Sluice Box State Park

Had never been to Sluice Box State Park near Great Falls, me and jolie got a chance this spring. It consists of Belt Creek in a narrow limestone walled canyon - at one time a railroad ran through the canyon for hauling mining ore.  This is one of the railroad tunnels with silhouette of jolie and polgara for scale. other parts of the trail are old railroad tressles -some in pretty scary looking condition - but we made it across them.  The full trail requires a dozen stream crossings -water was too high for us to make those but we hiked along almost all of the trail by starting at both ends and going as far as we could.

We saw a ton of wildflowers - these are prarie smoke yet to bloom

Sunrise on one of the many limestone cliffs

Pasque Flower

Jolie found a Morrell mushroom.  She said it was delicious - I will take her word for it.

Another view of the canyon.