Day 4: Cody to West Yellowstone, MT - 240 Miles
The day dawns with glorious sunshine. There are only 2 days on this trip where I have to have great weather: Today and Day 6. That's me, lower left, randomly sitting there.
After nervously watching the radar and weather apps for a week, it appears we are in for a marvelous day. We are still 100 miles and 3 hours away from our high point, but it looks good.
One last cruise through downtown Cody
Today is the shortest mileage day, but it will be jam packed. We start in Wyoming, hit Montana, back to Wyoming, up to Montana again, back into Wyoming, traverse the northern loop of Yellowstone and end up back in West Yellowstone for the night. In Montana. Get it on.
We hop on Hwy 120 and head north to Red Lodge, MT. Wow. What a delightful town this turned out to be. A several blocks long main street with lots of shops and restaurants.
The Montana Candy Emporium is chock full of candy and memorabilia
Then we are off to the SE on Hwy 212, the Beartooth Highway. The scenic byway starts just west of Red Lodge and traverses roughly 68 miles to Cook City, just outside of the NE entrance gate to Yellowstone. The road rises 5,200 feet in the first 12 miles and traces a series of steep zigzags and switchbacks on its way to the summit plateau. The views are outstanding. The road is only open for about 5 months of the year. Let's get to it.
1st viewpoint. We will eventually crest the mountain in the far background.
Switchbacks
The weather won't be a problem today
We reach the Rock Creek Vista where the view expands to 270 degrees. The elevation is 9,190 feet. Outstanding.
A couple more switchbacks takes us to a view of the Rock Creek Vista
The road continues rising until we hit the summit plateau at over 10,000 feet. The trees disappear.
One last set of switchbacks
Made it
The decent is not quite so death defying. We pass through a nice granite landscape with trees and pass several lakes.
Yellowstone Overlook provides a nice view of Index Peak (the pointy one)
We cross back into Montana again and reach Cooke City, the official end of the Beartooth Scenic Byway. The agenda is lunch. Cooke City is fairly touristy, not to mention quite busy. Its a hardscrabble town that seems like it should be doing better. The first restaurant seats us. Its busy and they ignore us. We leave. The second restaurant is not busy. They seat us in a crummy room with junk piled everywhere. We leave. The 3rd restaurant is very busy. The wait will be 30 minutes. We leave after 10 minutes and head to the crappy Exxon to look for a snack. We get back on the road. We pass through the NE entrance to Yellowstone at about 2:00.
This part of the park is less busy, with rolling plains and lots of buffalo. It's also not very geysery.
Then we are stopped for a half hour to wait for construction traffic. There was substantial flooding in June 2022 that washed away several big chunks of road. We pass hundreds of dump trucks bringing in thousands of cubic yards of rock to shore up the damage. They have a long way to go.
We finally reach Tower Junction and hook into the Loop Roads. There are no services here. Lunch will have to wait. We turn south and run the 2.5 miles to Tower Falls.
Then we reverse course and head for Mammoth Hot Springs on the Upper Loop Road. It's very busy at Mammoth. We tour the Albright Visitor Center and Museum that used to be part of Fort Yellowstone. We then make our way over to the main event: The Mammoth Hot Springs.
Parking is at a premium. Sadly, while still capable of drawing large crowds, the springs have virtually dried up. What was once a marvelous, steamy, shiny and burbling cascade of fun is now mostly just a dry relic. I remember how glorious it seemed as a kid.
We hike around the boardwalks, drive the upper loop and hike some more, but it leaves you wanting.
It's 5:00 and we backtrack to Mammoth in search of lunch/dinner. We spy the Mammoth Dining Room.. There's lots of parking - because it's closed! WTH? The General Store next door yields a dry turkey sandwich for me and a bag of popcorn for the missus. Not ideal. We depart unfulfilled. Again.
Back on the Loop Road, we traverse through a small granite strewn boulder field. The late afternoon light is really good.
A little further on, Golden Gate Canyon catches our eye
The sun is disappearing, but we want two more stops. First up is the Norris Geyser Basin, another insanely popular spot. Luckily, it's so late in the day that we make it to the main parking lot and hoof it around one of the geyser loops. Good enough.
Last stop is Gibbon Falls. It's really quite dark now, but the camera can still pick it up.
Finally, late enough in the day - no freaking crowds
We don't get to the hotel in West Yellowstone until 8 PM. But, man, what a day. Except for the lack of food, and stuff like that. The Beartooth Pass exceeded all expectations. I highly recommend it.
Day 5: West Yellowstone to Great Falls. MT - 289 Miles
The day dawns cold - below 30 degrees. The Michelin All Seasons are looking pretty smart right now. I gas up at the same gas station where I discovered my cracked injector all those years ago. I then go look for the repair shop that fixed the Starion - still have the key tag. It had been sitting on my monitor stand at home for years and years. Not sure why. The building is still there, but Randy and the business are gone.
Highway 191 heads north through a thick lush forest. We are technically outside of Yellowstone, but we soon pass the park boundary and drop into Wyoming again. The road follows the state line north. We leave Wyoming for the last time and cross back into Montana and pick up the Gallatin River. The park boundary provides a scenic and atmospheric stop.
The sun starts to peak through a little further up the road
Then we reach the turn off to Big Sky Resort. We drive up to the mountain and find the lodge we stayed in for a conference back in the '90's. Nothing looks familiar. But the area has grown tremendously. New condos everywhere. A new Montage Hotel. The billionaire conclave of the Yellowstone Club - a private community of multi-million dollar ski chalets - is nearby.
Lone Mountain - 11,167 Feet
We stayed in Huntley Lodge back then, the 5 story building to the left, above the car. Named after Chet Huntley, yes, the NBC guy, who founded Big Sky in the early '70s. Who knew?
Bozeman, MT is the next stop. It's a pleasing little college town (Montana State) and well maintained. We stop at the Gallatin History Museum and learn a lot about the area. Another great museum that we hit up on our trip to Mt Rushmore in 2021 is the Museum of the Rockies, known for it's extensive dinosaur exhibits. Both museums are worth the time.
Mainstreet in Bozeman is quite happening and quite extensive, covering many, many blocks. A quick walk around and a bite to eat and we off again.
Hwy 86 takes us north out of Bozeman. Not a great road, but the countryside is nice. Coming down out of the mountains we pass the Old Sedan Church, established in 1808. That's all I can tell you about it.
We hook up with Hwy 89 at Wilsall and stop for a snack. Interesting bar across the street.
The countryside turns very ranchy with farmhouses few and far between. Just cattle and grass.
The road is marvelous. Two lanes, great condition, high speed limit. Nice scenery. Mountains in the background. Farming communities very spread out. Eventually we come up on a nice overlook of Sluice Boxes State Park. The sun is cooperating.
Hwy 89 opens up to a 4-lane road on the way in to Great Falls and giant wheat farms come in to view. Hit up google maps around Great Falls. It's absolutely astonishing how much food is grown around here. We cruise around downtown Great Falls for awhile, then find the hotel and walk across the parking lot for dinner. It's 8 o'clock again. Another long day.