I am really getting excited about our forthcoming trip (only 4 weeks to go!). It was suggested on Fodors previously that we should split our two nights travelling from RC to Yellowstone. As we want to drive the Beartooth HW where would we be best considering looking for stops to allow for plenty of time driving the Beartooth and into YS where we will be staying at Roosevelt cabins for our first two nights? As I understand it we should allow approx 4 hours to drive the Beartooth so probably would need a reasonably early start.

All suggestions welcome

There's a lot to do on the way to Yellowstone. Did you plan a stop at Devil's Tower National Monument? You will also pass right by the Little Big Horn National Battlefield National Monument in Montana.

Sheridan, WY might be a little to soon to stop at 275 miles. Billings, Montana would work if you got a really early start that morning because with Devil's Tower it's 405 miles. Both include a detour to Devil's Tower. The Devil's Tower detour adds 30 miles.

Utahtea

Devil's Tower definitely recommended, worth the detour. Take time to stop at the prairie dog village for a few minutes, fun to watch these little critters. Lots of wide open spaces on this drive out of SD through Wyoming.

Thanks utahtea and texasjo. Devil's Tower is on my "to see" list and also love the idea of seeing the prairie dog village.

Can you suggest how we might break up our two nights accommodation? We thought we would leave it open but am not sure just where would be the best place to overnight to make the most of our time.

Once again thanks for your advice.

If you are going to consider stops at Devils Tower NM and the Little Big Horn National Battlefield the little town of Hardin MT is close by. From there you can make the Beartooth and Yellowstone the next day.


http://mms.nps.gov/libi/libicam1.jpg

Thanks for your reply RedRock. That should suit us fine. I wasn't sure just where we should consider staying so that we don't have too far to go on our last lap before Yellowstone.

Have just had a look at webcam pic. Hope weather is clearer when we get there!!

If you have more time there is one more stop that could be made.... Pompeys Pillar NM. Its the only place that they have proof of Lewis and Clark having stopped on their journey to the Ocean. There is a cut off from I90 or Old US87 that will lead you north to it. Its Co Road 30/Fly Creek Rd just the the west of Hardin.. The NM is just off I94 along the Yellowstone River.

http://www.pompeyspillar.org/about.html

If there is any way you can work in the Route 14/14A loop in Northern Wyoming/Southern Montana (east of Cody) do it! It is the Bighorn Canyon & it is stunning!

Ill second the Canyon, ifs theirs time. There is a new visitors Center in Lovell on the east side of town at the 14A/310 split.

http://www.nps.gov/bica/

laurib_nyny and RedRock thanks for your helpful suggestions. We have had the map out this evening and think that it may be feasible to fit in Bighorn Canyon and Pompeys Pillar NM. We hadn't heard of Lewis & Clark (we are just ignorant Brits after all!!) but have read up about them and there are a couple of books on Amazon that I think would be interesting.

It is certainly making our trip more and more enticing!

Thanks once again.

PS laurieb_nyny - sorry for mis-spelling your user name!!

Hi Dotty6. We had a different route in/out of Yellowstone so I'm not able to help on overnight suggestions. We entered YS at South entrance after the Tetons. We spent 3 days in the park and then exited at East entrance toward Cody. Took 14/14A from Cody to Sheridan and then I-90 to SD. The scenery from East gate all the way thru the Big Horns is gorgeous. The Beartooth was already closed (there in Oct) so that was not an option and we chose not to detour to take in Little Big Horn but rather spend more time in the Black Hills. We only spent one night enroute (at Gillette WY). It will be out of the way to drive 14A if you are going to Little Big Horn and over to drive Beartooth from the north into the park. Hope you can work it out. The hardest part of planning any trip to me is making those difficult choices!!

While in SD, we stayed in Deadwood and it is such a pretty little town, very historic from the old west. After Mount Rushmore (and maybe Crazy Horse), you can make a loop (US 385--very scenic) up to Deadwood and then back to Rapid City. There is a scenic bypass near Spearfish also that is a very nice drive.

And just to clarify, the prairie dog village is part of Devil's Tower, "on-the-grounds" as you drive the road up to the tower. You can't miss it.

Lovely Country you come from. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of years there back in the 60's.

One more place to visit of you are going to work in the BH Canyon and take 14A over the mountains. You will simply love the 14 mile 10% grade on the west side of the Bighorns. If you would like about a mile hike stop at the Medicine Wheel located on Medicine Mountain.

http://www.crystalinks.com/bighorn.html

Thanks texasjo for your very helpful info. You are right, it is so hard to make decisions when there is such a lot to see and do! We will only have one full day in Rapid City (two nights, but we don't arrive til late the first night) and there is so much I would like to see there. We maybe should have stayed an extra night there but when making our original plans we thought two nights would be best travelling on to Yellowstone so that we are not pushing it too much.

Thanks as ever RedRock for your help and very useful links. I have so much buzzing around in my head trying to decide what will work without us rushing about like headless chickens!!

You say you lived over here in the 60s - where were you based. We are from the Wirral, which is a peninsula across the River Mersey from Liverpool.

Not too sure if this will help but I found a website that may be of some help. It's www.happymedian.com
All you do is enter the starting & ending towns it finds towns inbetween and from there you can find meeting places like restaurants, hotels & coffee shops, etc...let me know how you make out!

Thanks hbkbncatgirl - that is great! It will be very useful. I have been checking up on our routes so that we know approx where it will be convenient to stop and the fact that they list restaurants/diners as well is fantastic.

Once again, thanks for your help.

Hi there. Just looking for links to help with our trip from Denver through Rapid City to Yellowstone and beyond. We haven't booked any overnight stops as we were just going to stop as and when depending on if we wanted to stay in a place more than 1 night. Is it easy to do this or did you prebook all your overnight stops. Assuming you are back from your trip-hope you had an excellent stay. PS I'm originally from Manchester.

Hi Jinnysue nice to hear from a Northern lass! Well, I did put a trip report on here but it seems to have got lost somewhere! We had a major hiccup to the start of our holiday. We were delayed 12 hours in Manchester and missed our connection to Rapid City. We were told we had no chance of getting a stand by seat and there were no seats available on any flight for a further two days! To cut a long story short, we decided to drive from Chicago as we were concerned we would lose our booking in Yellowstone. We had booked what sounded like a lovely b&b in Rapid City (Sweetgrass Inn) but obviously were unable to keep our booking. We ended up just driving as far as we could in the four days it took to get to Yellowstone.

We made our first stop in Iowa at Rock Island (Best Western) which was fine. We did manage to get to see Mount Rushmore (though could only spare an hour - probably enough though!).

Can't really help with other places between Rapid City & Yellowstone as the only other stop we made was at a Days Inn in Billings - again just OK.

When are you going, for how long and where do you plan to go after Yellowstone? I presume you have made your bookings for Yellowstone already.

We booked most of our overnight stops but did leave a few open for flexibility.

We can thoroughly recommend a b&b if you intend stopping in Moab. It is Cali Cochitta and was recommended by another Fodorite. We had a wonderful three night stay here and just wished we could have stayed longer.

We did have a wonderful trip after we got over the stress of missing our connection and did our best to make the most of things, though we were bitterly disappointed at not staying in Rapid City. We had so many things we wanted to see.

I look forward to hearing more about your planned trip.

PS - have just read your original posting. I see you are booked for September and plan for 14 days. We had 17 days - in hindsight we would not do as much as we planned. I note someone else advised you that you might be best containing your trip. Like myself, you probably feel that you are going a long way and obviously want to see and do as much as you can. We did have more driving at the start of our holiday anyway, due to the unforeseen circumstances, but even so, we did spend an awful lot of driving time during the rest of our planned trip.

We had two nights at Roosevelt in Yellowstone and a further night at Old Faithful Lodge. Roosevelt was rustic but clean and bigger than expected. The showers and toilet facilities were fine and we managed OK for the two nights (not sure I would like to have to have spent any longer without a bathroom!). Old Faithful Lodge was brilliant. We had a lovely room, which was literally a minute from Old Faithful. I really think you need at least three days in Yellowstone. We would like to have had another night at least, though we did manage to do the whole figure of eight drive around the Park and saw lots of animals. There is such a lot to see there.

We then went on to Jackson and stayed at the Ranch Inn. We had a Tower Room - 3rd floor - which was brilliant. Absolutely huge room with two vanity basins and a small balcony. It was extremely convenient just a block or so from downtown.

Will try and find my trip report posting and copy it onto here to see if this is helpful to you.

Hope you enjoy your trip as much as we enjoyed ours.

PPS Jinnysue - just realised, if you click on my screen name you will be able to read my trip report under the heading "What a start to our trip out West - Yellowstone trip report".

I know I found it extremely useful being able to read what others recommended or suggested when planning our trip.