The Yellowstone River starts in the high country in Yellowstone National Park, flows north through Paradise Valley through Livingston and then east and northeast to its confluence with the Missouri River near the North Dakota border.  One of its claims to fame is being the longest undammed river in the U.S., although some of its tributaries like the Bighorn River do have dams.  Interstates 90 and 94 follow the river valley and cross it several times, so it’s not exactly a wilderness river for most of its length through the state.

I’ve traveled the route several times over the years but never stopped and got off the highway, and there’s really no alternative route through the area.  This time I stopped in a few small towns, though, like Big Timber, seat of Sweet Grass County, and Stillwater, seat of Sweetwater County.  Just to the southeast of the Crazy Mountains, one of the highest ranges in Montana, Big Timber has a particularly Old West feel about it.  As it was Mother’s Day, I considered the extensive buffet at the Grand Hotel, but decided to be good and limit my feeding because trimming down is still a goal.   I settled for a Herder’s Burger (lamb with tzatziki sauce) across the street at the Big Timber Bar, an old west style saloon that also serves food.

Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Park lies just a few miles to the east of Big Timber, a small parcel of land dedicated to leaving the little varmints to live in peace, considered a pest through most of their range because of the hazard the holes they dig pose to cattle. I didn’t see any warnings here but always heard in Colorado it’s best not to get to close to them because (despite being cute) the fleas that live among them potentially carry plague.  And that wouldn’t be fun to get!

Columbus is another town with a rather distinctive looking line of western-looking buildings across from the railroad tracks and station. One of the things I like about Montana, probably because of the openness of the landscape, is watching the trains go by, overwhelmingly freight cars carrying oil, coal, or other ore, but still rather romantic images of an earlier more industrial era. Passenger trains in Europe or around northeastern U.S. cities don’t have the same effect on me.

The road south from Columbus to Red Lodge through Absarokee becomes ever more scenic as it skirts the stunning Beartooth Mountains first in a river valley with impressive barns and ranches and then over undulating rangeland at the base of the range. It all looks like something out of 20^th century Hollywood western movie.