Melmont

No Name

2023-06

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Emily Rose

2023-05

Beautiful October hike. The water was breathtaking and the trail was fairly easy. Getting down the trail from the bridge is medium to difficult, but does have a line to stabilize yourself with. My puppy loved every minute of it .

K. Ching

2021-05

Its a decent hike. The bridge you walk across is spectacular. We went in spring break 2021, muddy trails. Only remnants of a few buildings are standing. The clearing of where the town was is clearly visible. The river is beautiful and the trees and moss make it feel majestic.

Al Glenewinkel

2021-05

This trail is an easy, approximately 2 mile RT, hike if you start at the Fairfax Bridge. Our 5 and 7 YO granddaughters handled the climb down and up the rocks at the bridge because of the cable with handles. They found slugs and snails, centipedes, rocks and sticks to marvel at. The dynamite building and school remnants sparked their imaginations. They enjoyed the walk through the meadow and lunch on a log at the site of the hotel, even though we couldn't find any remnants of it.

Holly Rutherford

2017-05

A little bit of a walk to get to the old "buildings" however it's pretty level so it's easy for kids. If you want to get down to the river it's a little climb, but again tolerable for small children (4+). Depending on the time of year I'd certainly suggest boots (muddy!) Absolutely beautiful place to visit.

Lesia Richardson

2019-05

Great wide path for a hike with your pooch. Cable and rocks going to and fro may be a little difficult depending on the weather and type of dog. (Park, walk over the bridge and cable is on your left, going straight down.) Only saw 1 other person today. The fall foliage was really nice. Hate it gets dark so early! Highly recommend for a break from technology!

heather betts

2021-05

It was sad. There was so much trash left from previous visitors and the sites have been vandalized. We went out to see how nature reclaimed the town. It would have been pretty magnificent if the whole hike wasn't littered. It was extremely disappointing. Need something to restore my faith in humanity. Pack it in, pack it out.

Jason Kim

2021-05

The trail begins at the Fairfax bridge, north east side. I wanted to see the old abandoned car but I couldn't find it. I saw old abandoned brick or stone buildings and that was rewarding. You can't really make out what they were for.

maree McBrayer

2019-05

Loved it. A bit muddy and a little confusing to find the starting point. But we found it after asking for help. The start is a bit steep and after u get down from the start everything else is pretty easy and nice. Nothing my 3 year old couldnt do. He needed a bot of help getting down the steep start but after that he was find it was great. There were others there hiking and some even biking. My kids had a blast. Just make sure u bring a snack for ur kids and yourself becuz you will get hungry. Lol but a nice pretty hike.

J “Smalls” W

2021-05

Very nice hike. Was quite muddy but made for some family fun getting all muddy. Will be going back again. My twins had an absolute blast.

Sean Cebulla

2021-05

Great day hike. Easy trail to walk on. Lots to see if you take it easy and keep your eyes open.

Beth

2021-05

Good hike beautiful area. Not much left of the buildings. Still a Cool place to see

Kenneth Hobbs

2023-09

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Krystal Fiore

2019-05

We had a very great time the only down fall is that the trails are extremely muddy. Besides that great place and great adventure.

Elyse

2021-05

Lots of mud. We had to hike up over the side of the trail to avoid huge puddles of water and mud. Once we actually got to the quote unquote ghost town, there was only one partial building up there. I guess I was just thinking there was going to be more to look at.

Wesley Mattson

2023-05

We had a great walk and met two very nice young men whom gave us a lot of information about the hike. They had been here before and their information helped us a lot. We entered at the bridge at 47.04199, -122.04081. This entrance is a little steep, but there is a wire rope and hand hold points all of the way down. The views from this bridge are incredible. Melmont is about 1 mile from this bridge.If this entrance is too steep, you can enter at the next bridge on the river located at 47.00512, -121.99895. This walk is relatively level the entire way, with just a few ups and downs. The trail is plenty muddy, but there are paths around most all of the mud. This 2nd bridge is where the murals are. I downloaded the murals. I would guess that Melmont is about 2.5 miles from this bridge.

jesikarabid

2017-05

Beautiful trail with lots of fresh water streams along the way. The carbon river itself is a 3 hours hike so have plenty of food and drink for the trip. Hike is relatively easy, until you get closer to the river. There is a small rabbit meadow close to the river that can be used as a short cut. The hike to the ghost town itself is about 2 hours into the hike. You will know you are close once you start to notice abundant amounts of coal along the trail. These coal bits slide off the mountains naturally and fall along the trail, eventually ending up in the carbon river at the bottom. The ghost town features several abandon vehicles and broken down buildings that have been reclaimed by the forest. Bring a nice camera, lunch and you can totally make a day of this trip! I love it.

Jeff Morano

2019-05

Nice trail. As others mentioned, not really a ghost town but cool to explore and find old buildings. Park before the bridge on way to Rainier and walk down to the left of the bridge. Us southern folk couldnt find it in our trip out there but eventually found the opening. No markers are on trails so we downloaded google maps before hand to have an idea where we were heading.

Michael Isaksen

2018-05

Really cool scene, the old bridge and the canyon are great photo ops. The ghost town is more like a "ghost occasional ruined stone wall" every half mile or so, but still neat to explore! Be careful across the one lane bridge, and try to park right after the bridge on the left, then walk back across and go down the trail. This is the closest way, also it may difficult to find the way down, but its right next to the east end of the bridge.

Jayson Savage

2021-05

Depending on where you park, the way down to the trail can be tricky. Park down by Carbonado and it's just a longer walk. Park at the bridge and you need to be able to get down. There is a cable rail to hang on to at least.Great trail. I recommend checking out the "town" and taking the trail down to the ash Beach near the river. Some relics down there

Jim Bouchard

2022-05

Nice hike. Not much elevation gain. About 4 miles rt if you start at the bridge. Some muddy sections in the road (trail) but there are walk arounds.

Laura Richardson

2020-05

I think the actual ghost town is 7 miles or so into the woods. There's one little building and a couple walls just a few minutes into the hike. Fairly positive everyone uses that first building as a bathroom lol. Also, if you have a bike, ride it to the ghost town. Bikes should enter the ghost town hike using the nearby foothills trail entrance.

John Fry

2023-11

It's a cool place but a lot of people go and look at rocks and brick

Steve Moser

2019-05

We did the scramble route to the main trail. Not too bad but pretty steep. The cable helped both up and down to the trail. The "ghost town" is now nothing more than an over grown field. Still a nice easy hike once on the trail.

Evil Genius

2020-05

Pleasant walk in the woods.But to call this site a "Ghost Town" seems generous. There are just two partial structures: a large L-shaped wall overlooking the steep slope down toward the Carbon River, and the remains of a stone building about 300 yards away on the other side of the trail. Obviously whatever else was left of Melmont (mostly wooden structures) has been carted off or been taken over by forest and is no longer recognizable.The Google Maps reference for "Melmont ghost town" is misleading: It is for parking along the road across the river from actual Melmont, on the far side of the old bridge. If you go to the Google location, you need to park, walk back across the old bridge, and then make your way down to the trail near the foot of the bridge.The climb down to the trail is a little steep and on one side, there is a cable with metal handles to help you with the climb. At the bottom, on the trail, face the river/back toward where you just parked and head to the left. You'll see the L-shaped wall on the right/river side after about 10 min. of walking.The other option would be to park at the "Foothills Trail" trailhead, about 3/4 of a mile before the bridge as you head toward Melmont from Carbonado (there's a big white sign on the right side of the road that reads "Foothills Trail", and some roadside parking near it). Would add maybe 20 minutes to the walk one-way, but saves you the bridge scramble down. The foothills trail and the trail to Melmont ghost town are one in the same.The trail is wide and mostly level all the way to what's left of Melmont. Easy walking.

Tom Thompson

2019-05

An outstanding hike on Rainier! Can be short or long depending on how far you want to head out, dogs, bikes and ATV's are allowed. Also offers an excellent view from the Old Fairfax bridge.

Christina Dussell

2019-05

There are no signs or posted markers, there is no special ghost town, just a house and a couple walls. Nice hike, but we walked the entire trail looking for this hyped up ghost town we saw online. We found a couple that had walked an extra 2 miles looking in the wrong direction.

Aaron Wix

2016-05

It's ok, a long hike in from the trailhead. Recommend just parking close to the Fairfax bridge. There's only a couple car parts and the foundation and partial walls of a small old school basement. Apparently this place had 10 thousand people before the turn of the century.

Patrick Martin

2023-05

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ashlee hall

2019-05

We had a great hike took the family. It was amazing took all day we also metal detected out there. Great place for hiking with family and pets. Old structures, dirt and grass.