Weird day trips from Butte

The strangest Butte finds are often a short drive out. These 13 day trips — Mountain Witch, Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild, Ringing Rocks and more — are each hand-vetted and sourced: ghost towns, hot-spring soaks, roadside oddities, and odd small-town museums worth the gas. A weird day trip is its own kind of date.

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Mountain Witch Tucked behind Red Tractor Pizza off Main Street with a south-facing door, this is a genuine practicing witch'… Bozeman
Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild On the edge of tiny Lincoln, an international sculpture park sits inside a pine woodland that you wander on f… Lincoln
Ringing Rocks A jumbled pile of boulders on the edge of the Boulder Batholith that chime like bells when struck. A rack of… Pipestone (near Whitehall), MT
Elkhorn Ghost Town (Elkhorn State Park) Montana's smallest state park is just two preserved 1890s buildings, Fraternity Hall and Gilliam Hall, standi… Elkhorn, near Boulder, MT
Boulder Hot Springs A rambling Mission-style grand hotel that Butte mining millionaire James A. Murray built out in 1910-1913, wh… Boulder, MT
Goose Bay Handblown Glass A working hot-glass studio run by Jim and Terry Gundersen in tiny Townsend, about an hour northeast of Butte… Townsend, MT
Boulder Hot Springs Inn & Spa A historic mission-style hot springs hotel and B&B set between Butte and Helena, with indoor mineral plunges,… Boulder
Montana Learning Center — Rice Astronomical Park On the dark shore of Canyon Ferry Lake, this education center runs three observatories collectively called th… Helena (Canyon Ferry Lake)
Elkhorn State Park (Elkhorn Ghost Town) Montana's smallest state park preserves the remnants of a silver boomtown that peaked at roughly 2,500 people… Elkhorn (near Boulder), MT
Boulder Hot Springs Hotel A sprawling 1909 California Mission-style hotel and bathhouse rebuilt by James A. Murray, an eccentric Irish-… Boulder, MT
Crystal Park A 220-acre Forest Service site at 7,800 feet where the decomposed granite is laced with quartz crystals you a… Pioneer Mountains (near Dillon), MT
Bannack State Park Montana's first territorial capital and the best-preserved ghost town in the state, with over fifty original… Bannack (near Dillon), MT
Garnet Ghost Town A BLM-managed gold-mining ghost town tucked high in the Garnet Range with more than thirty preserved building… Garnet (near Drummond), MT