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A few weeks ago, I found myself roaming the alpine forests of the La Sal Mountains on a job that promises remote unpredictability. I was out on a fire assignment, one of those long days in a four-wheel-drive engine, chasing wildfires racing across the landscapes of the American West. When the call came, I wasn’t thrilled about the timing. Some of my best friends were in town, and I had been savoring a rare stretch of time off amid a whirlwind summer of work. But the Deer Cree

In the final installment of the series, we follow the life of a woman whose unwavering dedication helped preserve the historic town of Bannack, ensuring its stories and its spirit would endure for generations. Across the street from the Methodist church near the middle of town lies the Ovitt Store. Once home to a saloon, a bustling boarding house, and even a bakery, the building found new life in the 1950s when Mrs. Mabel Ovitt took over and turned it into a shop. Mabel was b

The heart of Bannack holds its share of stories, but it’s in the forgotten edges of town where the ghosts whisper loudest. While most ghost towns offer only a few scattered cabins, Bannack tells a fuller story. Some came to strike it rich, digging deep into the earth. Others saw opportunity above ground, opening businesses to serve the miners. And then there were the drifters, drawn by the chaos and chance of a town on the edge of nowhere, chasing drink, cards, and fleeting f

With clear weather forecast for the next few days, I ventured deeper into the mountains toward the ghost towns of Custer and Bonanza. Following the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River north, I passed a tall cottonwood tree standing by the roadside. Its trunk, gnawed halfway through, must have been no match for the local beaver population. The notch was on the roadside and a few inches wide, suggesting that the tree would soon fall at some random moment. It almost felt as though t

That morning I sipped a cup of coffee and reading while enveloped by trees and teetering on a ridgeline as the sun ascended from the...

That morning my legs moved slowly, twisting and stretching a bit in recovery from trekking in the footsteps of countless others in that...