A SUNDAY DRIVE TO THE OLD VERMICULITE

 

 Connie and I took a drive up the Butterfly east of us and drove further than we did  about a month ago when we ran into snow.  The goal was to get to the old vermiculite mine up there that I had visited when I was a kid.  The mine has been closed for years and they have kelly-humped the road so you can not drive to it.  We didn't even try as we were to busy taking pictures of all the wild flowers in the area.  It was really amazing to see all the flowers that were along the roadways now compared to a month ago.  On the drive out we also saw a bull elk in velvet.  Has just spikes now but might get a couple of more points and become a rag horn.  

We had only driven about a mile up the butterfly road when we saw this campfire that was still smoking as the fire had spread into a stump.  And of course there was a beer can by the fire ring and a lot of pallets that had been left there which is what the campers were using for firewood.  Once a fire gets into a stump, it will burn for a long time - maybe not days but close to it as it goes down in the roots.  I was concerned because the weather forecast is for hot weather and no rain for quite a while and if the wind came up and blew a spark over to the dry pine needles it could catch fire.  So I called 911 and they relayed my concerns to the Forest Service folks who came up with a couple of vehicles with water and tools and put it out.  A big thank you to the folks in the Stevensville district for doing that.

 

Below are mostly pictures of flowers we saw along the way.

The above picture is of an intersection of some forest service roads.

The shiny things behind the flower are pieces of mica. There were lots of then in and on the dirt.  Vermiculite comes from heating mica.

Above are my traveling partners Connie and Zeph.  Below is the bull elk in velvet.

Above is the campfire and the pallets by it.  Don't know how this picture got here instead of earlier!!

                                                                Looking to the northwest.

We came upon this burned truck which we think was being used to get wood and somehow the engine caught fire.

Our lunch spot with a grand view.