Bodie ghost town

Bodie freezes on 303 nights a year. Utqiagvik, on the Arctic Ocean, manages 315.

That is the first thing to understand about California's official state gold rush ghost town. It sits at 8,379 feet in the Bodie Hills, east of the Sierra Nevada in Mono County, and no month on record has ever been completely frost-free. Winds cross the valley at close to 100 miles an hour. Nights drop below freezing even in summer.

Gold was found here in 1859 by a party including W. S. Bodey, who died in a blizzard that November on a supply run and never saw the town named after him. The spelling settled after a sign painter in nearby Aurora lettered Bodie Stables. For years the place went nowhere while Aurora and the Comstock boomed, and by 1868 two companies had built stamp mills here and both had failed. Then in 1876 the Standard Company hit a profitable deposit of gold-bearing ore, a rich find followed in the adjacent Bodie Mine in 1878, and the camp turned into a full Wild West boomtown. By 1879 it held around 2,000 structures and roughly 8,000 people.

The decline took decades. By 1915 it was being described as a ghost town. The state legislature created Bodie State Historic Park in 1962, with 170 buildings still standing.

The preservation policy is the draw. Bodie is kept in a state of arrested decay: not restored, not rebuilt, simply stopped where it stood. About 110 structures remain, including one of the gold mills. Interiors are left as they were and still stocked with goods. China shards, square nails and the occasional bottle lie about the streets, and taking any of it is illegal, as is disturbing rocks, plants or wildlife.

Getting there takes intent. Head east on State Route 270 from US 395 south of Bridgeport; the last three miles are unsurfaced and can be rough. Summer hours run 9 to 6, winter 9 to 4, and snow usually closes the roads. Adult entry is 8 dollars. Dogs are welcome in the park but not inside the historic buildings.

About 200,000 people come every year.