All This Way in That

"We're heading south and it's getting colder," I pointed out as we left Helena this morning.

"Makes illogical sense," said Andy. "We're going up in elevation."

A sign on I-15 read, "Watch for Wildlife" and then in small letters "next 28 miles." The road snaked along Boulder River, curling between 6,000-foot hills. Here and there slides of loose rock marked the existence of old mines, and ten miles out of Helena the valley opened up with a ranch or two nestled far back from the road. Lonely country.

"Butte looks a lot better than it did when we were here years ago," I told Andy.

"Disaster," he said. "Ecological disaster... the mine and the town."
The Berkeley Pit Visitor Center was closed for the season, but tourists were allowed free access to the observation deck.

"It used to be Anaconda," explained Andy. "Anaconda went bankrupt. I don't know who owns it now." The East Pit reopened in 2003, because the price of copper went way up.

"I remember that pit having a little water in and around it in all colors, from greenish to deep red and rusty orange," I said. "I thought then it looked like death."

Now the pit is a huge lake, and a water treatment plant pumps away on the opposite shore. Designed to operate in some form for eternity, it cleans water draining into the pit. By 2018 the water in the pit, with a current pH of 2.5 like vinegar, will reach the ground water in Butte, potentially contaminating it. In addition, there are natural metals that have leeched into the water that make it toxic. One of those is arsenic.

"Anaconda operated pumps that kept the pit water-free when they were mining the copper," explained Andy. "When Anaconda went bankrupt, there was no money to keep the pumps operating and no reason to keep the water out of the hole. No one really thought about the ramifications until it was too late."

"Big business," I thought.

"The old part of town is depressing," said Andy, "but there are lots of new houses and the mine is operating. Butte is not dying apparently."

As we turned onto Route 287 toward Virginia City, Andy said, "You know, it's really pretty here." The valley stretched golden and rich between black hills silhouetted on each side. "And they don't have any casinos," he added.

We strolled the main street of the old gold mining town, peeking in windows and snapping pictures of the tourist attraction, now closed down for the season. Virginia City, largest of nine boom towns, attracted the get-rich-quick miners of the 1800's.

A few miles farther down the road, Nevada City attracted one or two other carloads of travelers. During the tourist season, the old gold mining town draws the curious. Charles Sue Bovey began collecting old buildings in the 1940's and placed his first structure in the dying town in 1959, four years after the last residents moved out. Since then Nevada City has become a haven for endangered structures, collected from all over Montana.
Beaverhead Rock, a geological landmark for ancient people, marked the course for Lewis and Clark, as well. And, as the light faded and the wind picked up, Clark's Lookout, now a Montana State Park, offered us a quick overview of the surroundings, just as it provided a lookout for William Clark so many years ago.

When we pulled into the motel this evening, the host glanced outside at Little Red and commented, "You came all this way in that?"

"Sure enough," said Andy. "Sure enough."