Great Roads: Beartooth Pass
We love great drives. Yosemite’s Tioga Pass and Highway 395 from Lone Pine to Bridgeport have long been favorites, but there are great roads outside of California. Montana has at least two great ones: Going to the Sun in Glacier National Park and Beartooth Pass.
We took the pass from Yellowstone’s Northeast Entrance to Montana’s Red Lodge. It’s about a three-hour drive. I’d previously driven it the other direction. It’s hard to tell which direction is best. I’m tempted to say from Red Lodge, but that could be because that was the first time I’d seen the pass, and first impressions can be powerful. In any event, it’s a spectacular drive, ranking only behind Going to the Sun of the drives Joyce and I have driven. I recommend it from either direction.
Just getting to the road from Yellowstone is great. You go through the Lamar Valley to get to Yellowstone’s Northeast Entrance. With it’s big vistas and wildlife, the Lamar Valley is always a great drive.
About three miles after you leave Yellowstone you enter Cooke City, an old mining town that’s been optimized to support Yellowstone tourists. It’s a lot smaller than West Yellowstone and more attractive, at least to us. The Cooke City Store, open since 1886, is an essential stop. Don’t count on a restroom , though. They’ll send you to the visitor center about 100 yards west.
Leaving Cooke City, you go through miles of conifer forests. This section is long enough that I thought we must have missed the turn. Luckily we hadn’t.
As you ascend the pass from the south, you go through increasingly spectacular meadows and alpine lake basins, all with views of high peaks. The pass itself is at 10,947 feet. There is a place to park and take pictures. You should take pictures.
The north side, on the way to Red Lodge, is completely different. This could be the steepest and deepest canyon you will ever drive.
Red Lodge is a town with more reason to exist than tourism. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a significant tourism sector, just that it is larger and has more variety of local businesses than West Yellowstone, Gardiner, or Cooke City.
Beartooth Pass is one of America’s great drives. If you are in the area, it’s a must see.
