The Beartooth Highway along the Montana-Wyoming border has been on my bucket list for a few years because of the reported spectacular alpine. It’s also just about the most accessible place to find the Black Rosy-Finch on its summer grounds. We started Day 8 in Red Lodge, MT at daybreak; the landscape was astounding.

We saw our first Black Rosy-Finch just before we crossed over the border from Montana to Wyoming, and heard several more in Wyoming to give us two more states in which we’ve seen this species otherwise limited in summer to the alpine regions from eastern Oregon to the Beartooth Mnts. Previously, we had heard these finches on a road trip to Steens Man., OR in 2020.

I think we took more photos on the Beartooth Highway than anywhere else on the roadtrip…

Once back into the forest on the Beartooth Hwy we came upon yet another historical marker, this one for where the highway intersected with the escape route of the Nez Perce in 1877. Led by Chief Joseph, the group of Nez Perce, who refused to move to the reservation, attempted to escape to Canada. However, they were finally forced to surrender at the Bear Paw Battlefield, just short of the Canadian Border. We were able to visit the Bear Paw on our Roadtrip 2023.

“For three months the members of the Nez Perce non-treaty bands had been constantly on the move evading the military. Scouts ranged in front and guarded behind the traveling village of mostly children, women and old people, as they sought safety and the hope of peace in Canada with Sitting Bull’s band of Sioux. Guided for a time by a white miner captured at Yellowstone Lake, the Nez Perce now followed an obscure path over the Absaroka divide.

When General Howard’s command passed through Cooke City, they found miners barricaded and ready to repulse an attack. But the Nez Perce had by-passed the area, traveling along a drainage south of here. The Army then proceeded over Colter Pass and found the abandoned Nez Perce camp at Crandall Creek. From here history swept Nez Perce and army troops across the Yellowstone River and north to the Bear Paws Mountains and the final battle of the war.”

Yellowstone NP

We entered Yellowstone from the Beartooth Hwy at the northeastern entrance. However, encountering crowds and hordes, we zipped through the park not bothering with the signature stops. While driving through a burn area we did pick up a Black-backed Woodpecker flying across the road.

Leaving the bear and the people behind we headed for our stay for the night along Hebgen Lake, West Yellowstone. Tomorrow, last full day of roadtrip, Earthquake Lake and Virginia City.