The blinding sun could not mask the chilling clinging to the air in Paradise Valley. Following the Yellowstone River backward to the national park’s north gate, the drive was only notable for its solitude. Across 50 miles, I passed a dozen other motorists.
At 6 a.m. I debated more sleep and skipping the Beartooth. My health respect for heights would not win this argument. The morning scenery along the Yellowstone's unencumbered waters and the mountain ranges hemming the gorgeous valley could not properly prepare me for the turns ahead.
From the quick spin of northern desert starting at Yankee Jim Canyon and winding through the Yellowstone’s first few miles, I was prepared to meet the Beartooth.
Having visited all the major sites a year ago, I could skip around Mammoth Springs – besides, not a single elk lounged on its grassy common. The narrow road wound from high desert to deciduous forest with splashes of prairie in a matter of miles. Of course, in Yellowstone, the wildlife will quickly sabotage a schedule.
The first bison could have been a brown rock in the prairie grass if not for a tail intermittently flopping upward. Everyone dotes on their first brush with megafauna; for all I knew, I might not see anything noteworthy the rest of the way.
Within minutes of turning into the Lamar Valley toward the Northeast entrance and the Beartooth Highway, I nearly forgot the lounging buffalo. A herd of 30 or more grazed on either side of the road, another pack of 20 adults halted traffic. The lingerers seemed to guard an older one with a lame foot. The grunting males kept watchful eyes on the camera-toting armies they attracted.
Later, I spotted a lone male drinking from a creek below a scenic rock formation. From the moment I interrupted him, till I backed away, he trained his eyes on me. Not only do they run fast, but their heads are essentially a bone battering ram with horns attached. So I slinked away, and left him to his drink.
No site could surpass the one ripped from the 19th century. Along a wide river plain, hundreds of buffalo grazed. Just black specks from the road, the view seemed to closest that 21 century eyes could come to those of westbound pioneers, before the trains split them into northern herds and the orgy of bufaalo slaughter nearly wiped them out. Yellowstone bison are different; the park held the last wild herd, and those roaming its plains descend from them. This was the last wild herd, which later intermingled with bison brought in from other states. But at Yellowstone, there bison have been a constant for millennia.
Aside from a coyote and a lone bull bison outside the park entrance at Silver Gate, the fauna displays had ended. It was Beartooth time. Sixty-nine miles separated Silver Gate and Red Lodge, but they were like few other drives in the lower 48. The road rose in wide curves from 6,000 feet to nearly 8,000, the little engine in my rental car straining to hold its speed, much less accelerate.
As the forest thinned, more lookouts reveal the majestic Wyoming ranges beyond Yellowstone. They would be forgotten the moment I glanced the monsters to the north – the Beartooth Range, which contained all the state’s 12,000 foot peaks, and more plateaus above 10,000 feet than anywhere in the lower 48. Glaciers hugged their upper crags, and at the lookouts close to 11,000 feet, children shrieked as they bombarded each other with snowballs in September.
Winding up those narrow switchbacks at 20 mph, I talked to myself incessantly, with helpful reminders that I was almost to the top and had no need to look down from the guardrail. If I wanted to look down, I had to stop, which I did about 20 times once I reached the first alpine levels. Once the tree line vanishes, there's nothing to do but look, and the Beartooth scenery offered scores of panoramic vistas.
Nothing could have readied me for turning bends and finding rows of pristine lakes. Getting a glimpse of the switchbacks to come rattled me momentarily. Neil Young Unplugged and Marje’s Spring 2010 mix focused my ears. Conversations with people at the lookouts warded off any loneliness.
I could handle the little curves and switchbacks fine. But the last five miles came in four lengthy switchbacks ending on a canyon floor. Each minute to the bottom felt like an hour until I finally I approached the “Leaving Beartooth Highway Scenic Road” sign and took the picture I refused to take at the entrance.
Now that you’ve found me at the bottom of the Beartooth Highway safe and sound, I must warn you that none of these words comes close to the impact of what I saw up there. You can boil the drive down to rock and ice, but at 11,000 feet, you cannot scrap at their magnificence.
At Red Lodge, it was time for a beer from the region’s only craft-brewer, Red Lodge Ales. The quaint resort town crowded, but not the brewery. From there, I contemplated a trip up the road to Billings, but decided the lonely road to Melville was overdue. Rolling plains passed through more farms and tiny communities, including Montana’s rundown version of Columbus.
At Big Timber – which really wasn’t that big – I jumped on U. S. 191, bound for Melville. Nineteen miles up, I came upon a restaurant and post office with a cluster of houses off in the distance.Aside from a spectacular view of the Crazy Mountains, Melville barely registered as a bump in the road.
I shrugged at how little cache the Melville name had in Montana. It was here, and that was enough. Turning back to Big Timber, thoughts of Livingston already burrowed in my head. My grandfather and great-grandfather had passed through their during the Depression on their way to Yellowstone, so the little railroad town had more to say about family history than the one with our name.
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