The Living Ghost Town of Montana

ENNIS

Ennis is a well known launch point for fishing in the area, you can gear up at the Tackle Shop in town.

The Ennis Pharmacy is a great stop for an old-fashioned soda pop, and the Gravel Bar is a good stop for food.

We camped at one of the many fishing accesses in the Ennis area.

VIRGINIA CITY & NEVADA CITY

Virginia City and Nevada City lie along Alder Gulch, the site of the richest placer gold strike in the Rocky Mountains.

The area is unique in Montana because unlike so many of the ghost towns that pepper the state, this boomtown was able to embrace their history into a successful tourist attraction. Thanks to their success, the Nevada City Living History Museum is home to 100 preserved 1863 to early 1900 buildings and artifacts from all over Montana that would have otherwise been destroyed.

If you're new here, and couldn't tell already, my sister is a 19th century history nerd, and this is her happy place.

There are many tour activities in the area, that you can find more info about here.

We also highly recommend sticking around town until the afternoon when the Wells Fargo Steakhouse opens for dinner service. I ate there for the first time in 2018, and have been dreaming about that steak for the last four years, and getting to eat there again absolutely held up to my memories of the experience.

DILLON

This is your key restock/refuel point in this area. We recommend stocking up on snacks/food here before moving on your adventure.

BANNACK

Bannack is a National Historic Landmark. In the summer of 1862, John White and fellow members of a group from Colorado, discovered gold along the banks of a creek he named the Grasshopper. White filed one of the first recorded mining claims in Montana.

The mining camp boomed to 400 within a few months to 3,000 within 6. Approx. $500,000 in gold was taken out of the area by the end of 1862.

One of Bannack's more famous stories is it's part in the story of the criminal gang known as the "Innocents” and the the Vigilantes who reigned them in in 1863. More Info.

This area is pretty remote, we recommend stopping in Dillon to stock up and pack yourself a lunch to enjoy in Bannack.

Bannack does have a campground on site.

BIG HOLE VALLEY

The Big Hole Valley is a vast, lush meadow surrounded by stunning peaks, showcasing the meandering Big Hole River. It is home to the Big Hole National Battlefield, the site of the 1877 conflict between the Nez Pierce and the US Army.

There is not a lot of services in the Big Hole Valley, which makes Wisdom and Jackson key points along your route to refuel your bike and your body for your adventures. There isn't much in the way of grocery options besides the small market in Wisdom and the mercantile in Wise River, so you may want to make a stop in a bigger town and stock up before heading this direction.

The Pioneer Scenic Byway is HIGHLY recommended, from Polaris to Wise River, however it was still to early in the season when we passed through to ride it. I have had the pleasure of riding it before though. There is a hot spring. As well as some hidden ghost town sites for those willing to search for them.

THE BITTERROOT VALLEY
Chief Joseph Pass and Lost Trail Pass are well known motorcycle roads in Western Montana, but it would be a disservice if we didn't mention them. Their junction is also the border of Idaho and Montana.

Five MORE Lessons from the Road

QUITE a while ago I made a video about 5 Lessons from the Road that I learned while I was on the Pilgrimage. I also did a collaboration with Tim over on his Channel Forty Times Around about 5 Lessons we Learned the Hard way on the road.

Rik Englebert left a comment on that video saying it would be interesting if I did one of these every once in a while like a retrospective. I’m probably a little overdue on this but here we are. Better late than never. 

1. Get some awesome Roadside Assistance 

   1. We ride motorcycles. Unexpected breakdowns just happen, whether you’re super up on your maintenance or not. No one does TCLOCS every single time you get on the bike in the morning, especially when you’re travelling for a week or more. Stuff breaks. It’s a motorcycle.

   2. I’ve really really gotten my money’s worth out of my cheap Roadside Assistance add on I have through my insurance. Everyone has different opinions about which company is best, but Progressive has really treated me well. I haven’t had to deal with any accidents with my insurance besides on incident in my truck which they handled awesome and I have no complaints, but I can’t speak to their motorcycle incident process. What I can speak to is that I have saved over 2 grand in tow bills since getting Roadside Assistance with them. 

   3. For example I got towed from Butte to Anaconda on the Pilgrimage because there was no place that is qualified to work on Lazarus. Another example which happened more recently on the Falling Short series,  Progressive covered my tow from Blythe, CA to Phoenix, AZ because that was the closest Triumph Dealership. That was 150 miles, that would have cost me on average between $400- $900 out of pocket had I not had roadside assistance. Enough Said.

2. Carrying a First Aid Kit isn’t an option. It should be as important as your tool roll. 

   1. Hard truth I didn’t carry a legitimate first aid kit for the whole of the Pilgrimage. Just some band aids and Ibuprofen. If you didn’t know, I broke my wrist on the way to Rocky Mountain Roll last year. I purchased my first properly equipped first aid kit right before that trip. It’s pretty much only because I had that kit, the pain killers and the wrap specifically that I was able to ride out of the woods. 

   2. We do an inherently dangerous thing riding motorcycles. A common saying is that it’s not if you go down but when. Especially especially when you ride off road. You’re going to come off the bike when you ride dirt. It’s just inevitable. Not carrying a first aid kit, especially if you carry tools for your bike, is just negligible in my opinion. That’s me speaking as a person who only started carrying one on my bike last year and I’ve been riding since 2011. That’s a whole lot of dumb

3. Be very specific about the people you choose to travel with. 

   1. This one was definitely learned on my trip to Baja last year. There ended up being seven of us on that trip, which was really too big of a group. I tried really hard to keep it under control, but there were a couple people on that trip who were just really not my favorite people and that was made worse by the size of the group, and the complete and utter lack of the ability for all of us to compromise properly. It took us forever to figure out what we were doing every single time we stopped. We missed out on half of the planned stops and campsites because one particular person in our group was too scared, or decided they wanted to not camp last minute. Hence why we stayed at place that smelled like toilet water, and another place that cost twice as much as any other hotel in Baja. I have a lot of pent up rage over that whole trip. There was a lot of things I enjoyed about Baja itself, but I have a lot a lot of angry feelings every time I think about that trip as a whole. I’m sure there will be a few people in the comments letting me know that I’m an angry person in general, which is true. Which is the point of this lesson. I really shouldn’t travel with big groups of people, because I’m an angry person. I’m happy, and it doesn’t take a whole lot to make me happy, but it also doesn’t take a whole lot to piss me off either. 

   2. Moral of the story, make sure you like the people you’re gonna be spending every day with. Bonus tips:  Set clear expectations before you even leave on the trip and be realistic about those expectations. (Including how long between break stops, how long you expect to be stopping for meals, gas stops, photos stops and budget expectations for lodging) Have designated signals and road signs for emergencies and a way to get a hold of each other if you get separated and there’s no cell service. 

4. Understand what you enjoy about travel. Don’t do something just because someone else wants to. 

   1. Another lesson I thought I had learned but smacked me in the face on the Falling Short series, is really figuring out what you like about travel, and also understanding what you don’t like about travel. It’s so easy to get caught up what other people are excited about and forget what you need to be happy on the road. IT can be a huge bummer, for you and your travel mates, when you get into it and you’re like wait. No. I don’t like this. 

   2. This is different than compromise, compromise is good, it gets you to try new things and it’s important in any group travelling experience. However, what I’m talking about is when you are doing something way way way out of our comfort zones and it’s really not good, to the point of being dangerous. 

   3. I let myself get way caught up in the hype for the release of the CABDR, I got really excited about the new traffic a series about the CABDR would bring to my channel, I was really just in love with the idea of doing the thing because all of my friends were talking about how awesome it was going to be.Then I got there, I was in way over my head, and I had to really think about what I actually enjoyed about Adventure Riding, and beating myself up to say I did an obstacle, or that I finished a BDR is not what I enjoy about Adventure Riding. I enjoy seeing new places, and I’m not opposed to getting over an obstacle so I can earn the view on the other side, but if there is no pay off on the other side besides getting over the obstacle I tend to feel a little deflated.  

5.  It is so important to document your trips. But not every trip needs to be filmed.

   1. Earlier this year I had to make an unexpected trip to Montana for my grandmother’s funeral. Safe to say I wasn’t in a great headspace. It made it really difficult to fake a smile for the camera and my heart just wasn’t in it at all. 

   2. The point is that it’s important to still take photos, you’re still going to want to remember the places you stopped, or at the very least keep a journal to vent your feelings, but if you’re not in the greatest head space there really isn’t a need or a point for you to be filming if you also have a vlog thing. No one wants to watch that. Also it’s important to take time for yourself every once in a while, do trips that aren’t for social media, and have time to process things that are going on in your life.