Ronan, MT

Mission Mountains

We drove to Ronan following Frank and Shila.  We stopped along the way for a geocache and then made it to Kenny and Cindy Clairmonts to set up our camp.  They have a beautiful place and lots of room for campers in the pasture.  Their house sits right under the Mission Mountain Range.

Seely Lake

Drove to Seely Lake to check out accommodations for the 2014 reunion.  The hall is nice and they had camping behind the building that we could use.  We checked on motels too but the area is expensive and the other campgrounds in the area are forest service.  It is a beautiful area but I am afraid that most of the family would have a hard time with the expense of the area.

Old Baldy

This was the site that greeted us when we got back to Townsend.  This mountain is a landmark for all of us that were born and raised in the Broadwater County area.

Dry Creek

It is cold and windy again today.  We had breakfast at the Mint with Frank then bought four cards and mailed one to Jean Holt.  We filled the water tank and dumped the gray water.  We spent the afternoon at the museum which has a good internet.  I found some obituaries on two of my ancestors and spent a pleasant afternoon with Linda Huth who works at the museum.  We had dinner at Woods Cafe (my parents old grocery store) and then took a drive up on Dry Creek.  We saw some antelope, deer and a herd of elk!

Dry Creek Elk Herd

This is a herd of elk near the top of Dry Creek.  This is a beautiful site!  The road was a little muddy in spots but it was a pretty drive.

Castle Mountain

After breakfast today we headed to White Sulphur Springs, MT and Castle Mountain to try and find a cache that we were unable to find last year.  We stopped on US 12 for a Smith River cache, which was missing.

Castle Mountains

 Hardy replaced the container at this cache as it was wet and cracked. This is a pretty area before you get to Lennup and the old Milwaukee Railroad used to run through here

Lennup Merchantile

We then went on to Lennup and took some pictures of the old Merchantile.The town is still alive and is an old railroad town.  Many of the buildings are empty but this one is still in pretty good shape.

We took off up a forest service road to the cache site on Elk Creek.  It was an easy enough find and a good road after we finally got on the right road.  We hit rain on top of the mountain and started down one road and turned around before we got stuck and took a different road.



  We then went into WSS for dinner and to check out the Conostoga RV Park which is where we will gather next year for the reunion.    We got word that a good friend Al Holt had passed away and that my cousin's husband, Leonard Stark, was not doing too well either.

Strawberry Hill

Today is sunny, at last, so we filled the water tank then took off to Montana  City and Strawberry Hill for some geocaching. 

This is called the "Dugout" which was in the side of the hill and a very pretty site.  Apparently there was an old homestead or some other type of building in the area and this is all that is left. 

This is Strawberry Hill just outside Montana City.  You can see the remains of the fire that swept across the mountain several years ago.  There are many new houses down below near Montana City but in this area there are just a few cabins and logged out areas.

This is Brother Frank on his digger at the ranch.  He is digging out his water hole that had sloughed off during the winter.  he is making it larger so he can get more water to use on his plants and to water the animals.  He lets a local area rancher run cattle on his place and wanted to make it easier to get water for them.