The annual effort to clear the 64-mile Beartooth Highway of mountains of snow is underway, which is a huge undertaking with up to 15-foot snowdrifts even after a less-snowy-than-normal season like this past winter.
That warm winter also doesn’t mean the scenic highway that connects Wyoming with Montana will open any sooner. It’s still scheduled for its usual Memorial Day weekend opening.
The Montana Department of Transportation (MDOT) started plowing snow off the first stretch of U.S. Highway 212 from Red Lodge, Montana, on Tuesday.
Walt Houghton, maintenance chief of MDOT’s Billings office, said the crew is making good progress and expects to reach Vista Point, 20 miles from Red Lodge, on Monday.
“It’s going really well,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “We’ve got around seven guys up there, leveling the snowdrifts and blowing or scooping the snow off the highway, and they’re cruising right along.”
One might be tempted to say MDOT is ahead of schedule. However, there is no such thing as being ahead of schedule on the Beartooth Highway.
“We will not be opening any earlier than Memorial Day weekend,” Houghton said. “There are quite a few other projects and stuff that we need to do to make sure everything's good and spit-shined for this opening this year. May 22 is a hard-set date.”
Onward And Upward
Every spring, MDOT clears the 24.5-mile stretch of the Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge to the Wyoming state line. The National Park Service (NPS) covers the remaining 39.5 miles from the state line, through Wyoming, and into Cooke City, Montana.
“Our snow cat is usually in the lead,” Houghton said. “The operator is leveling the snow drifts to where it can be handled by either the motor patrols coming through with snow wedges or the loaders scooping up and dumping the snow into ditches or over the side.”
Snowblowers aren’t used until MDOT reaches Vista Point. Houghton said there are usually too many rocks on the steep slopes and tight corners.
“Once we get past Vista Point, we can fire up our blowers, and it’s the same operation,” he said. “The snow cat will level the snow drifts down to where the blower can blow them over the side.”
It’s a highly organized operation, much like the NPS’s annual effort to clear Yellowstone’s interior roads. Clearing the Beartooth Highway is the last phase of the effort, which typically won't begin until early May.
Less Than Normal
The Beartooth Highway is one of the highest paved roads in North America, reaching an elevation of 10,947 feet at its highest point. At that elevation, the mountain pass receives heavy snowfall every winter.
However, the signs of the abnormally warm, dry winter across the Rocky Mountain region are evident on the Beartooth Highway. Houghton said MDOT’s crews are moving faster than usual because the snow drifts are noticeably smaller than usual.
“It’s a little less than the normal years,” he said. “SNOWTEL sites say we’re at about 80% snowpack on the pass. It’s nice to see a lot of snow up there, but it’s a little less than a good year.”
Houghton said most of the snow drifts his crew has encountered are between 5 and 6 feet tall, with some spots as high as 15 feet. That’s a lot of snow, but the snow can get upward of 25 feet deep during a good year.
MDOT is preparing to make the most of the comparatively smaller amount of snow. That, said Houghton, is “about the only benefit” of a below-average snowpack.
“If there's less snow, we're able to move quicker, but it definitely would be nice to see a little bit more snow up there,” he said.
Work To Do
Clearing the snow off the Beartooth Highway is a major task to get the highway open for the summer season. Once that’s finished, MDOT has several repair and removal projects it needs to undertake.
“This year, we'll have time to go back and do a lot of that work that we've been meaning to do,” Houghton said. “We have guardrail to fix, asphalt patching to do, and striping that needs to be done.”
Every year before the Beartooth Highway becomes impassable, MDOT removes the guardrails in problematic areas. One of the agency's annual tasks is to replace that guardrail before the official reopening.
“We've got certain snow chutes where we know snow is going to come down during the closed season,” Houghton said. “When we close in October, we take that guardrail down so the snow can have a path to come down the mountain without any damage.
"They'll put that guardrail back up before we open.”
Other necessary tasks include in-depth clearing of ditches and culverts, and the removal of large rocks that have fallen onto the highway during the winter. Every sign will be evaluated for wind, snow, or rock damage and replaced if needed.
As Houghton said, “the only benefit” of the faster-than-normal snow removal is that MDOT will have more time to accomplish these tasks.
“We've got a couple of areas back down toward the canyon that we're going to patch this year from the floods in 2022,” Houghton said. “We’re going to put a cap on that and be able to do all that stuff this year.”
Yes, We’re ‘Open'
The Beartooth Highway traditionally opens on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. In 2026, that’ll be May 22.
However, just because the Beartooth Highway is open doesn’t mean it’ll be open. Conditions can change quickly at 10,000 feet, even at the peak of summer.
In 2024, a snowstorm dumped 2 feet of snow on the Beartooth Highway the day before it was supposed to open. It took another week to clear the snow and complete repairs to rock fencing.
Even when the highway is open, MDOT still has some scheduled maintenance to perform. Houghton said MDOT will be doing “rock runs” every morning for at least a month after the Memorial Day weekend opening.
“We've got a 2-ton pickup with a snowplow on the front that we run up the highway every morning, even on the weekends,” he said. “We check the road and plow off any rocks and snow that’s come down.”
Houghton recommends that anyone eager to explore the Beartooth Highway when it opens should have extra clothes, food, and water. There’s always a risk that tourists and locals could be caught in a late-season snowstorm or be cut off by a rockslide.
In those instances, MDOT’s crews will clear the hazard as soon as they can. That’s part of the risk and thrill of a drive along the Beartooth Highway.
“The weather can change at a moment’s notice,” Houghton said. “It can get interesting up there on pretty short notice, which is something to be prepared for.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
