Photos from March 27th Trip to the Butte

Below are a few photos from our March 27th attempt to visit Thunder Butte using an old road from the northeast. Needless to say, the land eventually got too rugged on the route we took and road washed out, preventing further progress. We attempted to walk the remaining distance, but we were not dressed properly for the cold wind and the shadows were starting to get long. So we failed to reach the butte on this attempt.

The land around Thunder Butte had kind of a spooky feeling to it. When we hiked down the old road toward the butte, I felt that we were almost following a trail into the past. After the road washed out and we walked another couple of miles towards the butte, the sense of isolation was palpable. I almost thought that we would encounter our family's ghosts at any minute as we trudged toward the area near the butte where my dad's family lived until the late 1930's. All we found, though, was loneliness, wind, and scrub grass.

You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

--Mike Crowley