Garnet is billed as Montana's best preserved ghost town
"In 1898, somewhere around 1,000 people called Garnet their home.... By 1905, the gold was playing out and only 150 people remained. A raging fire in 1912 and hardships on the home front during World War I sent most of the remaining miners, wives and children packing. Garnet slowly slipped into obscurity, despite a brief renewal of mining in the Great Depression of the 1930s." from Garnet's website
Click here to see a video interview with the last living resident of Garnet.
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On the map there was a sketchy sort of line over the mountain. At the Garnet parking lot there was a sign that pointed to I-90. So we figured it had to be an OK route if there was a sign to the Interstate. That seemed a much better option than backtracking by going back to Missoula and getting I-90 there to continue our journey. After we started down the road we saw a sign that indicated it was a one lane road with limited turnouts. We spent what seemed like forever on a narrow gravel and often dirt road full of switchbacks. It was supposedly about 11 miles - It was quite an adventure.
At this fork in the road there were two signs to I-90 - one pointing straight ahead and one pointing to the left. We took the dirt road straight ahead - it looked only slightly better than the dirt to the left.
This picture doesn't capture how thick the trees were and how they seemed to pop right off of the mountain. The texture and lighting were interesting.
The freeway is somewhere up ahead
This is the sign that greets the people entering the road where we exited. They aren't kidding when they say single lane with limited turnouts.
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