Shelby & Fort Benton, Montana: a weekend expedition

[thethinginthewoods]

During a lazy weekend while attending MSU-Northern in Havre, I decided to take the new Jeep out for some adventures to explore the surrounding area and distant towns. (Sorry for the crappy quality of the pics, they were taken using my cell phone)

I started out following highway 2 along the BNSF/Amtrak Empire Builder route to Shelby, Montana, the next biggest city to the East of Havre.

Looking East, back towards Havre:

I stopped at an abandoned grain elevator outside of Lothair:
Looking West:

Looking up the collapsed elevator shaft:

 

[thethinginthewoods]

I found a really old abandoned farm house a few hundred yards off the highway across the tracks and trekked through knee-deep frozen snow to check it out. Judging by the wiring in the walls and architecture, i'd say it was built in the early 1900's, possibly wired later (20's or 30's):

Made it to Shelby:

On the way back to Havre, I found another neat old abandoned farm shack. I threw the Jeep in 4x4 and cruised down a snowy trail to check it out. Within a couple hundred feet of the cabin, the new "stocker" just couldn't compete with the deep snow and it sunk within a few inches of the unibody frame! I didn't have any recovery tools with me (yet), so I dug out with a large ice-scraper and eventually throttled out, having to speed in reverse to keep momentum up.

Heavy winds from the north have taken their toll on the shack:

Stuck:

 

[thethinginthewoods]

On to Fort Benton! Fort Benton was an important stop on the Missouri River during the Lewis & Clark expedition. It turned into a very lawless town and daily death on mainstreet was not uncommon.

An old schoolhouse, just north of the turn-off to Fort Benton along highway 87:

Found a trail leading into a ravine, then along a cliff to the top of a bluff where I found another gathering of cabins at the end of a large wheat field:

 

[thethinginthewoods]

Headed back down the trail and up another ravine. The ravine was really cool because it wandered way back up into the country and I could picture cowboys and indians riding horseback up the trail, then possibly being attacked by indians! Seemed kind of neat that here I am in the 21st century, trekking up the same canyon with my 4.0 L6 powered 4x4 horse!

Top of the bluff:

The cliffside:

A couple miles up the ravine at a dead end!

Found a neat steam paddlewheel boat just outside of Fort Benton:

The frozen Missouri River:

Fort Benton:

The only casualty of the expedition:

 

[stolenheron]

your jeep caught you dinner!

 

[PirateMcGee]

awww man your pics really make me miss Montana................then I'm reminded of the wind

 

[MrBeast]

Cool trip man.

When I was truckin over the road the Montana/dakota bad lands were some of the hardest to get through, I had no idea that paddle wheel boat was out there, that is pretty neat.

 

[dirty Bakers]

Nice trip, do you think they still use the paddle boat.

 

[thethinginthewoods]

Nice trip, do you think they still use the paddle boat.

No, I am not really sure what the purpose of that thing was. It was neat to look at, but it didn't look "seaworthy" and it was out in a field, not even close to a body of water.