Day 19

Day 19 -FridayJuly 10th, 2009

Holiday Inn Express, Missoula, MT to Daly Mansion in Hamilton, MT to Spring Hill Campground, Deerlodge NF, MT

The day started off with a filling breakfast from the complimentary breakfast hub at the Holiday Inn Express. We learned that there was quite a bit of activity going on in the general area. Missoula is home to the University of Montana and freshman orientation was beginning that weekend. The annual marathon in Missoula was on Saturday. Butte, MT (about 90 minutes away) was having a giant folk music festival. And there was some big rodeo competition being held in the area. To say it was the place to be in Montana would be an understatement. Tara and I did our best to avoid all of these happenings, so as we left the hotel we asked Nuvi for a landmark and she spit out the Daly Mansion in Hamilton, MT.

The Daly Mansion was built by a Copper tycoon in the early 1900s as a summer home for his wife. It probably comes as no surprise that he died prior to the completion of the Mansion, but his wife did visit the estate every summer until her death in 1941. It was then taken over by a granddaughter who liked the land for her horses, but lived in another building in town and let the Mansion fall into disrepair. We gleaned all of this information from the volunteer workers in the gift shop and decided against shelling out $8 per person to go on the official tour. Instead we walked around the Mansion, marvelling at all of the old trees (almost 500 in total) and chose a particularly shady White Ash under which to enjoy lunch. Following lunch we looked at the map and realized that between where we were and where we wanted to go was an extensive mountain range with only a seasonal pass as listed on the Rand McNally Atlas. Nuvi was telling us to return to Missoula (an hour to our north) and skirt the range. We went with the seasonal pass. The Skalkaho Pass Road,

henceforth known as the Scary Road, began benignly enough; a smoothly paved road bordered by ranch land. It then began to weave through the hills, still paved, but unmarked with enough room for two way traffic. Then, really without any kind of adequate warning, we were deposited upon a narrow dirt road with cliffs on the southern side. Tara kept reminding me that if another car showed up to just get into a head on collision as there wasn't enough room for both cars to pass and there was no hope if you went off the side. After what seemed like forever, we reached the Skalkaho Falls,

which were only 6 miles into our 20 mile dirt road odyssey. Thankfully, going down the mountain was actually easier, with a wider dirt road, but contained numerous locals that flew over the road going in both directions. Just as the road became paved again, Tara saw a sign for Gem Mountain and we were off on another dirt track. Gem Mountain is a sapphire mining company that allows visitors to pan for gems from the scrap gravel after they (the company) used a machine to find the largest stones; for a marginal fee. Then, after toiling in the sun and bringing the scraps to them, they will offer to cut and set any stone that you find for another marginal fee. We dutifully paid $14 for a bucket of gravel, watched intently as the high school student demonstrated the proper panning techniques and set about finding 13.84 carats of sapphires,

none of which are of cutting quality, but all of which are precious. With the afternoon quickly coming to a close, we traveled to Georgetown Lake only to find all of the campsites full. So we continued on toward Anaconda, MT and happened upon Spring Hill Campground in Deerlodge National Forest. When we arrived only a handful of sites were taken. An hour later the campground was full.

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