Monday, July 2, 2012

Red Lodge & Dollar Lake

The Beartooth Scenic Highway east of here is not recommended for RV's longer than 40' so technically we could have driven ours over the pass but upon advice from several other RVers we elected to drive to Red Lodge on Hwy 212 in the Jeep. It was a beautiful drive. The snow on the mountain peaks glistened in the sun, the meadows were green, lush and full of wild flowers and every once in a while we would spot some wild life such as deer, mountain goats and marmots. It was pretty steep and had some narrow switchbacks which made us happy to be in the Jeep. The east side of the pass was not as pretty but it was more rugged.

7/2/12 7/2/12 7/2/12

We drove into Red Lodge about 11 AM and discovered that they were preparing for a July 4th parade at noon. They have one each day of the July 2, 3, and 4 Rodeo. So we quickly explored the down town area, found a nice place for lunch on a patio and watched the parade while eating. It was a lovely day for a parade! Would you believe that over 1/2 of the entries were horses?


7/2/12 7/2/12

On the return trip we stopped at a trailhead and hiked for about an hour and a half. We followed a road then took off across what looked like a lovely field towards Dollar Lake. The field turned out to be mostly water and mud! The snow was still melting up hill from the lake and draining down across the field. We crossed hummocks and rocks to stay out of water, jumped across small streamlets and got our feet wet a couple of times. Needless to say, we did not make it to the lake, it was just plain too wet.

No comments: