The Crazy Mountains: Part 7
We returned home the evening of Tuesday, September 24 and were greeted with the unsavory news that a blizzard of epic proportions was storming down from Canada and would hit the very area that we had just visited less than thirty-six hours before. Along with it, the eastern flank of Glacier National Park was clearly in the headlights of this massive late-September (yes you read that correctly, September) winter storm front. Gale-force winds were being projected along the Rocky Mountain Front, with winds expected in the neighborhood of 40-50 miles per hour and gusts up to 70-80 mph.
Our good friend Becky was due to arrive, the next day, from Tennessee and we were going to traverse this area on Thursday, the 26th of September. That would have put us smack dab in the middle of those extremely strong winds, with them hitting us on our flank. Being in a vehicle that could possibly be blown over on its side while traveling at 50-60 miles per hour was not something any of us wanted to do.
And then of course, was the fact that meteorologists were calling for up to four feet of snow starting the day after that. As it turned out, Becky wasn’t able to make her Wednesday flight, so she didn’t arrive until Thursday morning. We had already cancelled our plans for visiting Glacier National Park, and as it turned out, we had to scrub Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks as well.
Not wanting to waste any time in regard to seeing God’s natural treasures, we took Becky part way up the Beartooth Highway on Thursday afternoon after she had unloaded her luggage at our apartment. The bad weather had not reached that far south, nor did it, really cause much of a problem in Billings during Becky’s stay with us.
The thing that’s really good about the Beartooth Mountains are that you can reach them in a little over an hour from where we live. In fact, on a clear day, they rise up majestically upon the western skyline from Billings. When we left home, we knew we would not be able to travel the entire 63 miles from Red Lodge to Cooke City, as just the day before, the Wyoming Department of Transportation had closed the road, for the winter, at the state line. That left out some of the highest and most spectacular parts of the drive, but there was still plenty to see. It was partly cloudy, but still plenty of sun to go with the strong winds that will always be a part of that particular drive.
The second day of Becky’s vacation, however, was the portion that we drove around the Crazy Mountains. My photographs are from this day’s journey, on Friday, September 27, 2019.
