Garnet Ghost Town
We love to explore old ghost towns and when we heard that the largest, best preserved ghost town in Montana was located about 45 min. from our RV park in Missoula, we didn’t hesitate to go explore it. The town was originally built in the late 1800’s by miners seeking gold and other precious metals and at its peak it had about 1000 residents. By 1905 most of the large strikes had been depleted and the town only had 150 residents. Then a fire burned down many of the buildings and by the end of the Great Depression the town was deserted.
The things that makes touring this town so amazing is the number of artifacts that are seen in the remaining buildings. They were all discovered on site and it gives the place a weird, eerie feeling as if the people suddenly left and had to leave all their belongings behind.
It was a fun day which we ended by having a picnic surrounded by all these gorgeous white flowers.
Mountain beauties
We spent 2 nights in Missoula and then continued on to Coeur D’Alene, ID where we have friends. We will be here for a couple of days and then will head on down the road, hopefully to Mt Rainier.
Sun and Sand Travelers 
Very cool, and in such good shape.
Way back in 1974, on a trip ending at Philipsburg MT, I took my first hike to a mountain tarn – Fred Burr Lake. On the way, we stopped at Garnet, a ghost town in far poorer condition. It is now a state park. I do not recall any roads in those days; now the mountains are crisscrossed with them.
By the way – the flower is Xerophyllum tenax: bear grass.
Happy trails!
Wow, I can’t believe you were there. We’re retracing your steps from many different trips. Thanks for the flower ID,we haven’t seen them before in our travels.
My brother was just hiking in the mountains outside if Missoula and there was Bear Grass EVERYWHERE!!!! So cool you two took pictures of it!