Butte

The thing I like to do when I'm visiting a new place is to go out and get lost. Well, not exactly one hundred percent lost. That just gets you angry. I like the kind of lost where you sorta know how to get back if you have to, and even if you're not quite sure how to get back exactly, at least you have enough gas to get to a place where you can ask someone where the heck you are.

I'm not afraid to stop and ask for directions. Especially if the tank is close to empty and it's getting dark.

So when I went to Butte this weekend, the first thing I did was just wander around. Get a feel for the place. First, I wandered around in the truck. Then I parked it and just wandered around the city.

This is what I learned: Butte has a lot of buildings that are historic. It also has a lot of buildings that are just plain old.

My favorite building was a hotel that boasted it was fireproof. It seemed to me the sort of slogan that would tempt an arsonist, but the hotel looked pretty old and it was still standing, so the slogan must have had some truth to it.

Even though it looks like the sort of city that would be low on cash, it still apparently has enough cash to hire street cleaners.

The street cleaners weren't those big ugly vacuum machines, either. These guys were real honest to goodness humans with garbage cans on wheels. They had brooms and dustpans and those mechanical arms that pick up stuff like gum wrappers and cigarette butts.

I talked to a guy named James who was picking up trash I couldn't even see.

He said he'd been doing this for two years now.

I took his picture in front of a museum window. You couldn't get into the museum, but you could see the stuff inside. In the middle of the display was a Coca-Cola table and four Coca-Cola chairs. If the place had been open, I would have asked James to sit at the table and I would have taken his picture just because it looked cool.

James looked like the sort of guy that would have obliged.

After a morning of wandering, I decided I wanted to see the Berkeley Pit- the old copper mine that's filling full of water. The pit would actually be Butte's big problem by now, but they've been pumping the water out of it and treating it. The water is as acidic as vinegar and full of nasty metals.

Still, algae and water boatmen-a kind of bug-live in the pit. Even if you don't like bugs and algae, you've got to admire their tenacity.

The problem with the pit is I couldn't find it. I mean, I knew it was right there- it's gigantic-but I couldn't see the water.

So I wandered around and ended up on a dirt road in the place called Walkerville, which, I think, is named that because of the number of hounds there on 30-foot leashes tied to old cars.

Even at the pinnacle of Walkerville, I couldn't see down into the pit. I suppose I could have gone for a hike, but there were some fairly serious looking No Trespassing signs, and the residents of Walkerville didn't look like the kind of folks you'd confuse with, say, the residents of Friendlyville.

They looked like the sort of people that took life pretty seriously, particularly since it seemed to have taken them pretty seriously.

So I got the hell out of there before one of those dogs came free from its leash.

Then I did the safe thing. The wussy thing. I went back to my hotel and asked the friendly blonde how to get to the Berkeley Pit.

She highlighted the route on a friendly little map, and I found the official Berkeley Pit overlook and looked down at the water and looked up, and on the tippy-top of the hill I saw Walkerville.

The wind was cold and the pit was a little disappointing. I figured it would be bigger. I was hoping it would be steamy or smelly.

But it was just a quiet disaster whispering, Get lost.

I obliged.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.