Today we will drive from the West Entrance of Yellowstone and out the Northeast Entrance to spend 2 nights at Red Lodge, Montana. This will take us on the famously twisting Beartooth Highway after we leave the park.

We will experience a new section of Yellowstone today from Canyon to Tower Junction, then through the Lamar Valley to the Northeast entrance. As we drove from Canyon to Tower Junction, Dave and I realized that we don’t remember covering this section of Yellowstone on our prior trip out here. It was winding and twisting, too! But it was a beautiful drive past Dunraven Peak (9,869 feet) and Mt Washburn (10,243 feet) with many hiking trails available in this stretch.

Tower Junction and Roosevelt Lodge

When we reached Tower Junction, we opted to stop at Roosevelt Lodge for lunch. We were a little early, so we hung out in the rockers on the front porch until the dining room opened.

We had another really good meal – our third at one of the park lodges. Tower is more rustic and has fewer resources than some of the other park lodging locations. So, it wasn’t as crowded as Old Faithful, Mammoth Springs, or Canyon Village. Compared to the other areas, I can say it actually wasn’t crowded at all.   

Lamar Valley

From Tower, we head east on 212 which will take us through the Lamar Valley and out the Northeast Entrance. The cabins at Tower/Roosevelt are a good option if you want to stay in the park close to Lamar Valley as that is the place to be if you want to have the opportunity to see a diversity of critters.

Mornings and evenings are usually the best times for viewing wildlife, but that didn’t fit our schedule – we were there in the early afternoon, so were pleasantly surprised to see the immense herds of bison and FINALLY a Grizzly Bear! The bear was very far off and we could really only catch a glimpse of it through our high-powered binoculars – so no picture. The picture below that looks like a landscape picture actually has hundreds of bison in it – that gives you an idea of the size of this portion of Lamar Valley through which the Lamar River and its many tributaries such as Soda Butte Creek flow.

We did find a small herd a little closer to the road, but still at a safe distance.

Beartooth Highway

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Just outside the Northeast Entrance are the small communities of Silver Gate and Cooke City. There are some lodging and dining options here, but not a whole lot.

The road is typically closed from mid-October until at least Memorial Day (last Monday in May), but this year didn’t open until mid-June, then was closed briefly again for a late June snowstorm. Luckily, we had a nice, though overcast, day for our drive. From Cooke City at an elevation of around 7600 feet, the road zigs and zags to 10,947 feet at Beartooth Pass, then descends to 5500 at Red Lodge. The majority of that descent occurs in an incredibly scenic and potentially nerve-wracking series of severe switchbacks about 8 miles from the pass.

I was amazed at the number of bicyclists tackling this incredibly steep and winding road which must be shared with all the motorized vehicles with drivers distracted by both the difficulty of the road and the beauty of the vistas. We made sure Dave focused on the road and gave him a heads up on turnouts, so he could take in the vistas as well.

Red Lodge

We arrived in Red Lodge at our final VRBO house of the trip in time to get settled in and rest up a bit before heading a few blocks downtown to our dinner reservation at Piccola Cucina Ox Pasture. We were lucky to get a last-minute reservation. For a town of less than 3000 people, even though it is considered a “resort” town, it was hard to believe that they had a restaurant of this quality. All of the dishes we ordered were excellent.

Tomorrow we will explore the town. More cards again tonight!