Beartooth Pass and Chief Joseph Highway
Greetings Riders,
When I left you last week we were just leaving Banff in our rear view mirror on Wednesday Morning. If you missed last week's letter about Banff, Click Here. Or Click
Here to view the photos. Sometimes in trips you have days
that are not going to be very interesting and I call those "moving days", that is to get from one riding
area to the next. Wednesday was one of those days. Our goal today was to knock off as many miles as possible
to get them behind us. So we settled for 430 miles stopping in Great Falls, MT. where we knew for sure that we
could get a motel room.
We took the Trans Canada Hwy. 1 out of Banff to Calgary and Hwy.
2 from Calgary to the United States Border at Port of Piegan, MT.
We then followed Hwy. 89 until we got detoured near Glacier Park onto County Road 464 in the
middle
of nowhere that appeared to be closer to the moon than
civilization to where we picked up 89 again on into Great Falls, MT. One good thing about Southern Canada
and Northern Montana is that if you ever need to blow some carbon out of your engine, this would be the
place to do it, as all there is out there is miles and miles of roads to seemingly nowhere. I am happy
to report that there was not a spec of carbon left in the Road Glide motor after that 100 mile trek across the
Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
However, gas mileage did suffer a bit. In fact, it suffered so much that I almost committed the unforgivable
sin of "running out of gas". Fortunately I had the GPS to
tell me where the nearest gas station was and I nervously watched it click down the last 10 miles as the motor
sputtered in the driveway on my way to putting 5.2 gallons of gas in my
5 gallon tank. That was a stressful situation. Glad I had the GPS to tell me how far I was going to have to
push it.
We were excited to get going on Thursday morning as we knew that the Beartooth Pass would be our main attraction
for the day . We continued South on 89 through the Lewis and Clark National
Forest to Hwy. 90 where I finally got a shot of some wildlife. I couldn't
quite identify what it was, but the sign said there were more in the back. Hwy. 89 was great as I got a lot of
pics of old barns. We then took Hwy. 78 to
Red Lodge, Montana.
Red
Lodge is a really neat little town that sits on the East side of the Beartooth
Pass on Hwy. 212. Red Lodge is a year round destination for snow
related sports in the Winter and motorcycling the Pass in the Summer. I don' know all the history of Red Lodge, but
you can tell that there is plenty there. We stopped at the local Beartooth Harley dealer for a shirt and then
had lunch at the Bridge Creek Backcountry Kitchen
where Road Glides seemed to be the bike of choice.
After lunch we pointed the GPS West to follow Hwy. 212 that would take us through the Custer and Shoshone
National Forests and the Beartooth Pass, a road that Charles Kuralt
called "America's most beautiful highway". I've been on a lot of beautiful roads the last 5 years and
I'm not quite sure that I would agree with Charles on his accolades of the Beartooth Highway. I personally would
put the "Road to the Sun" in Glacier Park and maybe a couple more ahead of this one.
I found this road to be more amazing than beautiful. Sure, it was a very pretty ride, but
I found the road to be more incredible than beautiful,
just by the fact that someone actually went out there and built a road through that high altitude rugged
terrain. It is hard to explain until you have seen it,
so I made an illustration from my Garmin map on the computer to show you what I mean. This illustration shows that
you have to meander up the side of the mountain for 8.7 miles on road just to go 1.3 miles as the crow flies. Click Here to view. What made me even
look at this is because as we were going up the hill, I could see on the GPS that we were putting on the miles,
but my distance to destination seemed to barely change. Now I know why. When you are riding up it from the East
side you can really see how the road is hanging off the side of the
mountain and what a feat it must have been to build it.
Nearing the top, we caught one of the quick changes in weather as it started to rain while
the temperature hit as low as 53 degrees. This is also where you will get a good look at Island Lake and really
see how rugged this area is. At our highest
point, we were at 11,020 feet just about 1/2
mile across the Wyoming border. The West
side of the Beartooth Highway is more of a gradual descent with a changing landscape of boulders, meadows and flowers. They say it is even Grizzly Bear Country, but
of course we didn't see any.
Here are some facts about the Beartooth Highway:
Since its completion in 1936, the Highway has provided millions of visitors
a rare opportunity to see the transition from a lush forest ecosystem to alpine tundra in the space of just a few
miles.
The Beartooth area is one of the highest and most rugged areas in the lower 48 states, with 20 peaks reaching over
12,000 feet in elevation. Glaciers grace the north flank of nearly every towering mountain peak.
It is 50 miles of driving miles from Red Lodge to the start of the Chief
Joseph Highway and 34 miles as the crow flies.
When we reached the West side of the Beartooth we took the 63 mile ride on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway 296 to Cody, Wyoming. This is a great road to ride and is
very enjoyable. It has plenty of curves and elevation changes
too, but not as drastic as the Beartooth. Cody is a cool little town
with plenty of history as it was named after
Buffalo Bill Cody, one of the more
famous Americans in the late 1800's. You can find an active Main St. and a huge museum of Bill Cody
and Old West memorabilia. Even though it is all about the ride and the miles for me, sometimes I wish I would budget
a little more time to take in a few things like this.
The ride through the Beartooth Highway and Chief Joseph Highway is definitely something that I would recommend incorporating
into your travel plans sometime in the future, possibly on your way
to Sturgis or coming back. Both routes are extremely good riding and memorable, something that I would do again.
Take a look at all of the photos from Wednesday
and Thursday of our trip that include Red Lodge, Beartooth Highway, Chief Joseph Highway and Cody, Wyoming and
my assortment of old barns and buildings.
Next week I will bring you the last 4 days of the trip that include
Sturgis and Surrounding Cities, Mt. Rushmore, Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Rd. There are some fantastic pictures
in this group. You won't want to miss these.
Click
Here to view Photos of the Beartooth Pass Highway Trip.
Click Here to view Map of Day from Great Falls to Cody.
Click Here to view Map of Beartooth Highway.
Click Here to view Map of Chief Joseph Highway.
Useful Links:
Red Lodge, Montana: http://www.allredlodge.com/area_info/community.php
Beartooth Highway: http://gorp.away.com/gorp/activity/byway/mt_beart.htm
Beartooth Pass: http://www.allredlodge.com/attractions/beartooth_scenic_highway.php
Chief Joseph Highway: http://www.codywyomingnet.com/attractions/chief_joseph_scenic_highway.php
Cody, Wyoming: http://www.codywyomingnet.com/area_info/community.php
Buffalo Bill Historical Museums: http://www.bbhc.org/museums/index.cfm