Butte, America: exploring a foreign culture in my own back yard

Our life has finally calmed down since we got back from Indonesia and I have finally gotten organized enough to start taking some small weekend trips in our own backyard. My sister has recently moved to a medium-sized town in central western Montana called Butte. Pronounced "Booute' not butt, make that mistake at your own peril! So we traveled the 2 hours to visit her and spend the weekend exploring the area and town.

Center of town, old mine site with capped waste everywhere.

It's hard to explain to non-Montanans why one of the largest towns in Montana and a college town to boot would be a foreign culture. Well frankly there is no other place on the planet like Butte and people from Butte don't usually say they are from Montana, they say "Butte, America". It is a bizarre mix of redneck oldtimers, depressed economy (even when the rest of the country was booming, but worst now), college students, and a deeply entrenched union nepotism based favor system. You can buy a house with the limit on your credit card if you want to own it the rest of your life (selling is difficult if not impossible).

Butte is almost entirely located on, in and around a huge mined out hill and also has the fun distinction of being one of the largest superfund sites in the USA. There is an open-pit mine located in the center of the town that they stopped pumping the water out of about 10 years ago and now is filling up with highly toxic, acidic, metal filled water. They are treating the water but...  There are few trees in Butte and most are stunted.

View of the Berkely Pit, lovely lake of acid in the center of Butte.

But at the same time Butte is located central to one of the most amazing mountain areas in the west. Only a few hours from Yellowstone National Park, some of the best fishing and skiing in the world, and numerous wilderness areas.

Butte is a town where it is still normal to see someone dressed in acid-washed jeans and a full on mullet as your normal everyday dressed up to hit the bars outfit. Even with the advent of the Internet people in Butte still stick to the fashion of their high school days.

So it is a fun adventure to visit this foreign land located in your home state!

We decided a overcast, wintry day in March warranted a visit to a nearby hot springs located next to one of the world class streams nearby. I was sworn to secrecy about the actual location so as not to let the cat out of the bad on this amazing little gem of a hotsprings. The locals have built a little wall to hold the hot water in a little pool, we used a bucket to add some of the river water to regulate the temperature and then chilled. And they don't want all the poseurs from Missoula and Bozeman polluting it with their hippie lameness (or so I was told).

My sister Katie and Jas enjoying secret hotsprings on a unnamed Montana River.

To end the day we visited the newly opened Headframe Distillery (www.headframespirits.com)  located in Uptown Butte. The tasting room has a two drink max and I tried the bloody mary and whiskey ginger. Both were rocking and the atmosphere was a joyful mix of Butte awesome and typical bar crowd (plus the requisite 5 or 6 kids, Jasmine included). And yes people she just had a water. Geez what kind of mom do you think I am?? Oh right the kind that takes her 4 yo to a bar in Butte on Saturday night!

Anyone going through Butte should definitely make it a point to stop and taste some of Montana's (err I mean America's) newest booze!