Beartooth Highway Backcountry — Index Peak to Clay Butte Overlook

Most people drive US-212 across the Beartooth Plateau and never leave the pavement — their loss. The Forest Road network threading off the highway’s Wyoming side near Index Peak and the Clay Butte Fire Lookout spur delivers genuine high-country overland terrain at nearly 11,000 feet. The Clay Butte Road (USFS Road 130) is a rough 3-mile dirt climb with steep switchbacks and loose shale that ends at a 1942 fire lookout you can actually rent. Around Index Peak, the terrain opens onto the Clarks Fork Yellowstone drainage — a sprawling high-tundra plateau where grizzly bears graze open meadows and the wind never quite stops. Camp anywhere above treeline on the Shoshone National Forest side and you’ll wake up surrounded by the largest above-timberline landscape outside Alaska.

The spurs themselves aren’t technically brutal — a stock high-clearance 4WD handles them — but altitude, weather, and isolation are the real factors. Afternoon thunderstorms roll in fast above 10,000 feet and the road gets greasy quick. The Beartooth Highway is open roughly Memorial Day through mid-October, but the backcountry spurs may hold snow well into July. No permit required. Nearest fuel is Cooke City or Red Lodge, Montana. Cell service is essentially zero up here. If you’re heading in, a satellite communicator isn’t optional — it’s mandatory.