Day 4: This is what we came for!

Today we took full advantage of our 4WD and had the high adventure we were after. After finding some really great coffee at a local flower shop, we headed back west on highway 50 in search of real ghost towns. We turned south on…well, we don't really know which road! The map we were working off was…fluid, at best.  :)  Basically, we turned south and headed in to the mountains.  Again, we spent the day driving through mountain passes!

The first "town" we were looking for was Hamilton. It was another community built to support silver mining in 1868.  The road was gravel and dirt, and had deep ruts in places, but was dry, except for some snow melt. The going was slow and very bumpy!  One of us was dreadfully carsick, and the other was killing it with amazing driving. :)

After several miles we were sort of stumped with our whereabouts. The roads (can you call them roads?) in front of us didn't resemble the map at all.  As we came around one corner, I happened to look back behind and saw a grave marker. Aha! We had stumbled upon the Hamilton Cemetery.

As with all old cemeteries, this one held us in a bit of reverence.   Most of the graves were overgrown, or broken, and there were very few that were marked. We poked about, inferring the stories that lay before us, and tracking a few of the families.  At 8,000 feet, the views were amazing; white grave markers, red dogwoods and white capped mountains.  At the top of this small peak, we could see nothing for miles.

Knowing we were close, we zoomed (you know, at less than 15mph) down the hill a ways to find what was left of Hamilton.  Nobody lives here anymore and we were free to walk around, explore and take pictures.

After Hamilton, we followed a park service type sign to Belmont Mine. This wasn't in our book, but I had seen it online, and it looked amazing. Getting there was…trying.  We were way past the road less traveled.  :)

Honestly, when we came around the corner (not the first corner…) we were blown away. That this mill was tucked away in the hills, unseen, was amazing.

This felt like a ghost town -- abandoned, ruined, and lots of weird noises as the wind blew.  This was what we had been looking for. Belmont was hard to find, and we reveled in standing in a place that few have stood in that last hundred years or so.  In its day, it served as the mill for the Babylon Mine, and still has part of the tram standing.

 Of course, all of these pictures were shot from outside the structures, complying with our safety first motto...  Adventure on!

We spent our entire day about an hour from our hotel, but we saw absolutely no one. We were nestled between the Pogonip Ridge and the White Pine Range, between 7,000-8,000 feet in elevation.  There were roughly seven other mines on our map in the area, but none were apparent to the naked eye. Almost 150 years later, the land has not changed that much! It was such a beautiful area, but so hard to imagine how people found veins to mine, how they traveled here and ultimately lived and worked.

Tomorrow is National Park day -- Great Basin here we come!