View allAll Photos Tagged Butte,
Steptoe Butte is a quartzite island jutting out of the silty loess of the Palouse hills in Whitman County, Washington, in the northwest United States. The 3,612-foot butte is preserved as Steptoe Butte State Park, a publicly owned 150-acre recreation area located 12 miles north of Colfax. It is an interesting drive to the top. A long spiral drive. Fascinating views, but hard to capture on photos.
It took me forever to find the name of this little mountain out in the Malheur NWR area, which surprised me because it's a prominent feature in the area.
Now that I know, the 12-year-old in me cannot stop laughing.
North Butte Mountain along the Gila River. East of Florence Arizona. Taken with a Samsung 21S Ultra Cell Phone. Amazing for a cell phone.
A massive rock formation named Factory Butte sticks up over 1,000 feet over the surrounding Badlands.
Butte began in the late 1800s as a gold and silver mining camp. At the turn of the century, the development of electricity and the industrialization of America resulted in a massive copper boom, and Butte flourished. As copper mining ramped up and the city grew, it attracted workers from all over the globe, creating a unique cosmopolitan setting against the backdrop of the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains. The influx of miners also gave Butte its hardscrabble reputation as a place where anything was possible, spawning a famous saloon and red light district, 'Venus Alley,' along Mercury Street. Today the main remnant of the wild old days is the Dumas Brothel, which operated until 1982, but the cultures of the many ethnic groups who came to work in Butte can still be found throughout the community, primarily in foods like the Cornish pasty, Slavic povitica and Scandinavian lefse, just to name a few.
The increasing demand for copper caused the copper mining industry in Butte to become one of the first centralized and industrialized businesses in the world. By the first decade of the 1900s,
The consolidation of mining interests placed heavy demands on the immigrant workers who toiled in the mines under harsh conditions. This situation led Butte to the forefront of labor organization and unionism, and it was one of the first cities in the world where the battle between labor and management played out.
Strikes and other conflicts sometimes turned violent, and conflicts were not only labor vs management. At times, unions vying for control turned against one another. Tensions broke loose during flashpoint events, such as the dynamiting of the Butte Miner's Union Hall in 1914 and the lynching of labor activist and International Workers of the World(IWW) organizer Frank Little in 1917. At the peak of the labor conflict, martial law was declared in Butte from 1914 until 1921, the longest period of military occupation in the U.S. since the reconstruction era.
While numbers vary, the Butte population peaked in 1920 at more than 60,000. Some reports claim as many as 100,000 lived in the area. However, increasing industrialization of the mining process caused the town's growth to level off and then enter a long period of decline that became the most pronounced in 1955 with the opening of the Berkeley Pit. The Pit marked a transition from primarily underground mining to the much less labor-intensive open pit mining.
The Berkeley Pit operated until 1982, when increasing costs and low copper prices resulted in a full shutdown. Most underground mines had been closed in the 1970s, so for the first time in its history, Butte was a mining town without a mine. During the 1980s, the population declined before stabilizing around 32,000 in the early 1990s.
High energy costs and low copper prices again caused mining to cease in 2000, but the closure did not last long. Montana Resources resumed operations at the Continental Pit in 2002 on the heels of sharply rising copper prices, and that facility continues to operate today.
The late 1990s and early 21st century also marked a turning point for the mining-scarred environment of Butte. While the city still bears many prominent visual remnants of mining, the environmental effects of that century of industry are being actively remediated and restored through the federal Superfund program and a unique State of Montana lawsuit against the responsible companies. The net result is over $1 billion (yes, billion) dollars toward environmental restoration in the Butte area,
BEST VIEWED LARGE... Click on image for large on black
flickr slide show...........
Or Check out my stream on Fluidr
A behind the scenes look at this waterfall in the Oregon Cascades.
The East Mitten butte as seen from the Wildcat Trail in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park near Kayenta, Arizona.
I was on a road trip through the state of Montana, recently, and noticed this beautiful butte. The photography conditions were not ideal, so this is an image of it I composed on another road trip some time ago. For interested readers, here is some information about buttes, and how they form.
Buttes are tall, flat-topped, steep-sided towers of rock, created through the gradual wearing away of earth by water, wind, and ice.
Each butte was once part of a flat, elevated area of land known as mesas or plateaus.
Buttes are created as streams slowly cut through the mesa or plateau. The hard top layers of buttes, called caprock, resist weathering and erosion. As a result, the formations stay about the same height as the original plateau or mesa.
Weathering and erosion, most often by wind and rainwater, slowly erode the softer rock surrounding the caprock. Caprock protects the more vulnerable rock beneath it. Buttes slowly become slender spires.
Eventually, even the caprock falls prey to severe weathering and erosion. Debris that falls to the side of buttes is called scree or talus.
Buttes usually form in arid regions, such as those in Mexico and the southwestern United States.
The butte stands on a vast stretch of land in southern Utah near Hanksville. It got its name because early settlers in the area thought it had a resemblance to Provo Woolen Mills. Modern visitors might be more inclined to think of science fiction movies as they explore this barren place.
One more image from Crested Butte, Colorado. I was up there for the wildflower festival with my girlfriends. We stopped to shoot the sunset on the way down from our hike. Beautiful clouds over the Crested Butte region. I remember feeling so very thankful for the trip - to stop and enjoy the beauty of the landscape and enjoy the company of very dear friends
Situated in the Big Muddy Badlands, Castle Butte is a free-standing structure with a circumference of 0.5 km and an elevation of 60 m.
Butte, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Description
This may not be your typical Death Valley photograph, but it is my favorite kind of light. I love haze, backlight, and scenes full of interesting shapes, curves, and lines. I’m also fond of elements that are just barely visible, as is the case with the furthest hills beyond the rounded butte.
The photograph is also yet another example of the “don’t forget to look behind you” school of photography. We naturally focus on the main thing, the subject in front of us, the one that brought us to a place. But frequently something else is lurking nearby, often to one side or behind us. That was the case here, as this scene lay almost 180 degrees opposite the very different subject that I had been photographing before I turned around to see this view.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Factory Butte rises 1500 feet from the plain. Around its base is a vast area of mounded Mancos Shale. Off road vehicles are now allowed to ride in this fragile landscape. Their tracks gave us a trail to follow. Wilbur is standing on a mound in the left middle of the image.
I caught this jeep out in Utah near Factory Butte doing his thing. The scale seemed unreal when I saw the butte, but when the jeep started heading towards the subject matter the scale became real. I did some drone flying in that area but I am a novice with it and I really didn't like anything I captured compared to my trusty camera in hand.
We drove on a very bumpy track to the badlands at the base of Factory Butte. The textures of the Mancos shale and mudstone are amazing. I did some research regarding climbing this butte. It appears no one has done it for at least ten years. It's rock is "rotten". Climbing websites suggest climbing something else in the area!
Happy Slider Sunday!
Color My World Daily - Black & White