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| Beartooth Pass |
Get up early on ride day 11, looking forward to our ride to Beartooth
Pass to Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to Cody, Wyoming (maybe go into
Yellowstone). Load up the bike (as much as we have thrown out, the bags don’t
seem much lighter).
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| New map (this is Beartooth Highway, with all of the possible stops along the way) |
About Beartooth Highway: The Beartooth Highway
is an “All-American Scenic Byway” on U.S. 212 in Montana and Wyoming between
Red Lodge and the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The
highest elevation is 10,947 ft (3,337 m) above sea level, and the highway is
68.7 miles. It opened in 1932, but despite its popularity, the Beartooth
Highway has steep grades, hairpin turns, and narrow lanes.
A Brief History of The Beartooth Highway: The highway
was built between 1932 and 1936 and named after the Beartooth Range, which it
traverses. The route was originally used to transport supplies to various
mining camps and military posts in the region. Many portions of the highway
were originally paths used by the Shoshone and Crow for thousands of years.
These paths became popular with settlers, fur trappers and loggers. When mining
operations began to dominate the nearby counties is when local entrepreneurs
began to realize how lucrative a paved road across the Beartooth Range could be
to transport mining supplies and ore.
It was proposed to congress in the early 1920s; the project
was expected to cost over five million dollars and take over 10 years to build.
The project was greenlit and finally surveyed in 1927, though construction
didn’t begin until 1931.
Like most passes, you start out through some trees, a bit of
river, some houses.
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| Critters to start our day! |
And then you start going up, and turn, and up, and turn.
This is the case of Beartooth Highway. It also gets colder! And, we’re going to
almost 11,000 ft. of elevation. There are about seven miles of switchbacks and
tight curves, until you get to the wide open pass (and it’s really almost flat
and open – and windy). And then you start heading down. The vistas are really
beautiful, but hard to capture on a moving motorcycle. Realize that more of
Beartooth is in Wyoming than Montana, when we pass a leaving Montana sign (but
don’t think we saw an entering Wyoming sign).
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| Starting to make the climb to almost 11,000 ft. |
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| Can't really see it, but we are heading over there to a road! |
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| This is the "flat of the Beartooth Pass" |
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| Glacier Ice! |
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| Top of the World |
We see some deer. And some critters that I think may be
marmots (Marmots are commonly found along Beartooth Highway in Montana,
particularly in alpine and subalpine areas). There were a lot of them, but hard
to take a picture, since all of my attempts failed. Some lakes/water on the
beautiful ride on Beartooth as well. We stop at the Top of the World store (and
the couples from Florida that were staying at the Yodeler Motel were there as
well). After Top of the World, still some great views/vistas!
After Beartooth Highway, we turn left on to Chief Joseph
Highway (instead of going all of the way into Cooke City and then Yellowstone. Quickly there is a one lane construction stop, with a pilot
car driving back and forth from point to point, possibly all day long (maybe
need a pilot car because there isn’t any technology to use). There’s one more
one lane construction area, and then we have wide open roads.
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| Map of Chief Joseph Scenic Byway |
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| Well worn highway sign (probably the wind)! |
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| One lane construction zone |
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| Finally, cattle (they never did cross) |
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About Chief Joseph Highway: The byway, also known as Wyoming Highway 296, runs nearly 46 miles between US 212 and Wyoming Highway 120 (seventeen miles north of Cody). The road follows the route Chief Joseph traveled as he led the Nez Perce Indians away from the U.S. Cavalry in 1877.
https://travelwyoming.com/listings/chief-joseph-scenic-byway/
https://www.roadtripsforfamilies.com/wyoming-road-trip-chief-joseph-scenic-byway/
Chief Joseph Scenic Byway is a nice road, with some curves, different terrain, different elevations. And a lot of loose cattle crossing signs (it wasn’t until the end that we finally saw some cattle and they weren’t even loose in the road). We did see some deer/antelope/elk along the way as well. Both Beartooth and Chief Joseph Scenic make for a really nice long scenic ride!
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| You can sort of see the road that we're on below us. |
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| Bridge |
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| Roaring river below the bridge |
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| Logging truck on the road |
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| Logging truck we catch up to |
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| The landscape changes on Chief Joseph. |
After Chief Joseph, we turn right and head about 20 miles in wide open cattle country into Cody to the Hampton Inn & Suites (Hampton Inn & Suites, 8 Southfork Road, Cody) . It’s too early to check in, but we drop off our bags with Nate and Austin and head into downtown again, to go to the Harley Davidson shop (Buffalo Bill Harley Davidson, 1137 Sheridan Ave, Cody) and have lunch at Proud Cut Saloon (everyone keeps raving about this steak place https://www.proudcutsaloon.com/ ). We decide at lunch that we are not going to go 60 miles to Yellowstone, just to say we went into Yellowstone, and turn back and go another 60 miles. Tony’s pork ribs are pretty good. My ribeye was pretty thin and chewy. But can’t win everything. We have plenty of leftovers for dinner tonight.
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| The Irma Hotel |
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| The Proud Cut Saloon and Steakhouse |
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| Nice welcome from Hampton |
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| Blackie's parking spot |
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| View from our room (hoping to see critters) |
We’ve enjoyed our relaxing evenings. Would love to go to the night rodeo in Cody, but it doesn’t start until 8 pm! The couples we ran into at the rest area on Chief Joe’s are going (they are from Oklahoma) and say it’s awesome.
Tomorrow: last “real” ride day through Wind River Canyon to Riverton, Wyoming. And then Wyoming to Colorado, then Colorado to Raton, New Mexico to pick up the truck and drive back to Dallas (we’re still 760 miles from Cody to Raton, and then another 576 miles to Dallas). It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road for 12 days and 11 on Blackie.
Note: I am not a photographer and most of the videos and photos are taken while riding on a moving motorcycle (and most of the pictures don’t do the vistas justice)
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