Topic: Interesting Roads and Destinations

[ofreen]

Here are few photos from a few years ago rescued from photo#$%*et.  My brother had never ridden Chief Joseph Highway, Beartooth, or the Going To The Sun road, so we decided to make it a trifecta. 

US 150 through the Uintas in Utah was a good start, a great road in its own right. 






Chief Joseph Highway -





A couple of pix on top of Beartooth Pass -




The general store in Neihart, MT -



Going to the Sun -





The town park at Dupuyer, MT.  Free camping and highly recommended.  Apparently grizzlies like it too, which some people may consider a drawback.

[madmtnmotors]

Wow, you guys even pack a recliner too?! 

Beautiful country, thanks for posting! 

[Stev-o]

Great pics, thanks for sharing Greg...

[ofreen]

Thanks guys.  That chair was in the middle of the road when we came on it.  I think it had laid there all night and it had been rained on.  It made for a good photo, but it was a cool morning and my ass was damp for the next 100 miles. 

[ofreen]

Frisco, Utah lies west of Milford on Utah 21.  It was an active mining town established in the late 1870's and sounds like it was a wild place at the height of activity.  I first poked around it in the early 90's and compared to then a lot of the old buildings have caved in.  But what catches the eye from the highway are the charcoal kilns up on the hillside.  So here are a few pix of old Frisco, a town that is quickly being reclaimed by the earth like so many other forgotten mining towns in the west.  Some irony there, I reckon.








The charcoal kilns are quite a feat of masonry.  Time is taking its toll though, and I wouldn't want to be standing in one during an earthquake, or even a heavy thunderstorm. 










I ducked in one to take a couple of photos but didn't linger.  I don't think the HJC would have helped much if something came loose.


A little history is provided on a plaque at the site -


It is a long stretch between Milford and Garrison on 21.  We also traveled US50 in Nevada (touted as the loneliest highway) on this trip and saw a lot more vehicles there than on 21. Maybe three in over a hundred miles on 21.  Not a lot of curves on the road, but it is scenic and there's old stuff to stop and check out.

[RAF122S]

More fun time on the road...  nice pics and great story.  What are charcoal ovens used for in mining?

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Glad the foot is better 

[ofreen]

More fun time on the road...  nice pics and great story.  What are charcoal ovens used for in mining?

Thanks David.  The kilns generated charcoal to feed smelters by slow burning wood with limited oxygen available.

Glad the foot is better 

Thanks Jerry.  I was able to go on a couple of week-long rides in July and September.  Just had more surgery last Monday to remove a plate on the fibula, which gave me some time to put this post together as I have to sit around with my foot in the air for the next couple of weeks.  But it is coming along.

[754]

 Anyone remotely close to Idaho and Utah, Ofreen is an expert on these roads.
 I don't know if there are any paved ones he missed in these 2 states.
 20 rides in 2020

[ofreen]

Thanks Frank, lots of other states in the bag too, but thankfully there are plenty more to travel, especially east of the Mississippi. I am looking forward to it.

[RAF122S]

Greg, I hoping you are healing up well from your surgery. Glad you are doing well. You are doing well in the recovery aren't you?!
Looking forward to seeing more great photos.
 Crazy that it was common practice to run smelters in a mine long ago.  Saw a show not too long ago trying to figure out where King Solomon hot all his gold from and archeologists were piecing together clues about mining and smelting the ore as well as the cultural discoveries and revaluations in thinking about the status in society of the workers and workers who ran the smelters and refined the precious metals of gold, silver and other valuable commodities of those times. Was interesting to see these massive piles of cast offs from the smelting and the technology they had and theories developed and confidence level in the conclusions and revelations in thought about the status of those who understood how to extract the gold from the ore and the concentration of remaining gold left in the ore. They studied the trash and were able to piece together a story because of the fish bones and where those fish were found. Of the undigested grains or grains found and where grains were found relative to this desolate area the mining occurred in. Genetically testing those items to narrow their origins. The bones of workers who died yielded their location of birth and if they were slaves could be determined by the mix or lack of mix in their genetic information.To figure out who ran the mines or who they thought ran them by looking at the diets they found a varied and surprisingly rich diet in fish and grains and dates and other uncommon things and fish that only were in the Galilee were present in significant number. That the fish was a long distance from home where it was caught. The lack of refrigeration dictated the distance and the preservation of the fish to get it the hundreds of miles southeast to the mines. So piecing together things they discovered some changes in the way they originally thought about these mines previously by scientists was incorrect and they formed a different picture upon the evidence and quantity of these very costly and or uncommon and expensive diets which treated a large group of miners and conclusions about who these alchemists were who refined the gold and the astounding percentage of the gold extracted rivaled today's refining methods  or equalled them.
So, your smelting ovens were interesting and that program I heard and partially watched while working on something else was timely.

[ofreen]

Thanks David, doing OK.  Hurts a little to walk and running is out, which I miss because being able to do so comes in handy sometimes.  No more stairs three at a time.  No more jumping out of the back of the pickup.
But I can walk, so no complaints. Maybe one more surgery this spring to take out the remaining hardware if the surgeon agrees to it.  He wants to wait until things quit changing, which makes sense.  But I think the remaining stiffness and pain have to do with the metal.  Bones naturally flex a little but the plates don't, so it hurts.