The Beartooth Highway - The Most Beautiful Roadway in America

The Beartooth Highway has been on our bucket list ever since we first learned about it. One of the pioneers of travel journalism, Charles Kuralt, dubbed it as "the most beautiful roadway in America." That sounds like something that we need to see for ourselves! In fact, the main reason that we came to Cody, Wyoming, was because of its proximity to this famous highway. We were waiting on the best weather day to take this long drive, and this was the day!

Part of the drive would be a repeat from two days ago. After our longer-than-planned trip into Yellowstone, we thought about sleeping in the pickup because we were at the western edge of the Beartooth Highway. But after we decided we wouldn't get much sleep in the pickup, we ended up driving back to Cody on the most westerly 13 miles of the Beartooth Highway, and then the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. After a day of activities back in Cody, we retraced our drive up the very scenic Chief Joseph Byway again. We took a picture at the top of Dead Indian Point as the sun was setting two days ago. This time we were bright and early in the morning. From here we could see Sunlight Basin below us, surrounded by the North Absaroka Mountains and the Beartooth Mountains.

We could tell that the tourists were feeding the chipmunks at the point, because they ran towards us and begged for snacks as soon as we arrived. The chipmunks were running towards us--not the tourists.

We had a brochure that outlined the best scenic drives around Cody, so we followed its advice to take a detour up Sunlight Basin Road. We were hoping for wildlife sightings on this less-traveled gravel road. While herds of elk spend their winters in this valley, they have left for higher ground this summer.

The only animals we found on this detour was a line of horses on a dude ranch trail ride. But the views of the snow-covered peaks in the background still made the detour worthwhile.

According to the brochure, the next stop was Sunlight Creek Bridge. You can barely see her in the picture below, but Denisa was standing on the highest bridge in Wyoming

If you look to the very bottom of this picture that was taken from the bridge, you can see the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River that carved this 1200 foot deep gorge. This was also one of those "Where's Marky?" pictures. Can you see him among the Cathedral Cliffs?

He's in an open area in the center of the zoomed-in picture below. That will help you in the "Where's Marky?" quiz earlier.

A pedestrian lane on the bridge allows visitors to see the beautiful landscape from high above the river.

While we were watching from the pedestrian lane, we shared the Sunlight Creek Bridge with a group of motorcycles and a herd of yearling calves.

The motorcycles were going the correct way. The calves were not. We watched as the cowboy's dog turned them around and got them moving back across the bridge to their correct pasture.

We talked to the cowboy that was following up the calves across the bridge. He explained that they pastured yearlings on leased grass land in the national forest. These cattle will ship out of the mountains in October--hopefully before it starts snowing. This bridge is the dividing point of the leased grass land, and they had already spent a good part of their morning roping and trailering some cattle that had gotten past the boundary.

Chief Joseph Scenic Byway is Highway 296, and it comes to an end when it runs into Highway 212--more commonly known as Beartooth Highway, a National Scenic Byway All-American Road. The name comes from the signature peak. Do you see the pointy mountain that looks like a bear's tooth?

Denisa obviously couldn't take enough pictures of the Beartooth. Its real name is Pilot Peak, and the knob to the right is Index Peak. They were visible for miles around when looking to the west.

Our first stop on this famous highway was at Crazy Creek Falls, to get a look at the water cascading down the mountain.

You should know that we are never content to gaze at a waterfall from the bottom without attempting to climb to the top. On this hike we had our bear spray with us for the first time this summer. We were less than 15 miles from Yellowstone National Park, and the grizzlies don't have boundaries. No tenting is allowed in the campgrounds in the Beartooth Mountains. Only hard-sided RVs are allowed because of the large number of bears in the Beartooths. We got to the top of falls, where the water pooled into turquoise-blue rapids.

You can barely see "Where's Denisa?" in her pink blouse on the ledge to the left of that pool where the water cascaded on down the mountain.

We traveled east along the All-American Road, stopping at scenic viewpoints along the way. This stop provided another frothy white waterfall with just a short hike. 

Vault toilets were also provided at some of the pull-outs. Denisa has an odd hobby of taking pictures of restrooms with beautiful views. She thought this one with a clear view of the Beartooth Mountains, qualified to be added to her strange collection.

The bees were happy that the wildflowers were blooming now.

We normally would have picked out a best-rated hike for the day. But the hikes were long and they all seemed to mention grizzly bear sightings. While we had our bear spray, we didn't relish a grizzly encounter on these less-traveled trails. So instead of hiking, we decided to go kayaking. We checked out Beartooth Lake and decided it would be a great kayaking destination.

We inflated our Sea Eagle kayak, and headed straight across the lake towards Beartooth Butte. This fortress of limestone and sandstone rose above the mountain plateau.

Like Pilot Peak, it was a signature silhouette that you could see from anywhere on the lake.

Also like Pilot Peak, Denisa took way too many pictures of it. As we rowed to the right, we noticed that snow still capped the top of Beartooth Butte.

While the water got choppy in the middle of the lake, we kayaked up into the calmer waters that feed into Beartooth Lake.

It was a beautiful place to kayak, and we ran into no grizzlies this way. We were a little disappointed that we didn't run into any other wildlife either.

We couldn't decide which mountain lake we wanted to kayak, so we decided to try two. We left the Sea Eagle inflated, and strapped it onto the pickup for the three-mile trip to Island Lake.

True to its name, we rowed around the islands that emerge out of the water in the center of the lake.

Island Lake is ringed by the snow-capped Beartooth Mountains. We saw over twenty peaks over 12,000 feet in elevation in our drive today.

The clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. It was 3:30, and it looked like an afternoon rain storm was headed our way as the water formed waves on Island Lake.

We try to plan our circles around a lake where we can row against the wind first. That way the wind will blow us back to our shore when we are tired and ready to get the boat out of the water. We planned our circle correctly as we finished up our kayaking on the more-protected and less-windy side of the lake.

We dried off the kayak and noted the signs around Island Lake. The signs said, "Grizzly Bear Area--Special Rules Apply." Again, we didn't spot any bears or other wildlife at this lake.

Our next stop was Beartooth Pass, the highest motor crossing in Wyoming. We have been seeing snow from a distance, but here the drifts were right beside the highway.

The pass's elevation was 10,947 feet, and we could see a ring of 12,000-foot peaks around us. It was surprisingly cold and windy on this July afternoon.

But we were not alone on this rocky top pass. We could hear the whistles of the yellow-bellied marmots, curious to see who was visiting their home on this cloudy afternoon.

Once they got used to our presence, more marmots started peaking out of their dens. Doesn't it look like this marmot was even holding a welcoming flower?

This marmot stood straight up, so she could see us better . . .

while this marmot laid flat and tried to ignore us. We might not see any grizzly bears on Beartooth pass, but we hit the jackpot in marmot sightings.

Standing on the top boulder at the pass, we could see the winding roads that brought us to the highest pass in a very high state.

The GPS screen shows that Highway 212 was not good for anyone that might get car sick on winding roads.

Looking out over the snow-capped peaks, we saw that the afternoon storm was bringing rain to our west.

This highway is closed all winter, and drivers anticipate its opening each spring. Snow plows worked to move the snow to the side, where the drifts remain all summer. This year, Wyoming Department of Transportation announced that the Beartooth Highway opened on May 26, 2023.

After the summit, our trip was downhill all the way. We stopped to eat a snack in front of another beautiful Beartooth view.

We stopped at one more viewpoint while we were at the top of the "most beautiful roadway in America." Snow never melts in this bowl, and snow skiers come here to the Beartooth Summer Ski Basin.

When other ski mountains were closing for the season, the summer basin was opening. We zoomed in to see the chair lift that runs to the top of the slope.

We took one more picture from the Beartooth Highway, with one of the many glacial lakes that dot the horizons.

We continued down-hill as the views became less-mountainous. Mark slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting one of those friendly marmots that was crossing the Beartooth Highway.

As we headed downhill, we crossed the state line into Montana. This is our third trip into Montana this summer.

Our last stop on the highway was at the Rock Creek Vista pull-out. Again we could see the highway far below us as it zig-zagged down into the valley towards Red Lodge, Montana.

We were scheduled to leave Cody the next day, so this was our last mountain view for a while.

Again, the main wildlife pictures are of four-legged mammals that stay close to the ground, but love living at high altitude. 

We stopped in Red Lodge, Montana, for dinner, and then finished our loop drive back through Montana. It was a lovely 177-mile loop, and some would even say that it was "the most beautiful roadway in America." We would say that we were blessed to have wandered through another of God's wonders!