A mining camp built around an unexpected occurrence of silver.

An abandoned early 20th-century gold mine in a spectacular setting overlooking Bridgeport Valley and the Sierra Nevada.

Exhibiting the tallest structure of its type in Nevada, this massive mining complex is frozen in time.

This colossal underground passage paved the way for large-scale drainage and access tunnels across the U.S., but it almost wasn’t built.

Only ruined buildings and abandoned charcoal kilns remain of this once bustling Wild West boom town.

This gravelly, dangerous highway is the only road in the United States that leads to the Arctic Ocean.

Hundreds of hopeful gold miners came here to get rich, but only two years later the small town was deserted.

Railways may have forged this quintet of lovely tunnels, but now they are open to hikers.

This Colorado hiking trail provides a small gold mine of abandoned gold mines.

The king of U.S. high points towers over every other peak on the continent.

Wondrous sandstone hoodoos where Native Americans collected clay for pottery, 9,000 years ago.

There's nothing creepier than a cemetery next to a clown motel.

Oregon's unexpected high desert, displaying layers of time in a colorful show.

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

Only intact Ichthyosaur skeleton in the United States.

Rippling sand dunes frozen in the Arizona rock.