Our New Most Favorite Drive

Chief Joseph SCENIC Hwy

Blue sky & pretty flowers

As unbelievable as it may be we found a road that moves to the head of our top 10 roads list.  Upon the recommendation of Dirk (our hotel front desk guy) and several others including a brother, Tim (or Tom west of the Mississippi) we traveled on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway (WY 296) and then turned onto the Beartooth  Scenic Highway (US 212).  We thought that Chief Joseph was terrific until we hit Beartooth.  Oh my word what a road...twists and turns along with mountain views that are so much better than Yellowstone's views.  We headed north toward Red Lodge, MT and turned around when the road flattened out.  Retraced our route and headed towards Cooke City, MT and the Northeast  Entrance to Yellowstone.

Damn!  It didn't seem that high coming down.

The Beartooth Highway rises to 11,000 ft. where we found one intrepid sole who had skied down a still snow filled ravine only to find himself at the bottom looking back up at the 1,000 foot high trek back to the car.  I guess he had fun skiing on July 13, but that was going to be one heck of a hike back up to his car. 

Beartooth Scenic Hwy.  Wow!

The views from the top were spectacular (check out the pics) and the mosquitoes were ravenous.  Even Cooper had to get sprayed-down with Deep Woods Off to stay outside of the car for more than 10 seconds.  Heck it appeared that they actually keyed in on the cars pulling off and swarmed as soon as you got out.

Speed limit 65?  Actual 19

We motored on at a rate of 19 MPH on a road that had a posted speed of 65 MPH.   Would love to know how anyone could drive this road at that speed and live to talk about it.  We were told that the Beartooth is the Number 1 Motorcycle road in the country...we believe it.  A huge number of bikers were on the road...not to mention in the Cody area.

Fire in Yellowstone

Rain and hail

The Beartooth Highway eventually becomes the Northeast Entrance into Yellowstone National Park.   By the time we hit the Park the weather was not looking too good.  Heavy clouds and we could see lightning striking the ground.  In fact we saw smoke and suspected that a small fire was ignited by the lightning.  When we got to the Mount Washburn area we were hit with heavy rain and hail.  Thankfully the hail was soft enough that when it hit the windshield it just went splat!  No damage to the car or anything else.

Ummmmm, buffalo

The animals were out and about even in the bad weather.  Cooper saw his first buffalo herd in Lamar Valley.  He seemed excited about it as they crossed the road in front of the car.  We drove a little further down the road and surprise, surprise guess what we saw in the picnic ground just before Tower-Roosevelt...a black bear.  He (or maybe it was a She) was just walking around eating whatever he was finding on the ground.  We pulled into the picnic area, parked and took a few pictures.  When we left there was a bear jam going in both direction.

Hey Clare, THIS is a black bear

Not much else to report as we made our way back to Cody...except for the bald eagle sitting in a tree.  No picture though so you'll just have to trust us. 

Beartooth Hwy

More Beartooth

And, more Beartooth

Coop is VERY impressed

This is the actual Beartooth

Awwww, it's a baby

Not a grizzly, but still pretty cool