Ghost Towns of the Western U.S.
August 29, 2025American ghost towns are a fascinating phenomenon and well worth visiting if you can. Usually powered by greed that drives people to extreme places in pursuit of quick riches, towns sprung up around mines after a rich vein was struck, or to provide supplies to settlers rushing to California or Alaska for gold. Conditions quickly changed around some towns. A mine might be abandoned because it no longer produces, and the town around it dries up. Trade routes changed, leaving supply stations orphaned.
These and many other reasons left hundreds of ghost towns across the American West.
For about twenty years, my buddy Walter and I have talked about doing a motorcycle tour of ghost towns. It turned out to be a fantastic idea and made for two weeks of great summer riding.
These are some highlights of the ride and some of the spooky ghost towns we visited.
The Pacific Northwest
True to form, it was raining when I set off on the GSA. The forecast looked good, so I set out to enjoy the Olympic Peninsula first. It’s a beautiful and unique place. Getting there involved a ride over Washington’s epic Deception Pass.
Out on the peninsula itself, the Hoh Rain Forest is a spectacular ride, including the slowly twisting road along Lake Crescent.
The clouds brought more rain as I arrived at the coast. Through the vampire country of Forks, it poured quite hard. Eventually it cleared and I got some incredible views of the coastline through Oregon.
Port Orford, Oregon (jail)
In the spirit of the ghost town ride, I wanted to visit at least one spooky, abandoned spot before leaving the Pacific Northwest. There is a “ghost jail” in Port Orford, Oregon, that fit the bill perfectly.
Northern California
One of the first things you hit as you enter NorCal from the coast is Redwoods National and State Parks. These are places so breathtaking that they are hard to describe. Home to the tallest trees on the planet, their scale is massive. Note how my motorcycle is dwarfed when parked next to a Giant Redwood tree:
On NPR station KUOW’s podcast “The Wild,” hosted by my friend Chris Morgan, I learned something: These trees grow so tall that it becomes impossible for them to draw water from their root system all the way to their upper canopies. Growing well over 200 feet, gravity becomes too much for these giants to overcome. To adapt, they evolved the ability to pull moisture directly out of the dense fog that rolls in off the ocean. While their root systems bring water to the lower parts of the giant, the upper parts drink directly from the air.
The episode is worth a listen here. Even more thrilling was riding out of the forest to see this process happening right in front of my handlebars!
There are a few places where you can ride through one of these trees (please don’t try to make more such places, though).
In San Francisco, I met up with Walter and Bita. Walter was joining me for the ghost town tour east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
We broke east the next morning, headed for Lake Tahoe. It was a beautiful place to spend a night and ride around the lake the next morning.
Mormon Station, NV
The next big chapter of the adventure was the southwestern desert and mountains. Getting there proved a wet challenge. We came upon a great ghost town at Mormon Station State Park. Mormon Station dates back to 1851, when a settler created a trading post to supply pioneers heading over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in search of gold. While the fort burned in the 1940s, it has been recreated. There is a livery, museum, and great park to enjoy. We had lunch here under thundering skies.
All we had remaining this day was to get to a cool house that we had booked at a ghost town back on the California side of the border. I overshot the entrance to the house. When I realized I had gone too far, I had to find a spot on the 2-lane road with shoulders to turn around. When I did, I discovered the hard way that the earlier thunderstorms had left the sand extremely slick.
My bike went down.
No problem! I executed the standard procedure of backing up against it, grabbing the rear frame and handlebar, and using my legs to lift its girthy 700-pounds loaded back onto its kickstand. If this was the end of the story, I wouldn’t even mention it; drops happens and there was no damage. But when I got back on the bike and went to roll forward, the tail sunk into the sand. Figuring power would solve the problem (doesn’t it always?), I gave it some gas and a bit of push. All that did was generate a 30-foot rooster tail of powdery white sand as it dug down to the axle. I had gotten myself good and stuck.
Walter came down the hill a few minutes later to figure out where I was off to. He found me standing next to my bike as it was fully supported upright by the earth.
With one of us on each side, me on clutch and Walter on throttle, bike in Enduro mode, and both of us using the other hand to life the rear subframe, the bike popped right out of the hole. This is a great example of why riding with a buddy is smart.
Once free of the sand trap, we got to the house, which was amazing:
The Nevada and California Desert Towns
Benton
The Inn at Benton Hot Springs is in a proper ghost town. Benton, California is the home of the original Wells Fargo office but now abandoned except for the inn and a few houses.
Bodie, CA
A few hours ride away was the ghost town of Bodie, California. In 1859, gold was found and the mines produced over $100M before drying up. Over 2500 people lived here with multiple restaurants, hotels, brothels, and shops. The town is still quite complete, and there is a museum in one of the buildings.
Getting into and out of Bodie involved a couple of miles of well-groomed gravel roads. These were just preparing us for what was to come the next day…
Cerro Gordo Mines, CA
A few more hours of riding, plus over 7 miles of very loose gravel and rocky roads into the hills brought us to the Cerro Gordo Mines. This was one of the most remote and interesting ghost towns that we visited. It was worth the rough ride in!
This first photo is of us approaching the camp, after a long rough ride up. It’s one of my favorite pics from the trip.
The downhill trip out was much faster than coming up, but still a bit white-knuckle at times.
It was worth every mile to get to make new friends like these:
We headed north again and soon it was time for Walter to break off west as I started the thousand-mile northbound trek home. We had so much fun exploring these ghost town and adventuring on the bikes that it was hard to say “adios!” as always.
North Up US 395
My route home took me all the way up US Route 395, which is a lot of spectacular riding. A few highlights include the Lake Albert wildlife area, which I hit shortly after crossing into Oregon.
There were still some monsoon storms happening. Walter and I rode through a few of them in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fortunately, the ones in Eastern Oregon were off in the distance:
After a night in Walla Walla Washington, I continued to the North Cascades Highway (SR 20), a favorite. It was great to ride it before it closes due to snow later in the season. This included a night in the town of Winthrop at a very ghost-town like inn! The Virginian hotel was packed with motorcyclists and made for the perfect venue for the last night of the ride.
It wouldn’t be a ride across SR 20 without a stop at my favorite coffee roaster in the world, Blue Star Coffee.
The final leg home took me over the incredibly scenic Washington Pass in the North Cascades. It’s worth riding along with me for a few miles over the pass.
On the way down the west slopes of the Cascades, my dad met up with me for lunch in Marblemount on his Harley-Davidson for a perfect end to the ride.
3,200 Miles, Already Planning Future Rides
It was two weeks of amazing roads, sights, friends and family, and ghost towns! You can see the daily routes here. We’re already planning future rides, of course.