Journey Day 364 | CDT Day 27
Waiting in front of the Silver Saddle Bar, Basin, Montana.
7/8/87
Last awake despite lure of civilized breakfast. Up and pack, follow others from site in free campground next to Basin Creek. Pause for shot in mine shaft, otherwise hoof it straight into Basin, a good mining town that hopped in the 30's, but now all its former buildings are boarded up.
Pretending to emerge from mine shaft.
Pass many trailers, some homes, down main street to Silver Saddle Cafe, where others have already ordered and are soon eating. I end up scarfing eggs, toast, ham, hash browns, plus huge French toast order, topped off with megacoffee. Post cards and paid, down to the post office. Happy to find cards from Jim Kucera and Elwood Blues, my new pack pockets and a food box. Write notes on post office steps and talk with locals curious about the our trek. (One interesting town business, the Merry Widow Health Mine, where the infirm sit amidst radon gas for their health).
Head back with a taste for beer. Others join Carl and me, we're drinking one, a man dealing with the gambling machines named Jack buys a second. We begin to talk with others in the bar, including the owner (a comedian with a hangover) and Jack's partner, Jack, an electronics technician who ends up agreeing to bring us into Butte on Friday night or Saturday morning. Ends up saying in essence he'll find us wherever we are.
Just as I've bought a third, the Rainier beer man buys a round, so I'm doomed to get sloshed. We talk together, with others. Play jukebox once I figure it out, eat a big lunch. Rain hits.
After the rain stops, action slows and we hike out of town, once the wrong way as new highway in since the guidebook, only a year-old, was published. Then up a steep jeep road.
Gets steeper and steeper. Rains quickly, we descend into a valley. Confused, we decided to contour around the ridge staying inside power lines. Bushwhacking when we find road. So we climb the extremely steep road, even steeper at ravine. Then bushwhack even higher until we cross road, which we follow up to meadows with great views. Then down off after admiring a panorama, including Mt. Pisgah.
Down again, find trail reportedly obliterated and follow it along the creek, cross "river" and end up behind, then through some private property just after a rocky formation.
Talk with a mother daughter-in law holding a child. Like so many others, they're unable to grasp our hike and wonder why we're headed for Butte, but closer to Basin, after just leaving Basin. But they're friendly, the mother explains her family owns much of the property in the area. Then we hike into Berry Meadows, blunder for a ford before going back near where we met the creek and crossing.
Soon we're pitched, Carl immediately into tent apparently sick from overeating or overexertion (or both). Leisurely meal, as horses close in after initially checking us out from the other side of the creek. Into tent to update, read the end of The Odyssey.
Carl Ownbey told me the story of his life today. He grew up in Springdale, Ark., now about 30,000, but then a town about Basin's meager size. His father, the town banker, first man in the county to pay income tax. He did business on the street, traded farms to make "piles of money."
They had a big house, weathered the Depression well. Carl joined the service, studied poultry nutrition and manufactured his own chicken feed and raised as many as 87,000 chickens, plus other cattle, etc. "But I got tired of it. It's a burden."
He won and lost $1 million in commodities, got into trucking until a near fatal wreck. His wife, Mary, is apparently unable to deal with his hiking habits.
