Our group of friends have been pretty tight since 1990, all meeting each other through our State jobs at the Integrated Waste Management Board throughout the years. Several have already passed away, such as Bob Holmes in these pictures, as well as Jeff Hunts and Keir Furey. Others have moved away or moved on or dropped out of touch, but our core remains strong to this day.

Obviously, back then we were much younger and it sure looks that way. We probably went on a trip a month or so; maybe just 2 guys or 4 or on those rare occasions 8 or more. We had a blast exploring the West and celebrating significant milestones and celebrating just being together and being friends. We were always trying to get more guys to come out with us, and sometimes we got sons or even grandsons to come on trips. We had a ball exploring, eating good, drinking good, and allowing men to be boys again.

On this trip, I recall Bob and I stopping at this long abandoned ski resort for a pee break one trip and being blown away at how many buildings were still standing, some intact and some partially intact. There was debris everywhere and lots of it interesting little morsels of a bygone era. This is a pretty low elevation for a ski resort and my understanding is it never really got going because the snow was sparse and inconsistent.

Situated just off Highway 88, it is out of site of the road, which makes it easy to miss. Just 44 miles from Jackson and 13 miles from Kirkwood, it was often overlooked. Opening in 1970 as Silver Basin Ski Area and boasted 5 lifts, 1200 vertical feet and 1700 acres of ski area. A cool feature of the resort was that the lodge and resort was situated at the top of the runs rather than the far more common bottom situation. This rare feature was not enough to spare the resort however. In its 28 years of being open, it only operated for 14 of those years, finally closing in bankruptcy in 1998.

When Bob and I were wandering about, we couldn’t help but notice all the beautiful cedar shingles still in good shape on some of the buildings. We vowed to come back some day prepared to harvest some, and that we did. I don’t recall when, but we cam prepared with pry bars and hammers and such and filled 6-8 huge black plastic bags with shingles. They were in great condition after all these years and all those winters and all that UV radiation. It was amazing.

We used most of the shingles to cover our outhouse at the property and it looks fantastic. I used another bag or so on a cool mail box I built at my house. The rest probably started many a camp fire for us. It is a great memory and was such a cool place we told the others about it and then organized this trip. I drove up with Steve and we just stayed for the day, but the others stayed overnight. It was another short but sweet gathering of the fools who obviously had a great time judging from the faces.

Find this Spot

Iron Mountain with the Boys Gallery