a little disappointing for collectors and photographers of wood chips, but the views were grand and the grizzlies failed to put in an appearance!




On a hot day what's a
girl to do? Go to the local watering hole and splash around with your best friends. Along with a few dozen more lady elk, these three passed a pleasant day, but blocked the trail we had selected. After enjoying the refreshing water ballet we gave up the trail and headed for our own human designated water sport area.




On the way out of the park headed west, these three graced the last meadow in the park headed for the town of West Yellowstone, MT. It was good from start to finish!

This guy is a bonus to those curious in an entomological way about YNP's smaller fauna!

Seeds of a great idea

One idea I keep in mind is finishing the blog about the past trip before the next. It's not going to happen. We're headed for Dollarado (heard this over the summer) for a week to visit Ralph and Karen Roberts and see about the fall color.

"For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People:" Simple and direct; that's what the National Park System is about, though I would have to add that it's a great educational experience. How can you not learn earth sciences and history?

1872: Year of the first park anywhere in the world and the park was Yellowstone. This idea blew to the far corners of the earth and seeded parks and reserves for animals and habitats as often as for people. By the way, my friend Jeff Jones, wilderness photographer, is having a book launch for his celebration of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 50th anniversary on Oct. 23rd at the Corridan Gallerly on Milpas in Santa Barbara. The title of the book is Arctic Sanctuary, a great photo journey through the seasons and ecosystems of the refuge.

Enter through this gate to Yellowstone National Park (N entrance) and begin to doubt the solid ground we take for granted as you contemplate the thin, floating crust over a molten mantle. It's a surprise why plate tectonics theory is such a recent idea, but I am no geologist, simply an admirer.

An aside: Click up these photos to see them large, then you can read the quote on the arch.




The two colorful photos below are from Mammoth Hot Springs. While the moving hot spots left some terraces drying and diminished, there is much beauty in the building step and flow with the original "infinity" pools. On the road-cut cliff approaching our camp is a cross-section of the old accretionary material laid down in a much earlier Mammoth expression of the flowing springs creating a travertine wall.
















That's Ralph's salute to Bunsen Peak named after the inventor of the ubiquitous Bunsen burner in all the labs through the period I was in school anyway. I looked, but found no eternal flame in his honor, though it might have blown out this day.



The final photo will reveal itself (click it) to be of the Roosevelt Lodge where Teddy took a a break from trust busting as a Republican....hmmm. He was a great supporter for national parks and was said to enjoy this lodge for it's rustic nature and access to wildlife.



Yellowstone was once again the most visited of all US National Parks this summer. Does that mean there were crowds? Absolutely! Does it mean you can't find solitude and opportunities to explore nature without being elbow to eyebrow? We found it possible to dip into the crowd and then out to the sparsely populated hinterlands to enjoy the peace of nature's song.