Post by Mark K on May 28, 2014 22:14:05 GMT -5
Since the Gem Trails site croaked, I figure I might start posting reviews of spots I have been to. As anyone who knows me knows, I do not pull punches. If I review a private pay site and do not have anything nice to say, I will still say it. So far this is not possible as I do not have any bad reviews yet for private sites. I also do not have a problem hurting the authors' feelings if they direct us to a site that is a pile of garbage. There are a few of those.
The first spot is Neihart MT. It is south of Great Falls and it is a spot that is not for someone in a wheelchair.
Neihart is a location which held a lot of promise. The location is easy to find once you have been there once. I had to try a couple times before I was able to actually find the location. The area leads you to drive up the wrong mountain which has a dead end on both ends. One area on the wrong mountain has a camp which has a few neat artifacts still in place. This is probably due to the fact that it would be a lot of work to haul the stuff out. Once you get to the right spot and hit the correct trail which happens to be a sluice uphill from the ruins of the building on the left side of the road as you come in. There is a telephone pole conglomeration in this location. It is downhill from the old dam site. Once you start up the sluice, you will have no problem finding the site. I did not find much at this spot, but it is a nice location to visit. Maybe if some time I am way ahead of schedule and am in the area, I may come back and take another look around. This is unlikely, yet possible.
The first time I went there, I went up the road until it ended in a very crude turn around. If that had not been there, it would have been very difficult to get turned around and backing out would have been very dangerous as the road took a very sharp turn in a narrow spot right before the end. I turned the truck around and then climbed up the mountain to see if I could find anything. All I found was elk poop and tracks and that I was much more tired than I thought I was. I went back down the mountain and found a turn to the right that looked promising. I went up this road and eventually was out on a narrow road with a long drop to the side. This road ended suddenly and there was no place to turn around. Backing up was definitely not an option. I eventually was able to get turned around by putting the truck in 4 wheel drive and driving up the side of the mountain and going forward and turning a couple inches and repeating until I was able to escape. I returned back to where the road began and went down the mountain to try again. I ran into some people who work for the federal government taking water samples from the creek. They tried to direct me to the correct location, but I am not completely convinced they really knew what they were talking about. Their direction took me to the wrong mountain which I had already been on. They told me to take the road that went to the right of the road I almost got killed on. Once there I found a steep and curving road that I had to use 4WD to get up. The road was completely dry. If it had been even a little wet, I would never have gotten up it. Once I got to the top of this obstacle, I found an old mining camp. This was a good sign, or so I thought. The mine building was pretty run down, having been the site of many local teenagers’ beer parties. Everything was covered in packrat poop. The wood stove was so packed with poop and other stuff that the packrats had stashed that it would have been the end of the building if anyone had tried to light it. Inside the building there were a lot of core samples which I collected. The only thing that had not been ransacked was whatever was behind this huge 1950’s era refrigerator which weighed a ton. Since I could tell that there were more core samples behind it, I pulled it over and let it fall on its front. This was not an easy task as it was very difficult to get a grip on due to its size and weight. Once I had it tipped over, I found a really nice recurve bow that had been stashed behind it many years ago. There were only a few cores behind the fridge, but the bow made the effort well worth it. After I fooled around in the building, I decided to follow a trail up the mountain side and try to find the mine. I left trail markers as I went so as to make sure I could find my way back. The area is pure second growth forest which you have limited visibility in due to the denseness of the trees. Soon I decided that it was too close to dark to risk getting lost on a featureless mountainside at night. I went back down the mountain, took a shortcut down the hill and ended up at a bluff too high to climb down. Fortunately I could walk along the bluff top far enough to find a place to climb down and was right back at the mining camp. I continued to dig around the camp to see if I could find anything of value. I didn’t find much.
The next time I came back here I went to the dam site and walked up the valley between the two mountains. I headed up the side to the right which was the mountain I had been on the time before. I eventually came to the road that dead ends where I was in a bind the time before. I decided to keep climbing in hopes of finding the mine at the top which was only a few hundred yards up yet. I reached almost to the top when I realized that I was on the wrong mountain. Across the valley I could see the mine. I had been driving past it the whole time. I went back down the mountain after determining the best way to climb the other mountain. I determined that I would go all of the way down and go up right off of the road. I climbed this mountain, some spots quite steep. I came upon a road eventually which had been planted over with really nice pine trees. All were perfect clones of the textbook pine tree. I continued up the road until the trees became too dense to easily walk through. I began to climb again up the steep mountain side and quickly started finding mine trash, cans, bottles, ect. A few yards further the road reappeared and was easy walking. I walked to the site and was surprised at the size of the site. After I walked around exploring for a while, I figured out that I was not likely to find much of anything here to take home. If I guy had a decent road and a torch, he could make a fortune hauling scrap out. I started to head out and saw a sluice going down the hill. I decided to see if the sluice was an easier way up and down. It was very easy to travel on especially compared to the trip up the mountain. I imagine that since it took only 15 minutes or so to go down and a good 45 minutes to get up, this sluice would make for an easy 20 minute trip up the mountain.
The first spot is Neihart MT. It is south of Great Falls and it is a spot that is not for someone in a wheelchair.
Neihart is a location which held a lot of promise. The location is easy to find once you have been there once. I had to try a couple times before I was able to actually find the location. The area leads you to drive up the wrong mountain which has a dead end on both ends. One area on the wrong mountain has a camp which has a few neat artifacts still in place. This is probably due to the fact that it would be a lot of work to haul the stuff out. Once you get to the right spot and hit the correct trail which happens to be a sluice uphill from the ruins of the building on the left side of the road as you come in. There is a telephone pole conglomeration in this location. It is downhill from the old dam site. Once you start up the sluice, you will have no problem finding the site. I did not find much at this spot, but it is a nice location to visit. Maybe if some time I am way ahead of schedule and am in the area, I may come back and take another look around. This is unlikely, yet possible.
The first time I went there, I went up the road until it ended in a very crude turn around. If that had not been there, it would have been very difficult to get turned around and backing out would have been very dangerous as the road took a very sharp turn in a narrow spot right before the end. I turned the truck around and then climbed up the mountain to see if I could find anything. All I found was elk poop and tracks and that I was much more tired than I thought I was. I went back down the mountain and found a turn to the right that looked promising. I went up this road and eventually was out on a narrow road with a long drop to the side. This road ended suddenly and there was no place to turn around. Backing up was definitely not an option. I eventually was able to get turned around by putting the truck in 4 wheel drive and driving up the side of the mountain and going forward and turning a couple inches and repeating until I was able to escape. I returned back to where the road began and went down the mountain to try again. I ran into some people who work for the federal government taking water samples from the creek. They tried to direct me to the correct location, but I am not completely convinced they really knew what they were talking about. Their direction took me to the wrong mountain which I had already been on. They told me to take the road that went to the right of the road I almost got killed on. Once there I found a steep and curving road that I had to use 4WD to get up. The road was completely dry. If it had been even a little wet, I would never have gotten up it. Once I got to the top of this obstacle, I found an old mining camp. This was a good sign, or so I thought. The mine building was pretty run down, having been the site of many local teenagers’ beer parties. Everything was covered in packrat poop. The wood stove was so packed with poop and other stuff that the packrats had stashed that it would have been the end of the building if anyone had tried to light it. Inside the building there were a lot of core samples which I collected. The only thing that had not been ransacked was whatever was behind this huge 1950’s era refrigerator which weighed a ton. Since I could tell that there were more core samples behind it, I pulled it over and let it fall on its front. This was not an easy task as it was very difficult to get a grip on due to its size and weight. Once I had it tipped over, I found a really nice recurve bow that had been stashed behind it many years ago. There were only a few cores behind the fridge, but the bow made the effort well worth it. After I fooled around in the building, I decided to follow a trail up the mountain side and try to find the mine. I left trail markers as I went so as to make sure I could find my way back. The area is pure second growth forest which you have limited visibility in due to the denseness of the trees. Soon I decided that it was too close to dark to risk getting lost on a featureless mountainside at night. I went back down the mountain, took a shortcut down the hill and ended up at a bluff too high to climb down. Fortunately I could walk along the bluff top far enough to find a place to climb down and was right back at the mining camp. I continued to dig around the camp to see if I could find anything of value. I didn’t find much.
The next time I came back here I went to the dam site and walked up the valley between the two mountains. I headed up the side to the right which was the mountain I had been on the time before. I eventually came to the road that dead ends where I was in a bind the time before. I decided to keep climbing in hopes of finding the mine at the top which was only a few hundred yards up yet. I reached almost to the top when I realized that I was on the wrong mountain. Across the valley I could see the mine. I had been driving past it the whole time. I went back down the mountain after determining the best way to climb the other mountain. I determined that I would go all of the way down and go up right off of the road. I climbed this mountain, some spots quite steep. I came upon a road eventually which had been planted over with really nice pine trees. All were perfect clones of the textbook pine tree. I continued up the road until the trees became too dense to easily walk through. I began to climb again up the steep mountain side and quickly started finding mine trash, cans, bottles, ect. A few yards further the road reappeared and was easy walking. I walked to the site and was surprised at the size of the site. After I walked around exploring for a while, I figured out that I was not likely to find much of anything here to take home. If I guy had a decent road and a torch, he could make a fortune hauling scrap out. I started to head out and saw a sluice going down the hill. I decided to see if the sluice was an easier way up and down. It was very easy to travel on especially compared to the trip up the mountain. I imagine that since it took only 15 minutes or so to go down and a good 45 minutes to get up, this sluice would make for an easy 20 minute trip up the mountain.