8/9 Red Lodge and Beartooth Pass

With our camp being so close, we decided to venture east over Beartooth Pass. It was a magnificent drive and well worth the time. Very reminiscent of some of Colorado’s high mountain passes with alpine terrain, switchbacks galore, and 360 degree views that never seemed to end. We did a drive through of Red Lodge on the other side (the downtown shops looked cute, but way too crowded for our comfort level), so we washed all the dust and bugs off the car, then drove back over more slowly this time stopping in a few pullouts for lunch and short waterfall walks.

8/10 Last day in Yellowstone

Our final venture into the park was to hike near Petrified Tree. On the way there we stopped in Lamar Valley where three of us spotted a wolf through the binoculars! Several bison traffic jams also occurred en route. Again, this area was sparsely populated thanks (likely) to nearby road closures and a lack of many amenities in this part of the park. We welcomed those conditions and set to a long hike. After Lost Lake and deciding on a fork to take to make a loop we made our choice and marched on the easy flat terrain, after awhile I kept looking down at all the horse manure on the trail and thinking how lovely it would be to ride a horse in this particular area, it was easy going and we only saw one other person in this whole area. In no time at all we saw a corral full of horses, likely enjoying their summer break sans everyday tourist riders. We ate a snack at the completely abandoned Roosevelt lodge and cabin area, then went to find the remaining part of our trail loop. Upon further inspection of the map, we discovered we had been on the horse trail and not the regular hiking trial for the whole first half of the day. No harm, no foul, just added a couple more miles than we had originally anticipated. The climb back up was entirely different than the easy horse trail side with lots of steep switchbacks and all uphill. We were pooped! After the very full day we went back to camp to shower off the dust and sweat, and back into Cooke City for dinner at an Asian fusion place that was absolutely delicious. I’ll say it one more time, camping on this side of Yellowstone was so much more our flavor of camping from the hiking options to the elevation to the scenery, we are so glad we went back for this section so we could leave it with a better impression than the first go around.