Beartooth Pass

We started the long trip back east today by going north. As our next stop is intended to be Badlands National Park, our first decision was which way to go from Grand Teton. The two shortest routes were to go southeast from the Moran Entrance via Casper and then northeast from there to US 16 into South Dakota. Almost the same distance is to go north back into Yellowstone then east at Fishing Bridge and out the East Entrance which becomes US 16 and following 16 all the way across Wyoming.

We didn't do either.

We initially intended to do the Yellowstone East Entrance route through Cody, WY, but when we got up to the lake, we decided to go back through the Hayden and Lamar Valleys, out the Northeast Entrance and over the Beartooth Pass—definitely not the shortest route.

The Beartooth Highway is one of America's Scenic Byways and a classic motorcycle ride. It runs from Yellowstone's Northeast Entrance to Red Lodge, Montana. It actually starts and ends in Montana, but the majority of the road dips back into Wyoming. It is about 68 miles long and rises above tree line to almost 11,000 feet at Beartooth Pass.

After a stop for coffee in Cooke City, four miles beyond the park entrance, the highway climbed steadily through the Shoshone National Forest for 22 miles with mostly sweeping curves and only a couple of switchbacks to Beartooth Lake at 8,900 feet. Here we ran into dirt. They are rebuilding the road and there were several miles of single lane dirt road construction where we followed a pilot car. We were quite lucky, since the traffic moved in our direction only a few minutes after we arrived at the site. Supposedly, there could be a 20-30 minute delay.

After the lake the road rolled across a high-altitude plain for the next five miles or so, then the real climbing started. The next five miles took seven switchbacks and innumerable curves to rise the last 1,200 feet to Beartooth Pass at 10,947 feet. The vistas were spectacular (according to Ellen—I was glued to the road at 25 mph) as we rose from forest to scrub and then above the tree line to just rock and short alpine grasses.

After going over the pass, we rode across the Beartooth Plateau, stopping at a couple of overlooks where you could see deep into the canyons and into pockets with isolated glacial lakes. It was fairly level for about a mile then dropped 150 feet through three quick switchbacks, and them climbed back up again to just about the height of the pass. Another couple of switchbacks from 10,900 feet and the road swept down over the next couple of miles and suddenly we rounded a curve and we were back into the forest—a forest that went straight downhill.

We stopped at the Vista Point Overlook, where we could walk out and see the all the way to the bottom of the road. It was about seven more miles of switchbacks and curves to descend 2,000 feet where the road straightened out and descended another 600 feet over the last three miles to Rock Creek. Finally, we pulled into the Parkside Campground in the Custer National Forest where Speedy rolled to a stop after a 9-hour, 193-mile, travel day, much of it under 30 mph.

Whew!

Photos