Mukilteo Musings

Helena, Montana Continued

Helena is quite undiscovered. It is a gorgeous little city nestled in the Rocky Mountains. When we visited Aspen, Colorado a few years ago, it reminded me a lot of Helena except for the skiing. The best skiing is about 100 miles away near Bozeman though a small ski hill exists near Helena in the ghost town of Marysville. The winters are nasty, however. Everytime I go in the summer I wonder why more people haven't discovered this gem of a town and then I remember winter. In fact, the last day I was there over a week ago, the temperature hit 99 degrees. The next morning, the temperature had dropped into the forties and it was pouring rain. As I headed out of town and up over McDonald Pass, 13 miles away, snow covered the tops of the hills and mountains--just like that and it was still August.

I have mentioned before that Helena is chock full of Victorian houses and mansions--block after block of them and remarkably unique for a town of 30,000. All of them were built by money from gold mining. When I was a child most of them were in disrepair and to me haunted. But not anymore! Here is a small sampling of the West side homes. And they are bargains if they come on the market. The fanciest can be bought for less than $500,000. (One of the following sold for this while I was there.) Of course, it costs about that much to heat them in the winter.

















All of these homes are within two minutes of my Mom's little house. Very few of the Helena mansions are B&B's; some have been divided into apartments; but most are private homes.