If you never have you really should take a trip up the Beartooth highway sometime. Beartooth Highway - Scenic Mountain Drive
Nice drive. Exciting for flatlanders. It gets up to 10,947 feet at the top. You start in Red Lodge and then head up the mountain into Cooke City.
Another way to go is to hike up to Lake Sioux Charlie and then keep walking for 30 or 40 miles until you get to Cooke City. I did that one time in my younger days. Rode my bicycle from Columbus (about 40 miles away from the Woodbine Campground where the trailhead starts) and then walked through the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area to Cooke City.
Woodbine Campground
Saw some grizzly tracks. Lots of pretty wild flowers. Figured out that macaroni and cheese mixed with sardines doesn't taste too good even if you are really hungry....maybe that was another trip come to think of it.
You can be in Cooke City on the 4th of July and you might see some snow. It's a fun place to drive to. When it got real hot in Montana we used to head up the mountain to take advantage of the temperature lapse rate and cool off.
From what I gather the temperature decreases somewhere around 3 to 5 degrees F per 1000 feet of altitude gain. So if I started out in Columbus at 3600 feet and it was 100 degrees F, and drove to the top of the Cooke City Highway it might be 21 to 35 degrees cooler......ahhhhhh that feels good.
Lapse Rate
You can enter Yellowstone Park through Cooke City (in the summer time). You would need a snowmachine in the winter to get up that road.
Doug Brown used to run up the Cooke City Highway to get in shape for cross country running. Whoaaa dude. I found his named mentioned in an archived article from the Missoulian. The article says, "In addition to Ford, Montana's only previous men's cross country All-Americans were Doug Brown (1966), Ken Velesquez (1985) and Frank Horn (1986)."
I knew his brother Tommy Brown...he flew airplanes. He died in a crash of his Stearman bi-plane in the 60's. Funny guy, had a love for life. Road a Honda 90 from Montana to Missippi to pick up an airplane one time.
With that I think I'll call it a night. It's 2 am...last call.
You all drive careful.
