About This Trip
Charles Kuralt, the legendary CBS travel reporter, called the Beartooth Highway the most beautiful drive in America. It is hard to argue. The 68-mile route connecting Red Lodge, Montana to Cooke City — and from there, the northeast entrance of Yellowstone — climbs from 5,555 feet to nearly 11,000 feet through some of the most dramatic alpine terrain in the lower 48 states.
The highway was completed in 1936 and required enormous engineering effort to push a paved road through the Beartooth Plateau, a vast expanse of alpine tundra above the tree line that receives up to 20 feet of snow per year. The switchback sections on both sides of the pass are visible from miles away — long, thin lines of asphalt zigzagging up cliff faces that look impossibly steep from below.
From the summit plateau, the landscape is unlike anything else on a paved road in America. You drive across open tundra at nearly 11,000 feet, with glacial lakes visible in every direction and snowfields that persist year-round even in drought years. Grizzly bears, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and moose all inhabit the plateau, and wildlife sightings are common enough that they have their own traffic hazard. The view from the Beartooth Pass summit overlook stretches across four states on a clear day.
The descent to Cooke City is less dramatic but passes through some of the finest trout water in the Rocky Mountain West — the Stillwater and Clark's Fork rivers run cold and clear below the highway. Cooke City itself is a tiny outpost at the edge of Yellowstone, with a handful of lodges and a gas station that exists primarily because the alternative is driving 70 miles in the wrong direction.
Best time to drive: Mid-June through mid-October. The road typically opens by Memorial Day weekend but may have snow at the top even then. It is one of the first mountain passes to close in winter, often in October. Snow squalls can arrive any month at the summit — carry layers and check the weather before heading up.
Stops
Red Lodge, MT
A well-preserved Western mining town at the base of the Beartooth Range, with a lively Broadway Avenue of galleries, bars, and outfitters. Red Lodge Mountain Ski Area sits just outside town. This is the last stop for fuel and food before the climb begins — the pass gas stations, if open, are significantly more expensive.
Rock Creek Vista Point
A spectacular pullout on the upper switchbacks with a view back down into the Rock Creek valley and Red Lodge far below. This is also where the scale of the switchbacks becomes apparent — looking down at five or six hairpin turns below you while still climbing is one of the more vertiginous experiences available on a paved road in America.
Beartooth Pass Summit (10,947 ft)
The high point of the highway and one of the highest paved roads in the United States. The summit plateau stretches in every direction — tundra, glacial lakes, and snowfields as far as you can see. On clear days you can identify peaks in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and arguably the Dakotas. The visitor pullout at the top has short tundra walks and is reliably cold even in July.
Cooke City, MT
A tiny outpost at the edge of Yellowstone National Park's northeast corner, accessible by paved road only through the Beartooth Highway or through Yellowstone itself. The Lamar Valley — Yellowstone's best wildlife corridor — begins just a few miles west, making Cooke City an ideal base for early-morning wolf and bison viewing.