heidikins.com

Big Hole Valley and Anaconda, MT

Home base for the Mo Family is somewhere between Butte and Helena, Montana. But J-Mo wanted to make sure I saw a bit more of Montana, so he chartered himself as driver of the Green Jeep Tour and off we went. After wandering around Butte, J-Mo and I set off on an adventure throughout the southwest corner of Montana.  On the docket: the Big Hole Valley, the teensy hamlet of Wisdom, the Bitterroot Valley, Phillipsburg, Missoula, and Anaconda with a few spontaneous stops along the way.

Big Hole Valley, enormous mosquitos, miles of beautiful.

Wisdom, MT. Population: 12 (ok, 114), small, quaint, rustic, but with a sattelite dish. We stopped at Conovers, the little trading post on Main Street, and I found some really fantastic jewelry, stocked up on huckleberry jam (there are huckleberry products at every single store in Montana, apparently, it’s their thing), and was only slightly freaked out by a giant stuffed peacock hanging on the wall. Some Montanans have elk or moose? Conovers has a peacock (and an elk, and a moose, and maybe also a bear.)

On the north end of the Big Hole Valley is where Nez Perce Chief Joseph (“I will fight no more, forever”) finally surrendered to the United States Army after thousands of miles of running, and just 40 miles shy of the Canadian border. I remember watching a movie about Chief Joseph in school and his story has always stuck with me.  Unfortunately, the visitors center here was under some major rennovations and there was a tiny little bookstore and a few black and white photos of prominent players, both Native American and not, in the history of the Big Hole crammed into the garage and front room of a ranger residence. I wished I’d had more things to read and look at.

Chief Joseph Pass, on the Continental Divide at the Montana/Idaho border; elevation 7,000-something feet and even in June there was plenty of snow to make and throw snowballs. Not that I would ever do anything like that…ahem. Moving on.

Leaving the Big Hole Valley and coming down the other side of the pass you end up in the Bitterroot Valley, which is one of the most picturesque places I have ever been.  The mountains were tall and spikey and covered in snow and granite. The fields were green and inbetween were thousands of lodge-pole pines that have not been attacked by the beetle infestation that has taken over most of the rest of the state. Montana has these majestic mountains that are covered in tall trees, and in most places at least half the trees are reddish brown or gray because their insides have been eaten by pine beetles.

I don’t remember what teeny little town houses this lot, but I thought it was absolutely hilarious, and I’m lucky enough to have a chauffeur/tour guide who is happy to stop every time I want to take a picture (again, this happens A LOT).  After a bit more driving, J-Mo and I stopped for dinner in Hamilton at Signal Grill, which was absolutely delicious and then drove to Missoula where we had reservations at C’mon Inn, a lodge-style hotel with five hot tubs. This is perhaps the most brilliant idea ever in the history of brilliant ideas. The lobby/atrium of C’mon Inn is decorated with huge rocks and trees and even some waterfalls so it feels like your room is just off Nature. And scattered around the sizable lobby are five, separate hot tubs so you can avoid the splashing kiddos, or the creepy old men, or the slimy young men. Seriously, more hotels should invest in this kind of set-up.

The next morning, J-Mo and I headed to his old haunt, Anaconda, a town with strong ties to mining and smelting (i.e. turning the copper they dig out of the mountains into something that can be used).

I loved the almost familiar feel of the town, it was all old houses and historic buildings; it reminded me of Park City (a silver mining town) for the 50 weeks a year it is not invaded by Hollywood types hankering after the latest documentary or indie film.

J-Mo and I drove around for a while, visited his old company and co-workers, and he showed me the house he lived in. We walked around the “downtown” area for a while and I snapped pics of all the things I loved.

Like, this bus! I loved it! What I love even more is that there was an Anaconda local who was actually giving tours with this bus and spouting historical facts right and left.

We stopped at the memorial-thing that commemorates Anaconda’s mining history, and I snapped a pic of this tin man who is probably 10 feet tall. Anaconda is famous for it’s black “slag”, the leftovers from smelting. In fact, they have a mountain made out of the stuff and the Anaconda golf course has black slag for their sand traps as well.

The smelter is a bit outside town, and you can see the black slag mountain for miles. In the pic above you can see the smoke-stack/smelter-stack, it is taller than the Washington monument and the top is 60 feet across. That’s a big pile of bricks, yo!

This is one of the buckets that they use while smelting; hello, giant. You could probably fill that up with two dozen teenagers and still have room leftover! I was surprised at how huge all this mining equipment was! I mean, after seeing the GIANT pits they dug in Butte, and the GIANT black towery-thingies all over there, I didn’t expect the rest of the machinery to be Barbie-sized or anything, but it’s another thing all together to be standing next to this, imagining it full of liquid copper-lava, ya know?

I don’t know if this train is still in use or not, but it sure is photogenic. The entire time we were in Anaconda I kept having thoughts about Atlas Shrugged and it’s copper mining and train-empire story line. Yep, still harboring a significant crush on this gorgeous corner of Montana.

Up next: the Green Jeep Tours through Southwest Montana continues…

See all photos here.

8 Comments so far
Leave a comment