3 days, 2 nights part dos

 Day one continued as we pushed further south to Consumers Road that goes west out of Spring Glen. We had already checked in to the hotel and dumped the luggage and unwanted stuff so we were ready for some serious searching. The first ghost town on the list was Coal City. This town began as a farming community and ended up a coal town. It sits at 7000 feet so farming was not the best choice. Coal was soon discovered and like all those other towns in the region mining began in the 1920's. Like the other towns, prosperity brings nice things. The town began as a tent city and ended up having the usual brick school house and other buildings built. As you can see, not a lot is left. 

 Most of the remnants have collapsed into piles of old wood and bricks. One building has survived and I am willing to bet it has been used by the farmer who has tractors parked next to it. The town is situated on WMA land which keeps any form of motorized vehicle out of there. This has lead to the preservation of  the rubble and lets us see how the town was set up. 

 As I have looked back on fotos of these areas taken long ago, the one thing missing in all those fotos are the notorious Sagebrush. This stuff is the scourge of the world. It is hard to get rid of and just walk by one or two bushes and you'll bring home a Tick or two as a souvenir. This is one reason I do not like to get out and dig thru the underbrush for more clues on most towns. I have one genuine bottle dump field in a ghost town that produces 3-6 bottles a year and I will go in there searching but it is done with care. With even that said we have brought home Ticks. So the choice is yours. Get in and get dirty or explore aware of whats around you and avoid the pitfalls. 

 I do wish I had picked up this hobby before 1988. I missed out on a lot of stuff that has disappeared due to time and vandalism. For this reason, I am trying to visit as many as I can and get fotos of what is left. Sometimes I am successful and others I am not. A non successful venture was looking for Consumers. 

 Consumer was the next town up the road and I failed to find it. I do know now where it is and from what I read I didn't miss much but still..... it was a failure. My GPS said one thing and like a dumbass I followed it. Oops. It said the town was in a grove of trees that a deer would have had a hard time walking thru. It was not. It was up a canyon just around the bend that had some modern equipment in it. But that was ok. We followed the road to the very top of the mountain and got rewarded with an incredible view.  

When we finally came down off the mountain, we stopped at this abandoned coal site. It was gated up and looked like it hadn't run in a few years. Machinery is cool to me. I like to learn how things are made and watch it be done. It would have been neat to see a train pull in and start to be loaded with coal. The coal trains are huge and require quite a few engines to get them out of the valley. I imagine that during this places heyday, it would have been a fun place to watch. Stay tuned for the next installment when we abandon coal mines in exchange for Native American graffiti. Jeep on my friends!