Beartooth Highway There’s no good reason for the Beartooth to exist, ex‑ cept that its construction gave paycheques to thou‑ sands of workers during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It’s an adventurous road that links Wyoming and Montana and is best driven from east to west: the tarmac climbs almost 2,000 metres in a 20-kilometre series of switchbacks to the Beartooth Pass, then slides back down toward Yellowstone National Park. During the climb, the landscape transitions from dense forest to alpine tundra, and the road passes countless
mountain lakes in the Absaroka and Beartooth ranges. There are 20 peaks to be seen that are more than 4,000 metres high, with glaciers on their slopes. By the time you reach Cooke City, you’ll want a break at one of the many seasonal restaurants and coffee shops in town. It can snow even in summer at the higher altitudes, and the road is closed in wintertime. When it reopens for the spring, the cleared snow to each side often creates a trench for the highway that reaches high above the roofs of cars and trucks.
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