Today’s trip through time takes us to a time when I took a trip through time. To put it another way, in May of 2008, I hiked to an area known as Homestead Meadows. This is an area that was settled during the late 19th and early 20th centuries but has long since been abandoned. It’s now National Forest land and contains historic remnants of eight homesteads, accessible via 15 miles of trails. But even back in 2008, a 15-mile hike was not in my wheelhouse, and it would’ve left very little time for exploring the homesteads. So, on this visit I only went to two of the homesteads.

There are three routes you can hike to get to Homestead Meadows. One is via Pierson Park while the others are along U.S. Highway 36. The more southerly of these two goes through Lion Gulch. I consider this to be the “mane” entrance, har har! Here’s a little of what I saw on the hike up Lion Gulch:

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We now emerge from the gulch into a narrow meadow, which widens as we continue forward. Soon we reach the first homestead site. However, I explored the first couple of homesteads on a previous visit, so we proceed to the Brown homestead. This homestead was originally settled by the Brown family (bet ya couldn’t have guessed that) around 1915. They raised cattle and harvested timber for a living, with the last members of the family staying “many years” past the Great Depression. Let’s take a gander around the joint…

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Next up, we have our second homestead of the day, and this one is the motherlode! This property is home to loads of abandoned buildings, as it was used for many purposes over the years. While it’s officially called the Irvin Homestead, ownership changed several times before it was finally abandoned in the 1960s. One resident built a sawmill on the site, another raised rabbits and chickens, and it eventually became a hunting lodge. Let’s begin with the main house…

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At this point I had a paranormal experience. In broad daylight. Y’see, I was squatting down to get a picture of more of the stove’s art deco styling, when my camera’s batteries unexpectedly died. At that exact same instant, I heard a human voice. The camera involved was my Old Cheap-n-Crappy^(TM). This camera lets you know the batteries are dead by emitting three VERY loud and VERY shrill beeps, which startled me to the point where I didn’t pay attention to what the human voice had said. But I was mildly concerned that it might have been a ranger, and that entering the house may have been prohibited. So, I sneaked out of the house and looked around a bit before swapping the camera batteries and resuming my exploration. As I said before, this homestead is the motherlode. Not surprisingly, I explored it for two or three more hours. In all that time I never saw or heard anyone. Now, the trail to the Irvin homestead is over a mile long and it dead-ends at the homestead, so it’s not like someone would have been just passing through or stopping by. And if someone would have walked up to the house and then turned back, I would have seen them. Having often heard that ghosts can draw power from electronic devices to use in manifesting themselves, I decided to “play back” the incident as it was recorded in my mind. In my memory all the voice said, very clearly, was:

“Get out.”

True story. Now, let’s take a look around the rest of the property. Most of these photos speak for themselves, so they will remain captionless…

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Now we come to my favorite buildings on this homestead. Part of the contents here are a bunch of bunk beds, so I’m guessing this pair of structures was used during the hunting lodge era (1960s). Enjoy…

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And finally, a few shots from what’s left of the sawmill:

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And finally (for real this time), I bring to you a couple shots of the sunset percolating through the trees on the hike back down Lion Gulch. Farewell…