Bodie State Historic Park

Bodie boomed after 1877 and reached something like ten thousand people with sixty-five saloons on the main street, at 2,550 metres in country that gets brutal winters. The gold ran out, fires took much of the town in 1892 and 1932, and the last residents left in the 1940s. About a hundred and ten buildings stand. The state's policy since 1962 is arrested decay: nothing is restored or rebuilt, roofs are kept weathertight and walls propped, but the interiors are left exactly as they were found - dishes on tables, goods on shop shelves, coffins in the morgue - and visitors look through windows rather than entering most buildings. The road in ends in five kilometres of dirt.

What you actually see

• About 110 buildings standing - out of a town of ten thousand.
• Arrested decay - stabilised but never restored or refurnished.
• Interiors left as found - goods on shelves, dishes on tables.
• A site at 2,550 metres - with severe winters.

When to go

June to September; the road often closes with snow from late autumn. Three hours.

Honest expectations

The last stretch of road is rough dirt and hard on low cars. Snow closes access for months and the park is not plowed. There are no services - no food, no fuel, limited water. Most buildings cannot be entered.

Nearby

Mono Lake is west; Yosemite's Tioga Pass is beyond it.