The Ghost of Bodie Past

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The ghost of Bodie occasionally appears in a window..

Please allow me to introduce myself:  my name is Boots McGee.  I was hanged by a mob in Bodie back in 1883.  They broke down the door of the jail, shoved the sheriff aside, and yanked me out of the cell.  Then they carried me kicking and screaming to the headframe for the Red Cloud Mine and used a horse to string me up by the neck.  I died choking and gasping two minutes later.

The thing is, I didn’t shoot Doc Smith that night in the Yellow Dog Tavern.  The real killer was a one-armed man who was good with a gun in his remaining hand, and he shot Doc when everyone else had dived under the tables.  But Doc, with his dying words, said that he saw me with the smoking gun.  If Doc hadn’t delivered so many babies and treated so many liver ailments, people might not have believed him.  But here I was, a down on my luck miner who was drunk on rotgut that night, and someone heard me threaten Doc because he charged me too much for removing a bullet from my butt.  So here I am.

We ghosts don’t really like to hang around; after all, there is a sweet afterlife that we would like to spend eternity in.  But some of us get stuck in a place and time and can’t get out.  It has something to do with the unfairness of the act that killed us.  If only I could turn back time.  But I can’t, so for now I float down from the graveyard on the hill with the cool night air.  If you see my shape in a dark window, or hear a door creak on a still morning when nobody is around, that would be me.  And I’ll probably be here for as long as the last weathered boards remain on the Methodist Church and as long as the last granite headstone remains in the graveyard.

I might as well tell you a bit about my little town.  Gold was discovered in these hills by Waterman S. Bodey back in 1859.  I came in the gold rush that

Bodie sits below the hills where the gold came from..

followed, and staked a claim up in the hills east of town.  I dug some gold early on and made some money, enough that I could visit the taverns every night, Lottie’s house of red lights on Saturday night, and the Methodist Church on Sunday mornings.  Well, maybe a few Sunday mornings, anyway.

By 1879, the town had grown to 10,000 people and had a reputation as a hellhole filled with drunks and prostitutes and outlaws.  But a lot of gold was coming out of the ground from all the mines, so people put up with all the evil.  One man of God, the Reverend F. M. Warrington called our town “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.”  Sounds like my kind of place, doesn’t it?

All good and evil things eventually come to an end, and Bodie’s end came soon after the last mine shut down in 1941.  Without a reason to go on, the town emptied out completely.  People left old belongings in their homes, and the school’s hundreds of desks were left as if ghost students still took their daily lessons.

The creaking front door of the Tom Miller house..

I was lonely here for a long time, with just occasional curious folks and vandals visiting this remote place.  But in 1962, the great state of California made my home town a state historic park that is kept in a state of “arrested decay.”  Now I have lots of visitors to haunt, so the only times I get lonely are during the long and frigid winters, when only a few folks on skis and snowmobiles make it up here.

It looked like I would never leave this place, since California has been preventing Bodie from disappearing back into the earth.  But in 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger put Bodie on a list of state parks to shut down because the state has run out of money to keep parks open.  That is my best hope for getting out of here.  If the state allows Bodie to fall apart and blow away, I might finally get to see heaven because I’ll have nowhere to stay here on earth.

The Methodist Church reflected in the windows of a doorway..

A child’s coffin in the town’s morgue..

Streetscape of weathered buildings in Bodie..

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Without a little propping up, these outhouses would have blown down in the cold wind.

The Standard Mill processed millions of dollars of gold..

The Methodist Church, built in 1882, held its last service in 1932..

The owner of the town’s morgue slept in an adjacent room..

Layers of paint speak to fashions and time passing..

Reflections on the front door windows of the Pat Reddy house..

A billiards table waits for ghostly players in the old Wheaton & Hollis Hotel..

Togetherness reigned in the Kirkwood House two-hole outhouse..

Steel shingles in attractive rusty shades cover some of Bodie’s exterior walls..

Display windows of the Boone Store and Warehouse reflect the setting..

The interior of the Boone Store & Warehouse has original artifacts on display..

Table in the Tom Miller house set for guests who never came..

A 1927 Dodge Graham truck waits for a fill-up at the Shell gas pumps..

A deer head has survived the decades in the Wheaton & Hollis Hotel..

Before a major fire, Bodie was 20 times as large..

The Swazey Hotel awaits visitors from the past..

Lace curtains add a feminine touch to the Murphy house..

James Stuart Cain, a wealthy businessman, had a beautiful house..

The Wheaton & Hollis Hotel is a classic false front commercial building..

If you want to visit Bodie, there are some good websites to help plan your trip and learn a bit of real history (as opposed to my made-up history!) of this wonderful ghost town.

http://www.bodie.com/

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509

To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

A Night on Mt. Rainier, A Day in Paradise

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Sunset view down Nisqually River Valley in Mt. Rainier National Park..

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Night photography beckoned this fall, so I decided to do an overnight trip to Mt. Rainier on what I hoped would be a relatively clear night.  Actually, my first choice had been an overnight backpack on the lower slopes of Mt. Baker, but then I saw a recent trip report for the Railroad Grade area that had a hiker postholing through the deep snow there.  Change in plans!

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I drove to Mt. Rainier just after noon on an early October weekday.  It was cloudy upon my arrival, but I had time to check out possible positions for night photography and to find some great spots for late autumn photography.

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After taking some evening photographs of a vivid sunset, I went to Cougar Rock Campground and was sawing logs (and not for a campfire!) by 8:00 p.m., with the alarm set for 3:00 a.m., when I expected the half-moon would be high in the sky and most of the clouds would have lifted.

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I awoke as planned and drove to Reflection Lakes, drinking the coffee I had wisely made before bed.  The mountain was revealed and everything went as planned, though I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more snow on The Mountain, given the stormy weather of late.  Later, I had hoped for dawn alpenglow on the peak, but just got the littlest bit of faint pink light.

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I spent the rest of the day photographing in the Paradise area, with a classic clear morning at Reflection Lakes, followed by a hike on the Skyline Trail in search of White-tailed Ptarmigans, which I failed to find.  It was a wonderful day with lots of older hikers on the trail.

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A strange cloud emanates from the mountain at night..

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Dawn glow, stars, and clouds..

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At first light, the cloud emanating from The Mountain began to dissipate..

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A touch of alpenglow on the rock and glaciers at dawnpp

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A classic view of Mount Rainier reflected in Reflection Lakes..

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A cedar puncheon boardwalk crosses a small stream..

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Blueberry bushes, scarlet with autumn, share a talus slope with subalpine trees..

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A grand staircase, with a quote from John Muir, leads to the high country..

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A stunning view of The Mountain on a crisp autumn morning in Paradise..

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The lovely colors of blueberry leaves..

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A Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel living above timberline..

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A tarn in the raw rock and gravel land above timberline..

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Glacier-gouged and polished rocks with the Tatoosh Range distant..

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A cloud quickly rises like a cresting wave or a geyser..

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Nootka Cypress trees (formerly Alaska Yellow Cedar) with blueberry leaves.’

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The enchanted Skyline Trail winds through a subalpine forest..

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Fuzzy white seed heads among blueberry leaves.

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Looking down the Nisqually River Valley at sunset…

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To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

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