Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The paved highway is open year-round from Cody to the Beartooth Hwy, though not as
far as Cooke City. The Beartooth Hwy itself is closed mid-October to late May. Fall colors
are particularly lovely here.
The 47-mile Chief Joseph Scenic Hwy starts 16 miles north of Cody, enters the Shos-
hone National Forest after 8 miles and climbs to a spectacular viewpoint at Dead Indian
Pass (8048ft). Indians used to ambush game that migrated through the pass between sum-
mer mountain pastures and winter ranges down in the plains. The pass is named for a Ban-
nock Indian killed here in skirmishes with the army in 1878.
As you descend from the pass, just 0.3 miles before Dead Indian Campground, a dirt
road leads a couple of hundred yards to a trailhead parking lot that offers an excellent
short hike to view the 1200ft deep Clarks Fork Canyon . The trail leads north for 2 miles
to a scenic overlook; watch for cairns marking the spot shortly after you first see the
gorge. The views of the 1200ft granite gorge and Dead Indian Creek waterfall are
breathtaking. The canyon effectively separates the 50-million-year-old volcanic rock of
the Absaroka Range from the two-billion-year-old granite of the Beartooth Plateau. The
trail continues for another 3 miles right down to the canyon floor, but the 700ft descent
and then ascent makes for a considerably more strenuous hike.
Back on the road, USFS Rd 101 branches southwest into the beautiful Sunlight Basin ,
whose upper branches end at a wall of peaks forming the remote eastern boundary of Yel-
lowstone National Park. Writer Ernest Hemingway spent time grizzly hunting here in the
1930s and wrote an article on the subject for Vogue magazine.
Where Hwy 296 crosses Sunlight Creek is the terrific Sunlight Bridge , the highest in
Wyoming. You can park and walk across the bridge for hair-raising views into the gorge
(acrophobes beware!), though better overviews can be had 0.5 miles north on the high-
way.
Just north of Crandall Creek (named after a pioneer miner who was beheaded by Amer-
ican Indians), around Swamp Lake, are six scenic ponds where you might spot sandhill
cranes and trumpeter swans.
Hwy 296 continues northwest to the crossbar junction of US 212, where the Beartooth
Hwy leads northwest to Cooke City and Yellowstone Park or northeast to Red Lodge and
Billings.
Sleeping
Shoshone National Forest has the following three simple campgrounds near the Beartooth
Hwy. Contact the Clarks Fork Ranger District (
307-527-6921; www.fs.fed.us/r2/
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