America’s best drive: the Beartooth All American Road

by Kraig Becker on

When you think of America’s best scenic drives, a few popular stretches of road always come to mind. For instance, the Pacific Coast Highway is a popular option, as is the Overseas Highway in Florida. North Carolina is home to the Outer Banks Highway and of course the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana is incredibly scenic too. But amazing as that last road is, it turns out that it isn’t even the best drive in its own state. That honor goes to the Beartooth All American Road, a highway so beautiful, the late Charles Kuralt once called it “the most beautiful drive in America.”

Known locally as U.S. Highway 212, the Beartooth officially begins about an hours drive southwest of Billings in the small town of Red Lodge. From there, it winds up into the Absaroke Mountain Range, passing crystal clear lakes and over breathtaking vistas, while briefly drifting into, and out of, Wyoming, before descending into Cooke City, 69 miles farther down the road. At its highest point, the highway reaches 10,947 feet above sea level, well above the treeline and into the rarefied Montana air, where the views can take your breath away just as easily as the lack of oxygen.

To get the most out of the drive, you’ll want to start in Red Lodge, a small town with a lot to offer visitors. While there, you’ll want to drop by the Montana Candy Emporium to grab lots of tasty treats for the road and stop to stroll the same streets as such legendary old west figures as Calamity Jane, Butch and Sundance, and Buffalo Bill Cody. If you plan to stay in town, drop by the Pollard Hotel, which has been open since 1893 and offers incredibly comfortable and modern rooms.The more adventurous visitors will want to check out Beartooth Bike Tours, which offers a 14-mile ride, all down hill, along a winding stretch of the Beartooth Highway. It is a fun and exhilarating way to take in the scenery.After setting out from Red Lodge, you’ll begin a slow, but steady rise up into the mountains, before hitting the infamous Beartooth switchbacks that will see you gaining altitude at a much more accelerated rate. At the 21-mile mark the road climbs up to 9190 feet before arriving at Rock Creek Vista Point, a spectacular spot to stop and take photos. From that location, you will find magnificent views of the surrounding valleys that quickly plummet away from where you stand on the scenic overlook. Bring a very good camera though, as words can’t do the place justice and you’ll want to capture the sight for posterity. The views that stretch out in all directions are amongst the most picturesque you’ll find anywhere on the planet.

Continuing up the road you’ll pass a host of other places where you’ll want to stop for photo opportunities as well, including an amazing view of Hell Roaring Plateau, as well as a pair of mountain lakes surrounded by rocky rocky outcroppings. You’ll also swing past the famous Beartooth rock formation, from which the highway draws its name, and the Top of the World store, the local equivalent of the Kwiki-Mart.

After cresting the Beartooth Pass, the road begins a slow, but steady descent into Cooke City, a tiny mountain town that traces its origins back to the late 1800’s when gold miners flocked to the area seeking their fortune. This sleepy little village is home to just 90 people and is best accessed by snowmobile during the long winter months. This end of the Beartooth Highway is definitely more remote and rustic, offering up some great hiking, backpacking, and mountain biking trails during the summer and snowshoeing and cross-country skiing routes when the snow starts to fly. Outdoors enthusiasts will enjoy the fishing, hunting, and climbing as well, but be sure to turn off your cell phone when you arrive. You won’t have any kind of service anyway.

While in passing through Cooke City you’ll want to stop into the Cooke City Store, an old fashioned market that first opened in 1886. The building still uses a number of the original fixtures from the 1800’s, and the two old fashioned cash registers are a sight to see. Walking through the front door is a bit like stepping back in time, and while the merchandise may be modern, the service and hospitality is a throwback to a bygone era. Definitely a treat!

Once through Cooke City, there are only a few more miles left on the Beartooth Highway, but perhaps it saves its best secret for last. The road comes to an end at the little known, and seldom used, Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park, one of the crown jewels in the National Park System. So while you’re likely to be sad to leave the beautiful Beartooth Highway behind, you’ll have a host of new adventures awaiting you in the park, including even more beautiful landscapes and spectacular opportunities to spot wildlife too.

2011 marks the 75th anniversary of the Beartooth All American Higheway. It was first opened back in 1936 and has been wowing drivers ever since. If you plan to make the drive for yourself, you had better hurry though. It will only remain open for about another month or so before winter conditions force its closure until spring. Traditionally, the road reopens on Memorial Day weekend however, offering full access to all of its natural wonders once again.

Spotting wolves in Yellowstone

by Kraig Becker on

America’s first national park may still be its best when it comes to wildlife viewing. Yellowstone is home to the greatest concentration of animals in the lower 48 states, offering ample opportunities to see a wide variety of species, including elk, bison, sheep, and even bear, in their natural habitats. But the park is also home to a number of unique, and distinct, wolf packs as well, and visitors come from all over the world with the hope of catching a glimpse of these mysterious and elusive animals in the wild.

I recently traveled to the park myself, and had a rare opportunity to go wolf spotting with Ranger Rick McIntyre, a man who knows more about the wolves of Yellowstone than anyone else on the planet. McIntyre tirelessly tracks the various packs, not only recording their movement and feeding habits, but more intimate details such as changes in leadership, mating habits, and other behavioral patterns as well. In fact, he watches them so closely, he can usually identify the individual wolves by sight and give you a brief history of each animal too. McIntyre is a man who has dedicated his life to observing the wolves, and admits that he spends an average of 11 hours a day, seven days a week, in Yellowstone following the creatures that he loves so much. His dedication to the job runs so deep, that he hasn’t taken a single day off in over ten years.

Listening to Rick talk about the wolves is like listening to a master storyteller weaving an epic tale filled with passion, love, tragedy and triumph. He identifies the key players by their officially assigned numbers, but breathes life into the central characters, giving them motivations and desires to the extent that you’ll forget that you’re talking about wild animals instead of the Montagues and Capulets.

While spotting wolves can be a challenging and difficult affair, McIntyre makes it seem easy. It doesn’t hurt that he has the radio frequencies for the various tracking collars worn by a number of females in the various packs, not to mention the high tech gear used to detect the presence of those signals. While I was with him however, he wasn’t picking up much of a signal at all, picking up just very feint, and distant pings. But rather than give up and move on to another area of the park, he simply shrugged his shoulders, set up his powerful spotting scope, and aimed it at a distant hill. Peering through the powerful lens for a moment, and without adjusting it a single millimeter, he stood up and cheerfully asked “who wants to see a wolf?”
For the next 20 minutes or so, Rick, myself and several other travelers took turns watching members of the Blacktail Pack, so named because they live in the Blacktail Plateau region of Yellowstone, as they took shelter along a ridgeline. The wind was cold and biting that day, and for the most part, the wolves stayed low and huddled close to one another. At times however, a large, black wolf, which McIntyre identified as the beta female, would rise up and walk the perimeter, keeping a wary eye out for intruders. Even at the distance that we were watching them from, the profiles of the animals were distinct and unmistakable, and it was a sublime experience to catch them in their natural state while their biggest advocate in the park shared their secrets.

There was a time when wolves in the Yellowstone region were a common sight, but because the intelligent and well organized predators were so good at hunting their prey, they often ran afoul with local ranchers and other residents. It was not uncommon for wolves to kill cattle or sheep, which did little to endear them to the humans that they shared the landscape with. Because of this natural rivalry, wolves were generally shot on sight, and were eventually hunted to near extinction. By the early 20th century, they were a rare site in the American west, and completely non-existent in Yellowstone itself.

In 1995, 70 years after the last wolf has been spotted in the park, a controversial plan was announced to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone. Experts saw them as vital to managing the overall health of the park’s ecosystem, which had seen its elk herds grow to record numbers, unchecked by any natural predators. Meanwhile opponents to the plan feared that the wolves would wander out of the park and once again raid the livestock of ranchers. It turns out both parties were right, as the reintroduction of the wolves helped to thin the herds and make them stronger overall, but the number of run-ins between man and wolf also rose as well. The presence of the wolves in the region remains a point of contention, as ranchers along the Yellowstone perimeter, and beyond, would like to have the option of shooting the wolves that prey upon their livestock, something that isn’t possible while the creatures remain on the endangered species list.

For Rick McIntyre, and the other wolf specialists in Yellowstone, those political issues are off their radar. Their only concern is studying and managing the wolf packs under their care and ensuring that they continue to play their necessary role in keeping the park’s ecology healthy and strong. McIntyre wouldn’t comment on anything related to wolves that weren’t in the park, and deftly evaded the potential minefield that discussions of those predators inevitably bring. Instead, he prefers to focus on the wolves that he knows so very well, and sharing his insights into their lives.

Tracking the various wolf packs of Yellowstone is quite a job, as they are regularly on the move and prefer to stay well hidden from prying eyes. They all have their own territories however, which helps to define their locations to a degree, so if you are traveling through Yellowstone, it is worth the time and effort to see if you can spot them in the wild. Be sure to bring a good pair of binoculars or a spotting scope of your own, and checking in with any of the rangers in the park can usually offer valuable tips on the best spots to catch a glimpse of the creatures. Keep an eye out for the “wolfman” himself, Rick McIntyre, as he is usually driving a distinct yellow Nissan Xterra, and is always willing to offer great tips on where to look.

When it was established back in 1872, Yellowstone was the world’s first national park. Now, nearly 140 years later, it continues to offer a host of natural wonders for all of us to marvel at, including the wolf packs that have once again taken their rightful place amongst the wildlife there.

National parks are free again next weekend!

by Kraig Becker on

Next weekend, August 14-15, is the third, and final, fee free weekend in America’s national parks for 2010. For those two days, more than 100 of the parks will open their gates to the public at no cost, giving visitors a chance to experience “America’s best idea” for themselves.

The complete list of parks that will be waiving their entry fees can be found by clicking here. That list includes such spectacular icons as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Acadia, as well as lesser known, but no less amazing, parks like Big Bend, the Dry Tortugas, and Crater Lake. All told, more than 40 states are represented on the list, which means there is a national park or monument that will be free to visit next weekend near just about everyone in the U.S.

The fee free weekends have been very popular that past few years, and crowds in the parks will no doubt be high. But if you can’t make it out to your favorite national park on the 14th or 15th, never fear, as there are still two more fee free days to come in 2010. On Saturday, Sept. 25th, the parks will be free in celebration of Public Lands Day and then once again on Thursday, Nov. 11th, in honor of Veteran’s Day.

With summer quickly coming to a close, take advantage of this last fee free weekend of the year for some outdoor fun and adventure.

[Photo credit: National Park Service]

Yellowstone sets attendance record again

by Kraig Becker on

A month ago we were lauding Yellowstone National Park for setting a new attendance record for the month of June, when 694,000 people dropped by America’s oldest national park. It seems that Yellowstone’s allure didn’t diminish any in July either, as the park has set yet another record for visitors, this time shattering all previous records for any month.

According to the Park Service, more than 957,000 people visited Yellowstone last month, which is 60,000 more than in July of 2009. That number also marks the most visitors in any single month since the park first opened back in 1872. So far, 2010 has been a good year in general, as it is also the first time in the park’s history that it has recorded over 2 million visitors in the first seven months of any year.

This increased number of visitors has made for a very busy summer on the roads in Yellowstone, and the campsites and surrounding resorts have been sold out nearly every night too. This has, at times, caused delays in getting in and out of the area and has made booking a place to stay a bit of a challenge. Park officials recommend that you book your stay well in advance of your visit if you intend to camp anywhere near the place.

Visitors have had one thing to cheer about though, as they have been treated to some rare animal sightings throughout the summer. Park spokesperson Al Nash says “This has been an extraordinarily good year for wildlife viewing,”

It seems that economic conditions continue to fuel these increased attendance numbers in Yellowstone and other national parks. A lot of travelers are looking to keep their budgets at a modest level this year, and national parks offer a relatively good bargain for many. There has also been an increasing number of Americans that have been going outside more regularly in recent years, as hiking and camping have both become more popular activities as well.

[Photo credit: National Park Service]

Yellowstone visitors provoke bison, pay price

by Kraig Becker on

Earlier this week, it was reported by a number of sources, including the National Park Service themselves, that an unnamed woman and her friend were attacked by a bison in Yellowstone National Park. The story was that the pair were passing through a parking lot near Old Faithful when they wandered too close to a bison, who became agitated and attacked, slamming into the woman and sending her soaring end-over-end into the air. The woman and her friend, we were told, were lucky to walk away with minor injuries. But, as often is the case with these kinds of stories, there is more here than meets the eye.

It turns out that the woman in the story is 49-year old Kathy Hayes of Utah, and the man accompanying her was her brother-in-law. The two did indeed come across a bison, as the original tale went, but once the full video was released, it told another side of the story.

As you can see below in the video that comes our way courtesy of CNN, Hayes and her companion did spot a bison in the parking lot, and then proceeded to approach it on their own, getting as close as 10 yards. Park regulations prohibit visitors from coming within 25 yards of bison or elk for obvious reasons. (FYI: Safe distance for a bear or wolf is 100 yards.) While playing the video, watch very closely. On one of the close-ups of the bison, you can see that someone throws a stick at the animal, striking it in the hind quarters, which immediately sends it into an agitated state. The beast then turns on the two humans invading its turf, and the video becomes a mix of the Blair Witch Project meets Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as Hayes scrambles to get out of the way while still holding the camera, which dutifully goes on recording the proceedings.

After tossing her into the air like a rag doll, the bison does wander off and leaves Hayes and her companion alone. She ended up suffering just some severe bumps and bruises, but is honestly lucky to have come away alive. Her brother-in-law wasn’t quite so lucky however, as he ended up suffering a broken shoulder, as well as injuries to his hand and foot, but as the park service press release stated “He was not injured by the bison.” In other words, he hurt himself while scrambling to get out of the way of the creature he provoked.

Where I come from, that’s known as Karma.

[Photo credit: J. Schmidt]