Driving the Beartooth Highway to Yellowstone.

Today we drove back up the Beartooth Highway to visit the Lamar valley in Yellowstone.  The weather is very different from our previous attempt when it was snowing.  This time the air is clear and we have much warmer temperatures.

What a difference a day makes.

There are glaciers or large snow banks up on the mountains in almost every direction.

This overlook is great.

At the top, the Beartooth Pass is 10,900 feet.  We stopped to look around and mountain goats were just off the parking lot. Most people only see them from a great distance on a mountain side.  We saw a big male, two females, and a couple of young ones.

There are several snow melt lakes.

At each end of the Beartooth highway, there are towns but along the rest of the highway there is only one store.  It is very isolated.  They do have a sense of humor.  It was a really nice country store.

Later at the Wyoming border, we came to a construction area.  Little did we know but the outside lane had collapsed into the valley below. We had a 30 minute wait for the pilot car. WOW! Scary!.

After that scary drive, we were rewarded with really beautiful views.

Next, we saw a waterfall.

Crossing back into Montana, it was time for lunch.  We stopped at the last cafe before the northeast entrance to Yellowstone.  The trout was fantastic.

Our view was pretty good too.

The owner of the general store across the highway has a sense of humor. 

Next stop is in the Lamar valley in Yellowstone National Park. It is only 69 miles from Red Lodge, MT to the northeast entrance but with the 15 miles of switch backs at 25 miles an hour and the construction, it took us four and half hours to the entrance.

Time to head back but we are going to take a different road. We drove the Chief Joseph Highway to get back to Red Lodge, MT. Mileage is about 92 miles from the entrance to Red Lodge. We did not realize this would take almost as long because it had switchbacks and construction as well. We crossed the Clark's Fork River.  The bridge is high above the river.

Time to move on up the highway.

As soon as we crossed the next ridge everything changed.

Our last pullout was for an old coal mine.  Long abandoned.