Rapid City, SD, to Boseman, MT, with a major detour

This is a road trip that almost didn’t happen. Steve’s nephew is getting married in Puyallup, WA, a week from Saturday. The plan was to put Mom on a plane to Seattle Monday and keep on driving, taking our time to enjoy the sights along the way. Then Mom went in the hospital for three days. She improved immediately, but the doctor didn’t want her to go so far from home. Immediately we made alternate plans, hoping she could fly out in time for the wedding. But then in her follow up visit, another doctor said, “All the tests came back normal. Go for it! Live your life!” So we reverted to plan A.

So Monday (after putting Mom on the plane) we got as far as Rapid City, SD, looking regretfully at the turn offs for the Badlands and the Black Hills. We’ve done those before. Multiple times. And loved them, but this trip we are going for some new places.

 

Tuesday morning we got as far as Billings, MT, where we stopped at a rest area. Steve was looking at the map, (we love maps!) and remembering how cool the drive over Beartooth Pass is. So much for new places. “We’ve got plenty of time today," he said. "We could go over the pass and down to Yellowstone, cross over the top of the park here” (pointing at the map) "and come back up US89 to Boseman where we have a hotel reservation.” Sounded good to me.

 

The road over the pass is spectacular with lots of hairpin turns to the top.

Still some snow fields in spots.

 

There was some kind of sign about a barrier ahead, but we didn’t see it in time to actually read what it said. We’ll just turn back when we get to the barrier, we said. But the road kept going.

 

June floods caused a lot of washout. We saw lots of freshly asphalted bits. Then we came to a place where there was only one lane and we had to wait (as much as 30 minutes according to the sign) and take turns following a pilot vehicle. 

Fortunately, our wait was right by Beartooth Lake, so I jumped out to walk and take pictures. I figured the cars from the other direction would give me plenty of warning to get back to our car.

 

We stopped and hiked to the top of this waterfall.

 

More curves on the way down the south side of the range.

Then we got to the Yellowstone Gate. Uh oh. Closed. I guess some of those roads washed out in June are still not open in September. Whoops. Four hours is a long way to retreat. And we saw a sign that Beartooth Pass was closed 7PM to 7AM. Not sure we could make it in time.

 

We had seen a turn off for Cody, WY, a ways back. It went south and back east. Well out of our way, but we didn’t have a lot of choices. So we took it. Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, the sign called it. It wasn’t in our scenic highways and byways book, but certainly deserved to be. By this time we were worried about how late we would reach Boseman. No stops. No pictures. But lots of switchbacks and fabulous views. I definitely want to go back—when we aren’t pressured to move so fast.

GPS would have been nice while we were trying to figure out the best route out, but the mountains were too remote. No signal. We hit another of those places where we had to wait our turn to go through a road work area. This one was a lot earlier in the repair process. If it had still been washed out, we would have been trapped!

But eventually, we reached the main road to Cody from the north. GPS worked! It sent us back to I-90 a few miles west of where we left it in the morning. We actually made it to Boseman before 9 PM, having turned a 6 1/2-hour day into a 13-hour day. But what a spectacular day!