The town was founded in 1900, when the Northern Pacific Railway started the Melmont Coal Mine. The town had a school, train depot, hotel, saloon, post office, and cottages for the miners. By 1915, the post office closed, and Melmont began its decline. Townsfolk moved out and moved on, and a forest fire in 1920 destroyed what was left of the town.
We drive through a series of smaller and smaller cities. Carbonado is the closest town, and I'm surprised if you've heard of it. It has that mix particular to small towns: charming, restored historic homes and businesses alongside the decrepit and sagging exteriors of other buildings. At the edge of town, a sign warns us that it's the last gas station available for quite some distance. The town square has what all Pacific Northwest small town squares has: a segment of a very large tree trunk on display.
Carbonado buildings on the main street
The online directions to get to Melmont are straightforward, in a country way. Park on the west side of the bridge. Walk back across and hop the guardrail. Climb down to a trail, and follow the river south: you'll hear the river on your right and a natural spring on your left. I leave it up to my Boy Scout to make sure we're going south, but at least I can follow the river-to-the-right rule.
We cross the Fairfax Bridge (originally called the O’Farrell Bridge), an rickety old steel structure, so skinny that only one lane of traffic can cross at a time. We park on the far side of the bridge, and then walk back across. There are two bump-outs on each side of the bridge for tourists to stand and view the Carbon River hundreds of feet below. We're too nervous about the structural integrity to use them and scurry across the bridge. We jump the guardrail and then slide our way down to the muddy trail under the bridge, half-way between river and road.
View from Fairfax Bridge
Looking down from the bridge
Folks online say that the trail is muddy in all seasons, and I'll tell you for free that it's certainly muddy in April. The trail stretches north and south, and we decide there must be a much bigger access point somewhere on one end because there are deep tire tracks in the mud. In some places, the ruts are higher than Bailey is tall. I'm wearing my hiking boots that took me all over Iceland, and I like using them on a new adventure.
Little hiker
Wildflowers
The first structure we find is an old rock wall between the trail and the river. It was a retaining wall used by the Northern Pacific Railroad. It's beautiful, the kind of wall I want around the garden of my dream home. Covered in moss and ferns. Jason holds Bailey back at the trail while I walk down for a closer look. On the skinny track, I find a small posy of blue flowers that someone picked and left on the ground. They're fresh, they haven't wilted. Someone else has been here recently.
Rock wall
Ferns growing from the wall
Ferns growing from the wall
We keep walking. There are so many plants, so much birdsong. I wish I knew more of what was around us. Later, when I have cellphone service again, I text photos of the plants I've found to my plant witch, Maggie. She tells me that I've found trillium, one of her favorite flowers. According to Mags, it's native to the Pacific Northwest, and it's fairly rare: she tells me "they are very delicate and it can take 7 years to re-bloom when picked." For her, they're lucky. The next one is something I recognize: bleeding heart. It's one I remember mama naming for me when I was little. The ones in the woods are wilder looking, and Maggie says that they are sometimes called "false" bleeding hearts because they are so different from the cultivated kind.
Trillium
Closeup of the bloom
"False" bleeding hearts
The first building we find is the old stone building the railroad used for dynamite storage. The walls are tall, at least 12 feet high, and the roof is long gone. There's a worn path around the outside leading to the back of the building, but I'm worried about ticks so I don't venture around.
The dynamite shed
From inside the shed
The shed is only about halfway to the town, so we keep slogging south through the mud. There are three people around a bend, and I get nervous for no real reason. They're polite and say hi as we pass, but they way they're dressed and look makes me paranoid. It makes me realize that I'm more classist than I'd like to be. I already know I'm more paranoid than I'd like to be. I look behind us for a good five minutes as we walk on, worried they're following us.
My dad is a pretty paranoid person, I think. He worries about the worst-case scenario when it comes to strangers pretty frequently. I don't want this for me, I don't want to live in self-imposed fear. For a long time, I overcompensated in the other direction, saying hello to anyone and everyone I meet, stopping to talk to them if they wanted, ignoring any intuition I had about someone because I didn't want to fear them or be rude for no reason. That's harder to do the older I get. I still say hi to almost everyone, still smile when I walk down the street. But I don't stop anymore, I don't worry about being seen as rude if I think I'm in an unsafe situation. Jason asks if I want to conceal-carry when we're in the woods. Most of my family is pro-gun: my dad and brother are SASS state champions in several states. I grew up with guns. But they make me nervous, and doing a concealed-carry I think would just feed into my paranoia. I don't know whether I want to carry or not. But I do know that we aren't followed, we aren't bothered, and my paranoia today is unfounded.
While we're on the subject, I'm fairly certain I'm on the brink of a cougar or bear attack whenever I'm in the woods. I don't want this to be my default feeling. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and I want them to be a place of refuge for me, not fear.
The trail forks, and we go left, up a steep, rocky scrabble. At the top, the track curves to the left, and in the meadow are the remains of the old schoolhouse. Trees are growing around and in, making new skeletal walls with their branches.
The remains of the schoolhouse
Inside the schoolhouse
Bailey has been stopping every few feet to eat grass. It's a sign of an upset stomach, and I'm mad at myself for being irrationally mad at his delays. I want to explore much more, but having him with is like dragging along a bag of cement that won't stop eating plants, so I go back to the trail where he can't reach the leaves. The trail keeps going up and around, but Jason and I think it's time to head back toward the car. If we'd had time, we could have taken the right path where the trail forked and gone to the old town site, where you can make out faint squares from the old buildings and homes. Next time, perhaps. We hear motorbikes and four-wheelers in the distance.
Walking back, we pass the dynamite shed again, and I see a smooth circle in the mud. I pull it out, and it's an old snail shell. I feel like I've found a treasure. Ranger Kate would be proud of me: I take only photos and leave only footprints, so I let Bailey lick the shell a few times before putting it back.
Old snail
Bailey will try anything once
I'm so proud of Bailey- he keeps pace with us and climbs up the trail as much as he's able. I love watching Jason pick up the pup to climb over the biggest rocks. He's so good with animals, it's one of the things I really love about this man. There's a new car parked next to ours, and the family is just leaving as we arrive. The mom comes over and kisses bailey while the little girl on her shoulders excitedly whispers "Puppy, puppy!" Their own dog, Jake, sits sentinel in their car.
Jake
We go back through Carbonado, and Jason stops at the cemetery on the edge of town so I can look. The town is so small, but already we've seen an orthodox Russian and a catholic church. The cemetery is a catholic one, and has a lot of slavic names. Predictably, I like the small shrine to the Virgin Mary.
Carbonado cemetery
Virgin Mary
It's a pleasant drive home in the rain. We drop off our tired pup, and head to El Chupacabra to split a chimichanga. It's been a day of shrines, a day of considering how the dead and living coexist. I'm glad it's an evening of tortilla chips and companionable silence.
El Chupacabra shrine
