When you turn off the interstate at Drummond, Montana, to head toward Philipsburg you immediately notice two things: the open and the quiet. The quiet is visual: It is a vast empty prairiescape equaled only in sky. The two-lane highway slowly snakes across the open fields, mostly full of hay and cows and a few scattered ranches, and in the distance the granite mountains that once were home to countless mines now sit silent as wilderness.
Next to the highway, an abandoned rail line stretches in perfect parallel. It’s tired with heavy grasses from years of abandonment.
