![]() ![]() If you’re looking for a quiet, peaceful, beautiful area to visit or to camp in, Lost Creek State Park is hard to beat! It’s located about 7 miles outside of Anaconda, Montana, so it’s an easy stop on the route between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. There are some routes established for climbers, whom we’d occasionally see clambering over the rock face. Seeps trickle down the rock in an area near the entrance huge veins of quartz are visible in others. ![]() Probably the most spectacular features of the park are the massive cliffs that tower 1200 feet over the canyon. There’s a parking lot for cars and horse trailers near the trailhead. This trail generally follows the creek, and connects to a trail that goes over the cliffs and ends near a Job Corps center just outside of Anaconda. In addition to the pleasant walk up the road, a well-maintained forest service trail leads from the upper campground, along an old logging or mining road. We also saw lots of butterflies, and tiny garter snakes and frogs. We didn’t see any cougars, and only saw one moose in the early spring we did see bears at the end of summer (they like the dogwood berries that ripen in mid-August!). The park is home to other animals: bears, cougars, deer, moose, ground squirrels, chipmunks, pack rats, bats, pikas in the talus slopes.according to the locals (very friendly folks who regularly visit the park for picnics and hikes), bighorn sheep used to climb along the cliffs, but none have been spotted recently. We also saw lots of birds, including a golden eagle family whose baby we watched grow from a fierce, downy newborn to a fully grown juvenile soaring over the cliffs. You can usually watch them if you walk along the road just before nightfall. The town was originally to be called Copperopolis but that name was already in use by another Montana town so the name Anaconda was settled on. The park follows along Lost Creek, which tumbles over a beautiful, 50- foot waterfall at the top of the park, before being dammed by numerous, industrious resident beavers. Anaconda was established in 1883 by Marcus Daly, one of the three 'Copper Kings' of Butte, Montana, as a site for a new smelter to treat ores from his Anaconda mine. ![]() The pit toilets (4 spread throughout the park) are absolutely the cleanest you’ll ever experience, thanks to Duane- the friendliest and most diligent caretaker imaginable! Campsites have fire rings and picnic tables, and are large enough to feel private and uncrowded. There are a few sites suitable for larger rv’s near the entrance to the park though the shadier sites, on a loop a mile up the road, are fine for midsized trailers, class c campers, vans, etc. We loved it-it’s a small and less-visited State Park, with around 20 rustic campsites (no hookups, with water available at a central pump). Jobs drew people to Montana who built and diversified its communities.My husband and I volunteered as camp hosts at Lost Creek State Park during the summer of 2019. ![]() Women, who were allowed to file mining claims and hold their own property, helped Montana elect the first woman to Congress, Jeannette Rankin, in 1916. The Copper Kings’ money influenced state politics heavily and even the location of the capital city. Montana's mining sector transformed its cultural and political history. Environmental abuses, such as the Berkeley Pit, had a major impact on Montana's 1972 Constitution, which features very strong legal language granting its citizens the right to a clean and healthful environment. Anaconda might be the small town bowling champ in Montana, with two excellent alleys, the Copper Bowl, from the mid-20th century and the more recent Cedar Park Lanes. Libby was named a Superfund site because of asbestos mining, while East Helena earned the same designation because of the smelting conducted there by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). Many Anaconda Mining Company ventures, including the smelters in Black Eagle and Anaconda, along with the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area, were named Superfund (or abandoned hazardous waste) cleanup sites in the early 1980s by the Environmental Protection Agency. Unfortunately, these industries damaged the environment. Mining brought in secondary industries like smelters, cement plants, construction, utilities, heavy equipment, and transportation. Historically, Montana’s natural resources have formed the basis of its economy. ![]()
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