Views of Pilot and Index Peaks along the Beartooth Highway / NPS

The Beartooth Highway, U.S. Route 212, is a 68-mile drive that climbs more than 5,000 feet in elevation and snakes through mountain passes between Cooke City and Red Lodge, Montana, with a dip into northern Wyoming. Reporter Charles Kuralt once called it "the most beautiful drive in America," (though one wonders if he ever drove parts of U.S. 395 along the Eastern Sierra). Cooke City is near the Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park. At one point, the road crosses the 45th parallel, the exact halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. It's a special place. 

The Beartooth Highway passes through parts of Custer, Shoshone, and Gallatin national forests, and skirts portions of the Absaroka–Beartooth Wilderness. Though it doesn't cross through national parks, and isn't it's own national park unit, like The Blue Ridge Parkway, the road is maintained by the National Park Service. 

The high point of the drive is 10,947-foot Beartooth Path, which, at that latitude, can see ferocious, unexpected storms including snow even in the height of summer. The road closes for the season each year in early fall, and this year, closing date is October 15. Your last chance to drive the road for the season is October 14. 

It will reopen in spring, when weather permits.