An Orphaned Highway

Beartooth Highway Barely Opens

By Lucia Stewart, 5-25-07

Although the Beartooth Highway is considered one of the most spectacular and breathtaking stretches of highways in the United States, it is an orphan road with no one taking responsibility of its maintenance and snowplowing.

After it was completed in 1934 under a one-time federal program, no one was given ownership.

Opening the pass by Memorial Day has been a longstanding practice, although its need of extensive snowplowing starting six weeks prior can have quite a price tag as it is the highest elevated highway in the Northern Rockies.

Update 6/11/07: Senate passed a bill that will provide $1.6 million for plowing and $10.4 million for repairs in federal highway dollars to be used for Beartooth Highway over the next 4 years.

It reaches 10,350 feet in Montana and 10,947 feet in Wyoming winding through the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains in open alpine plateaus laden with glacial lakes, waterfalls and wildlife.

It is a cause for celebration in Red Lodge, Cooke City and Cody since the Beartooth Highway opening is the beginning of their summer tourist seasons.

Montana Department of Transportation has always maintained the stretch from Red Lodge to the Wyoming border, while the National Park Service has maintained the 43-miles of road from Yellowstone’s Northeast Entrance, which came out of the park’s operating budget.

But starting in 1997, much of the Wyoming-sides $500,000 maintenance and plowing funding came from a settlement with the Crown Butte Mines — but the settlement ran out last year.

It was unclear in March if the highway was going to be open by Memorial Day, but Yellowstone National Park footed the bill this year but is unsure if it will do so in 2008 since it cuts into other road projects inside Yellowstone

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