Montana Scenic Drive: Beartooth Highway

What You'll See Along Beartooth Highway

Beartooth Highway (U.S. 212) offers travelers the ultimate high country  experience. Beartooth Highway travels through the Custer, Shoshone, and Gallatin National Forests, and eventually ends in Yellowstone National Park.

Since its completion in 1936, the highway has provided millions of visitors with a rare opportunity to see the transition from a lush forest ecosystem to alpine tundra in the space of a few miles. The Beartooths are one of the highest and most rugged areas in the lower 48 states, with 20 peaks higher than 12,000 feet in elevation. Glaciers are found on the north flank of nearly every mountain peak higher than 11,500 feet in these mountains.

Archaeological Qualities of Beartooth Highway

Archaeologists have found numerous small, limited-use camps here that offer isolated finds and resource extraction sites. Because of the specimens found in the camps, the location of the camps, and even the frequency of the camps, archaeologists believe the area was used for spiritual purposes rather than primarily for food (which was previously thought).

Even though Native Americans dwelt in various places throughout present-day Montana and Wyoming, archaeological evidence from the Beartooth Mountains is somewhat limited. The high elevation most likely restricted living there on a permanent basis.

There is only a short time during the summer to hunt and gather plants specially adapted to high elevations before the cold returns. The rest of the year, deadly weather conditions contribute to making it a hostile environment. Coming here, rather than staying in the fertile plains in the low country, can mean only that the steep mountains held deep significance for Native Americans.

Cultural Qualities of Beartooth Highway

The Beartooth Highway's most important cultural value is the chance to appreciate some of the activities that flourish in natural environments. After understanding the people's occupations and interests in this part of Montana and Wyoming, visitors often leave with a longing to return to the simple yet strenuous life found here.

Some of the locals' occupations include ranchers, lumberjacks, sports enthusiasts, and anglers. These and other similar activities thrive today along the Beartooth Highway, continuing a long tradition of using the natural resources of these public lands.

Beartooth Highway Information Length: 54 miles Time to allow: Three hours States it runs through: Montana, Wyoming Cities it runs through: Cooke City Considerations: Driving from Red Lodge to Cooke City (east to west) in the morning and west to east in the afternoon reduces glare. The alpine climate is rigorous, and severe weather conditions can occur any month of the year. Summer temperatures range from the 70s on sunny days to below freezing during sudden snowstorms. Snow conditions might close sections of the drive.

Historical Qualities of Beartooth Highway

The first recorded travel across the Beartooth Pass area occurred in 1882, when General Sheridan with a force of 129 soldiers and scouts (and 104 horses and 157 mules) pioneered and marked a route across the mountains from Cooke City to Billings. A year later, Van Dyke, a packer, modified the trail and located a route off the Beartooth Plateau into Rock Creek and Red Lodge. Van Dyke's trail was the only direct route between Red Lodge and Cooke City until the Beartooth Highway was constructed in 1934 and 1935. Remnants of Van Dyke's trail are visible from the Rock Creek Overlook parking lot, appearing as a Z on the mountain.

Doctor Siegfriet and other visionaries from the Bearcreek and Red Lodge communities foresaw, in the early 1900s, the value of a scenic route over the mountains to connect to
Yellowstone Park. These men spent many years promoting the construction of a road over the mountains and even began the construction of a road with hand tools and horse-drawn implements.

Other routes were surveyed from 1920 to 1925, and in 1931 President Herbert Hoover signed the Park Approach Act, which was the forerunner to the funding of the road now known as the Beartooth Highway.

Natural Qualities of Beartooth Highway:

A variety of theories exist on the formation of the Beartooth Mountains, but geologists generally agree that the mountains resulted from an uplifting of an archean block of metamorphic rocks that were eroded, flooded with volcanic lava on the southwest corner, and covered with glaciers. Seventy million years of formation went into making this section of the Rocky Mountains.

The Palisades that stretch along the Beartooth Front were first sedimentary rocks deposited as flat-lying beds in an ancient sea. Thrust skyward, they have become conspicuous spires. Pilot and Index Peaks are the remainders of an extensive volcanic field that came into existence 50 million years ago.

Yellowstone National Park has been an active volcanic center for more than 15 million years. Erosional forces are still at work. Glaciers have shaped the mountains into the range they comprise today. The glaciers edged their way down just 10,000 years ago. Younger rocks are the sources of coal exploited by the early settlers of Red Lodge.

The Stillwater Complex, a body of igneous magma formed along the northern edge of the mountain range 2.7 million years ago, is one of the rarest and least understood geologic occurrences in the world. It is the site of the only source of the platinum group of metals in the United States.

View Enlarged Image This map details highlights of Beartooth Highway.

Recreational Qualities of Beartooth Highway:

Recreational opportunities are abundant in the area traversed by the Beartooth Highway. You can cross-country ski on the snowfields in June and July or hike across the broad plateaus and on Forest Service trails (some of which are National Recreation Trails).

Camp, picnic, or fish for trout in the streams and lakes adjacent to the highway. View and photograph nature at its finest, including wildflowers and wildlife (moose, Rocky Mountain goats, mule deer, black bears, grizzly bears, marmots, and pikas).You can even visit a guest ranch, take a guided horseback trip from Cooke City, bicycle, and downhill ski on the headwalls

If you enjoy skiing, each summer in June and July, the Red Lodge International Ski Race Camp is conducted on the north side of the East Summit on the Twin Lakes Headwall. This camp is for aspiring Olympic-caliber skiers and provides a viewing opportunity for highway travelers.

Each summer, the Red Lodge Chamber of Commerce sponsors a one-day, unannounced "Top of the World Bar" in a snowbank at or near the West Summit and provides complimentary nonalcoholic beverages, horse rides, photos at the bar, and on occasion even a look at a live pink elephant.

Find more useful information related to Montana's Beartooth Highway:

• Cooke City: Find out what there is to do in this city along Beartooth Highway.
• Scenic Drives: Are you interested in scenic drives beyond Montana? Here are more than 100 scenic drives throughout the United States.
• How to Drive Economically: Fuel economy is a major concern when you're on a driving trip. Learn how to get better gas mileage.

Highlights of Beartooth Highway

The spire known as the Bears Tooth along Beartooth Highway was carved in the shape of a large tooth by glacial ice gnawing inward and downward against a single high part of a rocky crest. Beartooth Butte is a remnant of sedimentary deposits that once covered the entire Beartooth Plateau. The red-stained rock outcrop near the top of Beartooth Butte was a stream channel some 375 million years ago, so fossils are found in abundance in the rocks of Beartooth Butte.

In these treeless areas, near or above timberline, vegetation is often small -- a characteristic that is vital to the survival of the plants at this elevation. Wildflowers, often as tiny as a quarter-inch across, create a carpet of color during the 45-day-or-shorter growing season.

In contrast, the common flowers found below the timberline in wet meadows are Indian paintbrush, monkey flower, senecio, and buttercups, and in drier areas are lupine, beardtongue, arrowleaf balsamroot, and forget-me-nots. Mid-July is generally the optimum time for wildflower viewing.

©Byways.org Distant view of Pilot Peak off Beartooth Highway.

Wildlife varies from the largest American land mammal, the moose, to the smallest land mammal, the shrew. Other animals commonly seen are mule deer, white-tail deer, marmots, elk, and pine squirrels. Birds include the golden eagle, raven, Clark's nutcracker, Steller's jay, robin, mountain bluebird, finch, hawk, and falcon. Watch for water ouzel darting in and out of streams.

The snowbanks often remain until August near Beartooth Pass, and remnants of some drifts may remain all summer. A pink color often appears on the snow later in the summer, which is caused by the decay of a microscopic plant that grows on the surface of the snowbank. When the plant dies, it turns red and colors the snow pink.

Consider using the following itinerary as you travel the Beartooth Scenic Byway.

Red Lodge: Red Lodge is an 1880s coal-mining and ranching town lined with turn-of-the-19th century red brick storefronts and hotels that cater mainly to skiers and visitors to Yellowstone.

Visit the Beartooth Nature Center, at the north end of Red Lodge, which exhibits native wildlife. The road follows Rock Creek into the mountains, winding through grassy hills that soon give way to heavily forested mountains. Rocky outcrops interrupt evergreen forests, and an occasional spire juts over the trees.

About 13 miles from Red Lodge, the road climbs away from the creek, and suddenly the vista opens up toward the 1,800-foot cliffs that bend around the head of the valley in a tight semicircle.

Vista Point Scenic Overlook: After five miles of dramatic switchbacks, stop at the Vista Point Scenic Overlook. Here, at 9,200 feet, a short path leads to the tip of a promontory with phenomenal views across Rock Creek Canyon to the high rolling country of the Beartooth Plateau.

As you continue on U.S. 212, the trees give out entirely, and you begin crossing a landscape of low, rounded hills covered with grasses, sedges, and lavish wildflowers in summer. Soon, the road cuts back to the rim of the canyon, and from the narrow turnouts, you can see a chain of glacial lakes 1,000 feet below. Even in July, enough snow accumulates against the headwall here to draw skiers.

Beartooth Plateau: As you travel farther on the byway from the north on U.S. 212, the Beartooth Plateau looms over the surrounding prairie foothills as a hulking mass of black, rounded mountains.

Absaroka Range: As you pass the ski lift, the Absaroka Range breaks over the western horizon in a row of jagged volcanic peaks. Wildflower meadows lead to the west summit of Beartooth Pass, at an exalted 10,947 feet. From the pass, you descend to a forest of lodge-pole and whitebark pines toward 10,514-foot Beartooth Butte. Soon, you pass Beartooth Lake.

Clay Butte Lookout: In another mile, follow the gravel road to Clay Butte Lookout, a fire tower with a smashing view of some of Montana's highest mountains.

Crazy Creek Campground: Continue 5-1/2 miles to an unmarked bridge over Lake Creek, and take the short path back to a powerful waterfall thundering though a narrow chasm. A completely different sort of cascade fans out over a broad ram of granite in the trees above Crazy Creek Campground, 2-1/2 miles farther.

Pilot and Index Overlook: At the Pilot and Index Overlook, you're looking at the northern edge of the Absaroka Range, an eroded mass of lava, ash, and mudflows that began forming 50 million years ago.

Cooke City: From here, the road follows the Clarks Fork River through what is left of a centuries-old forest, much of which fell victim to the great Yellowstone fires of 1988. Soon, the road passes through the tiny tourist crossroads of Cooke City, begun as a 19th-century mining camp. Four miles beyond, the drive ends at the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

For nature lovers, the sights along Beartooth Highway can't be beat -- from lush forests to stunning glaciers.

Find more useful information related to Montana's Beartooth Highway:

• Cooke City: Find out what there is to do in this city along Beartooth Highway.
• Scenic Drives: Are you interested in scenic drives beyond Montana? Here are more than 100 scenic drives throughout the United States.
• How to Drive Economically: Fuel economy is a major concern when you're on a driving trip. Learn how to get better gas mileage.