WhatFinger


John Treadwell Dunbar

John Treadwell Dunbar is a freelance writer

Most Recent Articles by John Treadwell Dunbar:

Montana’s Prettiest Painted Town

imageNestled in the foothills on the edge of broad and spacious Flint Creek Valley, surrounded by mountains laden in past times with vast deposits of silver, manganese, sapphires, and to a lesser extent gold, beautiful historic Philipsburg is an anomaly because it's still standing. As one of twenty rowdy mining communities that once thrived within thirty miles of here only “P-burg” withstood the test of time. Battered and bruised and knocked down by devastating booms-and-busts endemic to that world of hard rock mining, Philipsburg kept getting up, dusted itself off and dug in for the long haul. Granite, Tower, Rumsey, Black Pine and all the rest, home to thousands of scruffy men in those late 19th and early 20th century glory days, have vanished. Things quieted in their wake leaving us blank spots on a map or relics to ponder; crumbling foundations and rotting timbers and disintegrating piles of brick. These haunts of fanciful apparitions are a repository of story, gripping tales of hard-working men calloused inside and out, toiling twelve deadly hours each and every day, seven days a week under miserable conditions down there in the dark.
- Sunday, July 31, 2011

Quarai and the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument New Mexico

imageI'd never heard of Abo, Gran Quivira or Quarai when we visited New Mexico during a recent blustery May, and I wasn't inclined to make that lonesome detour up the 55 to Estancia Basin that lies east and southish of the Manzano Mountains. Dark green and low on the horizon, the Manzanos form a welcome barrier separating broad grassy plains the color of sand, and juniper-studded mesas, from Albuquerque's urban dysfunction. Leaving Billy the Kid's Lincoln County in the side-view mirror, we barreled north toward those mountains and the Turquoise Trail, but as things go in this life of mine, I succumbed to a bad case of curiosity that flares up now and then like that itchy red rash I picked up off a toilet seat at the Lonesome Steer Grill and Swill outside Truth or Consequentials.
- Sunday, July 17, 2011

Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu, New Mexico

imageWith few to equal her stature in the world of fine art, the late Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) was one of America's preeminent painters, producing in seven long decades an astounding legacy of roughly 900 paintings that have captivated and inspired artists and connoisseurs the world over. While she is remembered in large measure for her close-up, occasionally abstract, renderings of flowers - the lily, the hibiscus, the poppy - much of her inspiration was derived from the landscapes of her adopted home, north-central New Mexico; specifically that aesthetically rich terrain 60 miles northwest of Santa Fe known as "O'Keeffe Country." Sandstone bluffs, layered and streaked, her beloved flat-topped Mt. Pedernal, adobe buildings and Spanish colonial churches, and doorways, trees and clouds, these were all source material for her unique vision.
- Sunday, July 3, 2011

Red Lodge, Montana and the Beartooth Highway

imageWhile America's famous journalist and travel correspondent Charles Kuralt called the Beartooth Highway "the most beautiful roadway in America," he might have overstated his case just a bit. Granted it's a judgment call, but for sheer beauty the Going-to-the-Sun Highway over Logan Pass in Glacier National Park leaves the Beartooth in the dust. Never-the-less, the lofty Beartooth that rises to 10,947 feet and has been designated a National Scenic Byway can't be denied its place among aesthetic grandeur. The chorus of accolades are well-deserved because it is beautiful, it is marvelous and other-worldly. It's a thin-aired land of cropped tundra and green lichen among the clouds and lingering snowfields and rolling alpine grasses, and deep, deep canyons and sheer cliffs and tall mountains and roaring, sparkling rivers - away from it all.
- Monday, June 13, 2011

Port Orford, Oregon

imageThe mighty headland named Cape Blanco on the southern Oregon Coast is regarded by many Oregonians as the western-most land protrusion in the Lower-48. It certainly feels that way as one stands overwhelmed by the scenery on the very edge of the continent. The natural drama is palpable, sensual, ... potentially erotic. It's a place where you can lean into the wind as it blows ashore under a broad canopy of clear blue sky whose seasonal colors shift from summer's deep blues to winter's dark-grays when sagging clouds verging on black roll overhead with the grace of titanic spaceships invading this water-logged state in rapid slow motion.
- Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Helena, Montana

imageHistory buffs and visitors who appreciate turn-of-the-century architectural decadence will love Helena, Montana's state capital of 50,000+. Affectionately called the Queen City of the Rockies, Helena exudes Old West opulence, and those rushing by to Glacier National Park up north or Yellowstone to the southeast are committing a disservice by not stopping in, if only for a brief visit. Step into Helena and you step back in time, back to the smoky, rough-and-tumble days when the nouveau riche went to great lengths to flaunt their new-found wealth and thumb their noses at the little people who aspired to join them on Nob Hill west of town, the mansion district.
- Saturday, May 14, 2011

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

imageIt's that time of the year, late April when southern Utah's high desert beckons with a shout and red-rock cliffs streaked black like tar and convoluted canyons and eroded spires demand homage, photographically speaking. This mind-altering terrain of 377,000 rugged acres 40 miles southwest of Moab cradled between the LaSal, Abajo and Henry Mountains and trisected by the twisting turns of the Colorado and Green rivers defies our paltry imaginations. Up close and personal the land is surprisingly verdant, and its million colorful canyons will forever alter any preconceived notion you might harbor of what a desert is supposed to look like. Brown, flat and perennially parched it is not.
- Saturday, April 30, 2011

Bluff, Utah

imageThough small and isolated, historic Bluff in extreme southeastern Utah was first settled by tough, persevering Mormon pioneers in 1880. Sleeping in the shadow of 300-foot sandstone bluffs along the elegant San Juan River, this quiet, polite community, like the hub of an old wagon wheel, lies at the center of stunning natural beauty that regularly draws outdoor adventurers and casual tourists in manageable numbers. South and west of town is John Wayne country, the Navajo Nation's incomparable Monument Valley. To the west, plunging Goosenecks canyon carved by the meandering turns of the San Juan beckons, and beyond those sharp bends are deep, inviting, long and narrow canyons named Slickhorn and Grand Gulch.
- Thursday, April 14, 2011

Stanley, Idaho, and the Sawtooth Mountains

imageThe American West is vanishing. Authentic old towns in attractive natural settings with strong ranch and mining heritages have succumbed in great number to theme park facelifts; refurbished cowboy and hard-rock miner motifs that pander to Hollywood's notion of what the good old days must have looked like. Quaint "western" makeovers of main street are invariably followed by boutiques and upscale eateries, the finest galleries and lavish lodging for the well-heeled. Affluent enclaves are close behind - the big second homes and block condominium complexes that crowd out the view and displace wildlife habitat as sprawl runs rampant like a festering case of smelly gangrene.
- Sunday, April 3, 2011

Ketchum and Sun Valley

imageNobel laureate Ernest Hemingway chose well when he bought a home outside Ketchum in Sun Valley in 1959, abandoning his beloved Cuba to Castro, along with 6,000 books, his motorboat the Pilar, the Finca Vigia and the sparkling blue Caribbean that ran warm and salty through his veins. A world traveler with discriminating tastes in the arts and the natural order, a rugged, brawling bookworm of a man drawn to high country his entire life, the aging Hemingway with his white beard and arsenal of firearms picked Idaho's Ketchum and Sun Valley in the end, and for good reason. Our literary genius of world-renown might have been plagued by a serious drinking problem and rapidly degenerating health, mental and physical, but he had enough sense to recognize the unique quality of this place. When Hemingway first set eyes on the land back in the 1930s it was little more than an outpost for the hardy tucked into the rugged fold of mountains extraordinaire boasting green meadows and deep forests that define the elevated, an alpine country awash in fresh air and dry sunshine and wild landscapes that continue to beckon - the beauty of it all.
- Thursday, March 17, 2011

Grand Canyon, Arizona

imageWhen 16th century Spanish conquistador García López de Cárdenas stepped out of the towering ponderosa pines that blanket the South Rim of the grandest of canyons and stared dumfounded at that reddish convoluted maw, stared in disbelief at the depth and width and breadth of that crinkly crack, he most assuredly was moved with a profound sense of humility like counted millions since his day that have paid homage from the corners of planet earth. Like many in contemporary society, Cardenas struggled for words to describe this geologic anomaly, this thing, this increasingly polluted void carved out of the Colorado Plateau over the course of eons that has brought man to the brink of tears with its incomprehensible beauty.
- Monday, February 28, 2011

Cannon Beach, Oregon and Ecola State Park

imageIt was a craving for rancid whale blubber that drove Captain William Clark of Lewis and Clark expeditionary fame to trek 25 miles south of the mighty Columbia River in January, 1806, to lofty Tillamook Head on the northern Oregon coast. Beached whale near Ecola Creek was on the menu, but had the famous explorers known what that rubbery mammal tasted like they might have stayed put. Some claim it rivals horse meat, has the texture of dirty socks marinated in olive oil, and boiled to perfection smells like your dog's colon. Others argue it tastes just like A-1 Steak Sauce if you're generous.
- Thursday, February 10, 2011

Lincoln, New Mexico

imageLincoln has been heralded as the best preserved cow town in the American West. Sadly for many of its earlier inhabitants, it also became the epicenter of the notorious, blood-splattered Lincoln County War that waged off and on through 1878. It was a war which claimed the lives of 22 men, wounded nine others and vaulted Billy the Kid to the pinnacle of outlaw fame whether he deserved it or not. If you seek drama and the noisy struggle of life over death in a political and legal environment essentially corrupt to its core, this tale is for you, and it's fact, at least those aspects agreed upon. There's no need to embellish or feed into any number of myths that have evolved over the years.
- Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Kodachrome Basin State Park and Red Canyon

imageRarely visited and off the beaten path, Kodachrome Basin State Park is a sumptuous buffet for the senses, an immovable feast hidden smack dab in the middle of nowhere far out on the edge of nothing. You'll find it midway between lost and wild, up in the rugged high desert of southern Utah's Colorado Plateau on the northwest fringes of 2-million-acre Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument. If you're a crow, fly 30 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon National Park and stop when the pavement ends. If you bring the kids to Kodachrome Park be sure to cover their eyes. Some of the monolithic spires known as sedimentary pipes that stand erect on the valley floor are downright obscene.
- Friday, January 7, 2011

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

imageWhen I first heard the screaming and yelling I wasn't sure if I should leap off my bench and run into the evergreens, stand my ground and fight, or finish lunch. I opted for the latter, chewing my ham and cheese sandwich in disbelief as the blood-curdling howls grew louder and the clip-pity-clop of shod hooves drew near. Then, with a flutter of feathers and heavy breathing, out of the forest galloped a man on his horse, kicking up clouds of dust as he ground his painted pony to a halt before me. Yelling “Yip! Yip! Yip!” and a throaty “AAARGGH” while his trusty steed reared and pawed the air, “Chief Howls-A-Lot” shook his pointy spear in my direction, daring me not to be afraid. I stopped chewing.
- Friday, December 17, 2010

Along the Turquoise Trail

imageNew Mexico's 52-mile Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, or simply the “Turquoise Trail,” is a popular alternative to Interstate 25 if you're venturing between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Highway 14 east of the Sandia Mountains traverses a broad, high desert and low rolling hills with long views of mountains in the distance. This dry country of pinion-juniper, brushy grasslands and too much dirt has played host to adventurers of all walks of life including pre-Columbian Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, Mexicans during a time of Mexican supremacy, and more recently Anglo-Americans. Two small towns in particular along the Turquoise Trail are worthy of this popular detour; Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid) and Cerrillos, about 25 miles south of Santa Fe. These little gems are rich in history, rich in lore, and like so much of the American Southwest are seeped in a mining tradition that reaches back to A.D. 1,500 and beyond.
- Friday, December 3, 2010

Enchanting New Mexico

imageNormally it would have been out of character to drive this far for a glimpse of something as common as graffiti. I can find that scratched on the toilet seat at my local Walmart. But these etchings, hundreds of years old and scrawled into the base of a towering sandstone bluff in the high desert of western New Mexico at El Morro National Monument, are special. Mostly a vast collection of names, some historical accounts and even a poem, the sandstone chalkboard at El Morro is a mesmerizing window of times past, a testament to thirsty Native American Puebloans, Spanish colonial governors, Anglo-American homesteaders, soldiers and surveyors, and 25 confused camels that traversed this well-trod corridor.
- Sunday, November 14, 2010

Glacier National Park Montana

imageThe jagged and spectacularly beautiful peaks and valleys of million-acre Glacier National Park that anchors the north end of America's Rocky Mountains represents some of the purest, most scenic wild lands in this country. The Crown of the Continent, or Backbone of the World, has long been revered and reached sacred status with the Blackfeet Indians long before it became a national park in 1910, or was designated the world's first International Peace Park World Heritage Site in 1995. Today the honor of achieving Peace Park designation is shared with Waterton Lakes National Park just across the Canadian border.
- Saturday, November 13, 2010

Arches National Park and Moab, Utah

imageFor better or worse, Arches National Park and the nearby resort town of Moab have been discovered. Once a dull and dusty uranium mining town, Moab abruptly evolved into a recreational mecca of world-wide acclaim. A small, bustling community of 5,000 in the shadow of the La Sal Mountains near the Colorado River, it has become a minor cultural and artistic hub teeming with the young and athletic, and the old and lazy, all determined to have a rousing, and occasionally sweaty, good time.
- Saturday, September 25, 2010

Cooke City, Montana, Cody, Wyoming, the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area

imageFor those dismayed by the evergrowing crowds in Yellowstone, a sane alternative is the far northeast corner of the park and beyond where the mighty Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains soar to great heights. In particular, point your compass toward that spectacularly rugged and beautiful land enveloping the rustic old mining town of Cooke City, Montana. I’m not the only one who's had an affair with this isolated mountain kingdom. The late, great writer Ernest Hemingway was similarly captivated by the lofty peaks and narrow alpine valleys, spending a fair amount of time during the 1920s and 1930s drinking, writing, fishing the Clarks Fork River and hunting endangered species to the brink of extinction. But beware. This is not an amusement park. There are things out there that will eat you - alive.
- Thursday, September 9, 2010

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