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Red Lodge to Yellowstone National Park on U.S. 212
68 miles (109 kilometers)
3 hours
Late spring to fall
Major switchbacks
From the rarefied heights of Montanas alpine tundra to the thirsty soils of Wyomings High Plains desert, this spectacular drive winds through some of the most beautiful and varied landscapes in the Yellowstone region.
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As you come into Red Lodge from the north on U.S. 212, the Beartooth Plateau looms over the surrounding prairie foothills as a hulking mass of black, rounded mountains. The plateau, an immense block of metamorphic rock, was heaved up through the Earths crust about 50 million years ago. Much later, an enormous ice cap smoothed its surface and flowed down into the plateaus side canyons, hollowing them into spacious Ushaped valleys.
Red Lodge is an 1880s coal mining and ranching town lined with turnofthecentury, redbrick storefronts and hotels catering mainly to skiers and visitors to Yellowstone. Visit the Beartooth Nature Center (North end of Red Lodge. +1 406 446 1133. Admission fee), which exhibits native wildlife.
The road follows Rock Creek into the mountains, winding through grassy hills that soon give way to heavily forested mountains. Rocky outcrops interrupt evergreen forests, and an occasional spire juts over the trees. About 13 miles (20.9 kilometers) from Red Lodge, the road climbs away from the creek,
and suddenly the vista opens up toward the 1,800foot (550meter) cliffs that bend around the head of the valley in a tight semicircle.
After five miles (8 kilometers) of dramatic switchbacks, stop at the Vista Point scenic overlook. Here, at 9,200 feet (2,800 meters), a short path leads to the tip of a promontory with phenomenal views across Rock Creek Canyon to the high, rolling country of the Beartooth Plateau. Signs brief you on the geology, plants, and animals of the area.
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As you continue on U.S. 212, the trees give out entirely and you begin crossing a landscape of low, rounded hills covered with grasses, sedges, and lavish summer wildflowers. Soon the road cuts back to the rim of the canyon, and from the narrow turnouts you can see a chain of glacial lakes, including Twin Lakes, 1,000 feet (305 meters) below. Even in July, enough snow accumulates against the headwall
here to draw skiers.
As you pass by the ski lift, the Absaroka Range breaks over the southwest horizon in a row of jagged volcanic peaks. Wildflower meadows lead to the west summit of Beartooth Pass, at an exalted 10,947 feet (3,338 meters).
The brutal climate at this elevationfrigid, windhammered, drydeters the growth of trees and shrubs, and the plants that do grow here have adapted in remarkable ways. Some convert sunlight to heat, and many conserve water the way desert plants do. Only marmots, squirrels, pikas, and mountain goats live here yearround. The goats frequent the cliffs called Quintuple Peaks. Grizzlies passing through dig up the meadows for roots; squirrels and bighorn sheep summer among the boulder fields. If you scan the sky, you may see hawks, eagles, or falcons sweeping the high country in search of rodents.
From the pass, you descend to a landscape where scattered islands of pine and spruce eke out a living amid knobs of granite and fields of wildflowers. Hundreds of tiny ponds and several small lakes shimmer in glaciated depressions.
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As you approach the turnoff for Island Lake Campground, two prominent spires of the Absaroka Range swing into view: 11,708foot (3,570meter) Pilot Peak and 11,313foot (3,450meter) Index Peak. Beyond here, you descend through a forest of lodgepole and whitebark pines toward 10,514foot (3,205meter) Beartooth Butte. Soon you pass Beartooth Lake, a great picnic spot nestled against the buttes 1,500foot (457meter) cliffs.
When the road breaks out of the trees, look to the left across a deep canyon to see Beartooth Falls cascading through the forest. In another mile follow the gravel road to Clay Butte Lookout, a fire tower with a smashing view of some of Montanas highest mountains.
Watch for deer, moose, and elk in the meadows as the road moves down the flank of the plateau to the Pilot & Index Overlook. Youre looking at the northeastern edge of the Absaroka Range, an eroded mass of lava, ash, and mudflows that began forming 50 million years ago.
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Continue 5.5 miles (8.8 kilometers) to an unmarked bridge over Lake Creek and take the short path back to a powerful waterfall thundering through a narrow chasm. A completely different sort of cascade fans out over a broad ramp of granite in the trees above Crazy Creek Campground, 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) farther.
From here the road picks up the Clarks Fork River and follows it through what is left of a centuriesold forest, much of which fell victim to the great Yellowstone fires of 1988. Soon the road passes through the tiny tourist crossroads of Cooke City, begun as a 19thcentury mining camp. In 1877 the Nez Perce Indians retreated through this area on their way to Canada. Four miles beyond, the drive ends at the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park (+1 307 344 7381. Admission fee).
This drive narrative was excerpted from National Geographics Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways.
Click here to visit National Geographics Park of the Month, featuring Grand Canyon National Park.
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Beartooth Highway
© 1996 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
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