The afternoon sun was already beginning its descent behind the mountains when John Smith and I began our hike. At 3 p.m. on a mid-November Saturday, the light had that golden quality that comes just before dusk in Montana’s high country.
Smith, a practicing dentist and Monitor photographer with ties to the ghost town stretching back decades, had agreed to guide me up the mile-long Elkhorn Cemetery Trail. In his orange vest, bright against the forest’s muted browns and greens, he told me he doesn’t play favorites when it comes to Elkhorn’s trails. Whichever path he’s walking becomes the one he loves most in that moment.
The trail wound upward through dense stands of pine, the slim trees telling their own story of Elkhorn’s resilience. As we walked, Smith explained how different the landscape once looked. The slopes stood bare at the turn of the 20th century. Some 600 woodcutters had harvested all the timber for the mines and for firewood to heat the town through the frigid winter.
