So out of Idaho, potato country, into Montana, beef country today.
Things didn’t look too well when we woke up to snow which wasn’t predicted. This photo was taken 15 minutes after the initial snowfall was cleared off the car. The cars doors were frozen shut and it took 20 minutes of running it in a standing position for it to warm up. It snowed for four hours overnight which meant that a more scenic route we were going to take had to be cancelled. We drove the first 1 ½ hours in snowy and close to white out conditions and then the weather lifted as soon as we went over the great divide.
Toque spent the drive hunkered down in her travel basket trying to keep warm. We have heated seats in the front of the car but not in the back plus there is no direct heating into the back seat either. She just curls up under her blanket and sleeps soundly until the car stops.
Once we were in Montana, we stopped into the mining town of Butte. It reminded us both of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia which also has a pit at the end of its main street. They mostly mined copper, silver, gold and lately molybdenum here. There are also a lot of similarities between Butte and Telluride in Colorado which also had a related mining history and now has world class skiing facilities there.
Mining was commenced in 1864 and you can see that it had its real boom time around the 1920’s and 1930’s.
In the historical centre of the old town there were a plethora of gorgeous brick buildings. This one was originally a bank, and the ground floor has now been turned into a unique coffee shop.
So unique in fact, that the old bank fault has been turned into the coffee shop.
The town has the typical wild history of most mining boom towns with fortunes made and lost, red-light districts, colourful characters and the wild swings associated with the price of metals.
The mines originally started as underground prospects and then much later on turned into a large open pit operation. Butte does have the unenviable history of having the worst hard rock mining disaster in American history in 1917.
Fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company’s Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked by a tragic accident more than two thousand feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of tunnels. Within three days, 164 trapped miners were dead.
As we drove around looking at all the old headframes which indicated where an underground shaft stood, there was a plaque for each one with a short history of that particular mine. They all had a list of numbers of miners killed in that mine. It was pretty grim reading.
The Montana State School of Mines was founded in 1900 and became affiliated with the University of Montana in 1994. Fraser did so some work with the Montana Tech during his time with Runge Mining in Calgary.
We both liked Butte and could see it had huge potential due to the historical center of town with the many well preserved brick buildings but unfortunately the city has grown in the lower valley now. It could be such a jewel of a town under the correct guidance.
So, this was our trajectory today. We drove along part of the spine of the Rockies and also over a number of passes. Thankfully, the weather gods were kind to us but it would be a frightening drive in bad weather. The truckies must hate this part of the drive.
This has been our route since we left Phoenix. We estimate that we will do just over 10,000 kilometers from the time that we left Calgary to the time that we return. Whew!! To give the Australians some perspective – it is 3846 kilometers from Sydney to Perth – so, that would be a return trip plus another 2/3rds of a trip back.
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