Happy St. Pat's from Butte, America!!

The Travona

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the St. Pat's capital of the west.  If you can't make it to Butte this year, check out this live stream from the M&M!  Be safe and get ready for spring fishing.

Escape to Racetrack, Montana

Shadow with trout

I snuck away yesterday.  I had to.  Plus, I really wanted to explore some new water and check out a pond that George Grant Trout Unlimited has been working on.

Racetrack brown trout

I came across some of the gnarliest rip rap I had ever seen.  This is utterly disgusting!!  What an absolute horrible hazard.  This whole bank is lined with tons and tons of giant balls of tangled metal wire and a couple cars (Detroit rip-rap).  Rip-rap (stream bank reinforcement) is bad for streams in many ways but this is just ridiculous as it also poses a major safety hazard for people and animals. Gross!

Metal wire balls rip-rap

Racetrack Pond

Racetrack Pond is a really large pond/small reservoir in Racetrack Montana.  It is a stocker pond for families and meat fisherpeople.  With some love, this place could be as popular as stupid Beavertail Pond near Missoula.  I'm excited to see what will happen here in the coming years.

Butte headframe at sunset

Took this shot on my way home from picking up a grocery store rotisserie chicken for dinner.  I was tired and happy.  Now back to the insanity...

Safe and happy St. Pat's from Butte, America

Orphan Girl Headframe

Happy St. Pat's from Butte, America.  Be safe!

3D image of the shafts, tunnels, and Berkeley Pit beneath Butte, MT

It is said that there are over 10,000 miles of tunnels underneath Butte, Montana.  This amazing Image, created by the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, shows the vertical shafts, horizontal tunnels, and the Berkeley Pit.  The red rectangles above ground represent the big black headframes you see all over town.

All of these tunnels and the Berkeley Pit are now filled with toxic groundwater that is laden with all sorts of metals and has a pH of about 2.