Grand Teton, Yellowstone and the Beartooth Highway

Route description

From Jackson, US-191 runs north through Grand Teton National Park with the Teton Range rising to the west. Stop at Oxbow Bend near Moran, where Mount Moran is reflected in a still bend of the Snake River and moose and otters are most active at dawn. The road then follows the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway to Yellowstone’s south entrance.

Old Faithful erupts roughly every 60 to 110 minutes, and rangers post the predicted time in the visitor center, so you can explore the 1904 Old Faithful Inn, with its seven-story log lobby, while you wait and watch from its porch. A few miles north, Grand Prismatic Spring is best seen from the overlook on the Fairy Falls trail, where its orange and yellow rings show clearly. Madison Campground, beside the Madison River, is a central base for geyser country, with bison and elk wandering through camp.

Leave the park across the Lamar Valley, often good for bison and wolves, and exit at the northeast entrance near Cooke City. US-212 then climbs a series of switchbacks to Beartooth Pass at 10,947 feet, where snow walls can line the road into July, before dropping to Red Lodge, Montana. The Beartooth Highway is usually open only from late May to mid-October and can close at short notice in bad weather, and Yellowstone’s campgrounds and lodges book up months ahead for summer.