Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
The Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge to Cooke City, Montana is one of the most spectacular and renowned mountain roads in the United States. It traverses some of the largest of high plateaus in North America, crosses the Beartooth Pass at 10,974 ft / 3,345 m, and provides awe-striking vistas of deep canyons and snow covered mountains. It is an official “All American Road” that was called “…the most beautiful drive in America” by the late CBS correspondent of On the Road, Charles Kuralt. Nothing surpasses the Beartooth Highway for an alpine experience by car.
Take a few moments anywhere between the Beartooth Pass (West Summit) and the East Summit (where the ski-lift is located) and get out of the car, smell the cool mountain air, kick some snow (before August), hop a few rocks, and commune with the marmots (largish bushy-tailed critters that look like woodchucks). If the alpine flowers are in bloom, drop down on the prayer bones and look at them closely and then look out to the fields of color they can create. Weather permitting, lie down in the meadows and count clouds, or break out into a loud stanza of “The Hills are Alive”…or something.
