Monday, May 30, 2005
Memorial Day in Southwest Montana
We took off this Memorial Day Weekend for a little Southwest Montana Roadtrip. Our first stop was Dillon to hit the (in)famous Patagonia Outlet Sale. We picked a route out on the Montana Gazetteer that looked pretty interesting we headed out west of Dillon to check out the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway. We drove out from Dillon and past the small town of Polaris, MT and adjacent Maverick Mountain Ski Area and continued down the road and set up camp. From there we headed over to Elkhorn Hot Springs. It was a small, pretty rustic developed pool that went from about 4 feet deep to six feet deep. It was pretty empty when we got there but soon after abnout 40 people arrived all crowded into the shallow end because the deep end was over everyone's head. Julia had been nursing a stuffed up nose all day and wasn't very excited about not sleeping in her own bed. She managed to stay awake off and on until about 3 AM because she couldn't breathe through her nose. By the time the morning came Jenny and I decided to scratch the whole camping idea and just make our way home. After taking down camp we headed over to a place called "Crystal Park" that someone told us about at the hot springs where you could just pick Crystals out of the ground. This place was crazy. It was a pretty aggressive crystal digging scene out in the middle of nowhere. We were 150 miles from the nearest city and there were about 50 cars in the parking lot and hardcore rockhounds from all over the place. The whole area was littered with huge craters where people had dug for crystals. There were whole families with the kids digging in a whole over her heads throwing dirt out while mom and dad sift through it. We continued down the highway looking for a good place for a hike. We pulled in at the Coolidge Ghost town trail head and walked in a half mile to a mining ghost town. Julia was pretty over it by that time and we checked it out for a bit and headed back to the car. On the way back we passed a wagon train of mule drawn covered wagons with with trailer tires, propane tanks and water holding tanks. The Mountains in the Pioneer ranger were awesome and the area definitely needs some further exploration.
Julia snacking on a graham cracker at camp
Julia and I digging for crystals with a stick at Crystal park
Jenny pointing out some old building in the Coolidge Ghost Town
A building falling in the river
Sweet Mountains
Montana RV
