We were here 16 years ago! It was such a cool experience to bring Jackson back with us all these years later. Things were so much the same but also so much different. The buildings of this ghost town were the same; it’s an abandoned silver mining town where families moved along with their mining men, living all the way out here year-round, enduring brutal winters. But the drive out was much different. It’s still a three-mile off-road trek, but now the road is much rougher, the going much slower, and the traffic much higher.

When we came out here 16 years ago, we went against all posted advisories and drove our Nissan sedan on the rough rocky road. There was nobody else on the road, and nobody else at the site. But less than two decades later this has become an off-road destination, with high traffic on the at times one-lane road that has a sheer drop-off on one side. 99% of the traffic is rented Jeep Wranglers and Polaris ATVs. The road has become much rougher with the higher traffic, so there is absolutely no way that we could drive a sedan on it these days. We took our pick-up, as did a few others, and we were CRAWLING.

It was great to return, though, as we had such fond memories of our first trip out here, but we’d have to rent an off-road vehicle if we came again (assuming only further deterioration of the road). And what an awesome way to spend a birthday! 38, YAY!