Beartooth Pass

May 30, 2021

It was announced that the Beartooth Pass would be opened for the season this holiday weekend and I thought, "Hmmm, I have a new 2021 FJR and I live an hour away from the highway, so why not?"

I left home about 9:30am and after gassing up I decided to take an alternate route instead of riding directly to Red Lodge where the Beartooth Highway begins.  I took I-90 the 10 miles from Billings to Laurel where I headed southwest on Hwy 212.  This is the original 2-lane road to Red Lodge but over the past couple years, the state rerouted it and widened it to 4-lanes with a large center divider from Laurel to Rockvale, a vast improvement and quite a bit safer.

In Rockvale I turned south on Hwy 310, the road to Lovell, Wyoming.  The first little town along the way is Fromberg, a place I visited and wrote about on a ride to Powell, WY a few weeks ago.  I wanted to stop here again but this time to do a sketch of the abandoned garage there.

I took off my gear, set up my stool, and got out my sketchbook and pen.  It was beautiful out.

This took a bit less than an hour and I was pretty satisfied with my work and will probably add watercolor to it later.  

The next stop was a bit farther down the road, a rest stop, just before arriving in Bridger, another small town.  I continued on Hwy 310 until Hwy 72 and headed toward Belfry where I turned right on Hwy 308 which travels west toward Red Lodge.  This is a very nice 15-mile, 2-lane ride with lots of curves and hills.  There are two points of interest along the way.  One is the town of Bearcreek, known for the pig races held at the town saloon.

The other, and I didn't stop to get a picture, is the Smith Mine, known for the disaster in 1943 when an explosion killed 74 of the workers.  Quite a few of the buildings remain on the site.

The road arrives in the southern end of Red Lodge at the intersection of Hwy 212, AKA the Beartooth Highway.  I turned left and followed the road out of town.  I've run (as in foot raced) on this section of the highway many times over the years either in the Peaks to Prairies triathlon, where I was the runner on a team doing the 9-mile jaunt, or the annual Red Lodge Fun Run 10K that is held over Labor Day weekend, a run I've won my age group in a few times.

The Beartooth Highway travels southwest for a ways through a forested area before the switchbacks start the climb up the mountains, eventually getting above the tree line.  About the 9,000-foot level there is a vista point with a decent sized parking lot and views of the mountains and the valley looking back into Red Lodge.  It's breathtaking.  I pulled into the lot for a quick break and only took one photo of my bike sitting there.  It was pretty crowded and I wanted to get back on the road.

Here's a photo I shot there in October of 1983.

The next section of road is lots of curves, some straight pieces, and it's snow-lined.  There are several places along the way where snowmobilers, skiers, and snowboarders are active and their vehicles are pulled off the road, mostly.  Yes, people are still enjoying the snow up here.  In one place, the snowmobilers are using the 6-8 foot drifts that line the road to jump the highway itself.  I had one go over just as I passed and saw it in my mirror.

The pinnacle of the ride, and where I planned to turn around today, is the high point, Beartooth Pass, elevation 10,947 feet.  There were quite a few cars pulled alongside the road and, luckily, the sidings were paved.  I was able to snag a spot near the sign and after some fellow tourists moved out of the way I got this shot.

While I've traveled this highway quite a few times since moving to Montana 30 years ago, this was not my first time in this spot on motorcycle.  In 1979 I did an epic ride around the country on my 1976 Honda CB750 and stopped here for a similar picture.  You can read about that ride here.

I don't remember why there is a 5-foot difference in the elevation from 1979 to 2021.

Here are a few more shots from there today.

Yes, one does feel on top of the world there.

I headed back down the mountain and did a stop when I crossed back into Montana from Wyoming.

The ride back to Billings was uneventful, just lots of great scenery.  For being a holiday weekend I was surprised that there wasn't more traffic than there was.  One thing that was evident were the Chevy Corvettes.  There is a rally this weekend in Billings and I saw quite a few of them on the highway.

So, if you are ever in this part of the world, don't miss this drive.  I'll be doing it again soon and next time, instead of turning around at the pass, I'll continue on Hwy 212 to Cooke City.  After that the road continues to the east entrance of Yellowstone Park, then to Mammoth Hots Springs, and out the north entrance of the park to the town of Gardiner.