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FALL 2019 ISSUE 02 / VOL . 04
When we left home it was 97 degrees . When we got to the Rockies , it wasn ’ t . Our early morning ritual included ice-mail messages like this one . Bottom : Canada was a three-day exploration of the color gold . Fields of wheat for hours .
In Cooke City we have lunch at the Prospector Grill , and glean info from other travelers . The motels are booked at all the major cities in Wyoming , but the Beartooth Hideaway in Red Lodge has plenty of rooms available .
Red Lodge was a boom town , home to cattle barons , sheepherders , gamblers and coal miners . At one point , the town had 20 saloons . In 1924 , when the mines started to close , locals turned to making bootleg liquor . In 1931 a local doctor came up with the idea of building a “ high road ” into the Beartooth Mountains , something that would connect Montana to the tourist traffic visiting Yellowstone . Like the Going-to-the-Sun Road , and the Icefields Parkway , the Beartooth Highway was Depression-era make-work . Inspired , miraculous makework , completed in 1936 .
We enter from the Wyoming side , climbing a series of switchbacks through grassy meadows and pine forests . A scenic turnoff allows us to contemplate the Absaroka- Beartooth Mountains . It is a view that will suck your lungs out . It ’ s just the start . The