WESTIVA X... Three weeks and counting

For those of you traveling to Westiva from the south I would like to share one of my favorite local drives. I wrote about some of this route a few years ago but it bears repeating.

It starts at the intersection of Alberta Highways 3 & 22 reached from the west through Fernie and the the Crowsnest Pass and from the east through Fort MacLeod and past Pincher Creek. From there the route takes you north along the Cowboy Trail to Longview, west to Highwood House and then north again over the Highwood Pass to Wedge Pond.



The first leg up to Longview takes you over 110km of rolling, meandering two lane blacktop through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Another trip to add to the bucket list

While looking over some more road trip articles I came across another stretch of highway to add to the bucket list that's not too far from home. The Beartooth Highway is a stretch of US Highway 212 that runs from Red Lodge MT through the Absaroka-Beartooth National Wilderness, reaching elevations nearing 3350m (11,000ft), to Cooke City MT and the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Charles Kuralt called this the most beautiful highway in America. It even has its own website which features a 20 minute video.

From the Visit Yellowstone County website

Red Lodge is about nine hours south of our home in Calgary. It would be quite the trip if we first headed directly for the Beartooth and then made our return trip up through the Going To The Sun Highway and southern Alberta's Cowboy Trail both of which I've written about in earlier posts. This makes for a 2300km (1400mile) round trip. 

I'll close this post off with another Charles Kuralt quote:

"Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything."

Here's to backroads and less traveled routes! If you've driven the Beartooth please leave a comment!