I first learned of Bodie California through another photographer and he urged me to go -- saying I would not regret this step back in time.

The history of Bodie is tempestuous, and truly a story right out of the old west. In 1859, prospectors chasing rumors of mineral wealth found gold east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Their discovery gave rise to Bodie, one of the West's wildest gold mining boomtowns. By 1880 the phrase "Badman from Bodie" described the town's rambunctious inhabitants, earning the community a reputation for violence that rivaled Tombstone, Deadwood and Dodge City.

Today Bodie is a ghost town, preserved in a "state of arrested decay" by the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

My Journel to Bodie was by modern day car. Driving south on highway 395 from Tahoe, you enjoy the grand view of the east side of the Sierra Nevada range. Bodie sits in a small valley at approximately 10000 feet above sea level. The road to Bodie is 13 miles, which is only paved for the first coupe of miles. In the winter, I learned you can access Bodie only by snow mobile.

I spent my first day in Bodie, walking the abandon streets and peering in windows. Most buildings are sealed, though a few still offer the opportunity to enter and see many rooms in a suspended state, just as they were when their inhabitance left them -- suddenly. Bodie history suggests that many of the final residence fled after earthquakes and fear of ghosts. There was no denying I had a shiver or two as I found myself in many dark, musty rooms.

On my second day in Bodie I had much better light for photography so the majority of these shots are from that day. It helped too to have scouted the prior day to see which areas I wanted to photograph and how the light would assist me.

Just before leaving on that last evening, I walked up the hill to the Bodie Cemetary where I found dozens of headstones, all past, but still present, residence of the ghost town, Bodie. With the sun setting and my personal Bodie history safely captured in my camera, I went on my way.

• To see an expanded version (in color too) of my trip to Bodie, Click Here.