Adult Cicada near Warm Springs Creek
There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the globe, and many remain unclassified. Cicadas do not bite or sting and are benign to humans. Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas. Most North American species are in the genus Tibicen - the annual or dog-day cicadas, so named because they emerge in late July and August. The specimen seen here was photographed in late June.

The Anaconda Range
The Anaconda Range, as seen from the Clark Fork Coalition’s Dry Cottonwood Ranch near Galen. The crest of the range is part of the Continental Divide, rising to 10,793 feet (3290 m) at West Goat Peak. Other major summits include Mt. Evans (10,641 ft, 3243 m), Mt. Haggin (10,607 ft, 3233 m), Warren Peak (10,463 ft, 3189 m), and East Goat Peak (10,399 ft, 3170 m). Much of the range is protected as part of the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness Area. Historically, many of the mountains near Anaconda were deforested due to the timber needs of mining operations in Butte and smelting operations in Anaconda. Smoke pollution from the Anaconda Smelter also impacted upland vegetation.

Garnet Ghost Town
Garnet, located about 20 miles east of Missoula, is Montana’s most intact ghost town. In 1898, the mining camp was home to more than 1,000 people. But by 1905 the gold was playing out and only 150 people remained. A 1912 fire and hardships on the home front during World War I sent most of the remaining miners, wives and children packing. Garnet slowly slipped into obscurity, despite a brief renewal of mining in the Great Depression of the 1930s. While Garnet is primarily known as a gold mining town, silver and copper were also heavily mined.

Reflection of the Bell Diamond Head Frame
The head frame of the old Bell Diamond mine in Butte, reflected in water colored by metals from waste rock. Head frames served as fulcrums over which cables from hoisting equipment connect to the skips and cages that raise and lower equipment and miners into, and ore and waste rock out of, an underground mine. Head frames are also known as “gallows frames”, some say due to the structure's resemblance to a hanging gallows, while others say the term reflects the potentially lethal attributes of underground mining.

Pit Water
The water in the abandoned Berkeley Pit is heavily acidic, with a pH level of 2.5 (about the same as Coca-Cola), and laden with heavy metals such as zinc, cadmium, copper and iron, and potential toxins such as arsenic and sulfuric acid. The coloration is due to the high metal content, particularly iron. When the Pit was closed in 1982, the underground water pumps were shut off, and groundwater from the surrounding aquifers is filling the pit. When the open pit mine opened in 1955, two communities and much of Butte's previously crowded east side were consumed by land purchases to expand the pit. The Anaconda Company bought the homes, businesses and schools of the working-class communities of Meaderville and McQueen. Many of these homes were destroyed, buried, or moved to the southern end of Butte. Pit water is currently “mined” by pumping it over scrap iron; a replacement reaction occurs between copper and iron, drawing out as much as 400,000 pounds of copper per month. The iron-rich water is then pumped back into the Pit.

Rattlesnake in Soap Gulch
Of the ten snake species that live in Montana, only the prairie rattlesnake is venomous. The species, also known as the western rattlesnake, favors open, arid country and ponderosa pine savannahs. Rattlesnake bites are rare, and fatalities from rattlesnake bites are rarer still. Rattlesnakes do serve a valuable ecological role in Montana, as each year they consume millions of rodents that could otherwise become agricultural pests or spread diseases such as hantavirus.

Wildfire Sunrise Over Warm Springs Ponds
The red sun and sky in this photo, taken in August, are due to wildfire smoke. The photo was taken near the Warm Springs Ponds, which are used to treat the toxic flows of Silver Bow Creek at the headwaters of the Clark Fork River. The Ponds, a Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks Wilderness Management Area, are also a popular recreation spot, known for excellent birdwatching and fishing opportunities.

Bull Thistle
A bull thistle in full bloom. While commonly regarded as a weed in North America, the bull thistle is not invasive enough to be considered a “noxious” weed in Montana. However, its close cousin, the Canada thistle, is considered a Category 1 noxious weed. The stems of Canada thistle are not spiny in contrast to bull thistle, and bull thistle also has much larger flowers than Canada thistle.

The Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond
Located north of the Berkeley Pit at the base of Rampart Mountain, the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond is sometimes colloquially know as “Acid Lake”, which is something of a misnomer, as the pond is actually less acidic than wastewater from elsewhere on the Butte Hill due to differences in geochemistry. Tailings from current Montana Resources mining operations in Butte are discharged here. The pond was created through the construction of a rockfill dam on Yankee Doodle and Silver Bow Creeks, completed in 1972. At 174 meters (about 575 feet, and rising), the dam is the 10th highest in the U.S.