Yesterday, I hiked to the ghost town of Monte Cristo, Washington. Of course, if there were ghosts there, I don't know where they would live, because the town is so obliterated that the buildings themselves are gone and in most cases virtually undetectable. For example, the Monte Cristo Preservation Association has put up signs to indicate where different buildings were, and the three story Royal Hotel is a sign in front of a bunch of trees. The founders of the town must have really liked the book, as they even named the street through the center of town Dumas Street instead of the more usual Main Street.
In many respects, the hike to the town is the best part of this particular exploration considering the very impressive scenery you see along the way. That people built a town deep in the wilderness like this, with incredibly steep mountains on every side, is just amazing. Of course, it's also why the town failed, as the value of the ore they extracted from the area wasn't enough to justify continuing in a place that proved to be very harsh, what with avalanches, blizzards, and flooding.
I took pictures until my camera ran out of batteries, which was far too early in the hike (or perhaps walk is the right word, since it was mustly just along a fire road rather than a trail.) I snapped a few more with my Treo, which means no color correction, flash, focus, or anything much but grabbing pixels, so you'll see the last few pictures in the album I posted above are kind of odd.
On the way home, as I was driving, I also saw a black bear loping across the highway. The lack of batteries for the camera was especially disappointing at that moment, as that's the first time I've seen one in the wild, even with all the camping I did as a kid in Alaska.
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