missoulajournal

Back Country Tin Roof

We took a late autumn hike into the South Bitterroots to a mining ghost town that had a robust, but very brief, existence at the end of the 19th century. Many of the structures and  machinery remain, strewn awkwardly as if somehow dropped quickly by the inhabitants in a rush to leave... and forever abandoned. One eerie symbol was a 30-yard long row of cordwood that had been stacked for winter use, but which was left to disintegrate slowly these nearly 100 years. We spent a good two hours exploring the remanants of lives lived. A leather sole here. Broken glass. A scrap of wallpaper... I have quite a few photos, but the photos in this album focus most directly on the tin of the buildings' rooves. Back Country Tin Roof

Corrosion Landscape 2

Many of the larger Montana rivers still have bends or pools with the rusted remnants of old car bodies piled up, or submerged in the water. The wrecked cars were used several decades past as riprap. Of course, I'd like to see them all cleaned out of the rivers... and that process is gradually happening. This photo was taken of a vehicle near the Clark's Fork. The vehicle is almost totally submerged and silted over with fine, muddy sand, and is more than 100 yards away from the river in a dry oxbow.

Corrosion Landscape 1

I am an amateur photographer. For the past 17 years I've been interested in corrosion patterns in closeup photography. Most of my photos are of rusted metal. Others are of rock and fungi. I'll be posting my favorites from time to time. Here's the first. Photos are in random order. This is a photo of a 19th Century steam engine used in the Montana Mining industry. This steam engine is in a remote location of southwestern Montana.