INTO THE FOREST; INDOOR MINING; UPTOWN BUTTE
The most important meal of the day is breakfast. That’s why we’ve been loading up every morning with lots of food to fuel our daily activities. Today, we started out at the Blacksmith Grill in old town Anaconda. We had, appropriately enough, the Smelterman’s Breakfast. If you’re ever in town, try their stuffed huckleberry pancakes.
By the way, there are some things that just let you know you’re not in your hometown eatery.
Later, we drove up Highway 1, which is known as the Pintler Veterans Memorial Scenic Highway. It enters the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and follows Silver Lake Springs Creek up into a valley between the Pintler Mountains and the Flint Creek Mountains. It climbs quickly up to Georgetown Lake, which is formed by the Flint Creek Dam.
From there, the road descends steeply through a very narrow and twisty canyon along Flint Creek. Sorry, no opportunity for photos with each of us using both hands to hang on through here.
It’s really a very beautiful drive all the way down and into the cattle and sheep ranches in the Flint Creek Valley.
This led us to the historic town of Philipsburg, where Karen became a miner-for-day.
We visited a shop that specializes in sapphire jewelry. But, they also offered us greenhorn city folks a chance to do some mining - indoor style.
They have an active mining operation about 25 miles west of town. They bring in dozens of small bags of soil from their mine and sell them in their store. Naturally, we bought one.
Karen, and her personal mining assistant, Charlie, opened the bag and used a sifter to start the process.
Once this is done, the heavier sapphires go to the bottom of the sifter. You invert the sifter and slam it down on your sorting table. Then, you start picking out the gems. They look kind of like pieces of sea glass.
After you think you’ve picked them all out, you go back and sift again. And, you find some more.
Once your claim has ‘played out’, it’s time to go to the assayer to see what you’ve got. In this case, Shirley (co-owner of the business and a former mine manager) sat down with Karen to evaluate her treasure.
Shirley separated the rocks into three groups: plain gravel, sapphires that have cracks, and sapphires that can be processed/cut into gems.
Of the 10 carats of sapphires Karen found, about 4 carats (equal to five of the little stones) were suitable for further processing.
Needless to say, Karen will be receiving some processed and cut gems in the mail in several weeks - just in time for her birthday. By the way, sapphires are her birth stone.
As if that isn’t enough, right next door to the sapphire shop is one of the biggest candy stores I’ve ever seen.
This afternoon’s activity went a long way toward making Karen forget about her aching feet and legs from yesterday’s hike.
Back on the road again, we made a quick stop at the historic Montana State Prison.
Then, it was into historic Uptown Butte for dinner at Sean O’Donnell’s Irish Pub. They apparently started their business in Everett, WA, so we thought it would be fitting to eat here since we began our trip in Everett.
NEXT: Travel to Bozeman, MT
Congratulations Karen on your mining!
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