I first drove this road with George back in 1979 in a Datsun B210 station wagon. As I recall, much of the road was gravel and it took many hours and cattle guards to get into and then out of Sunlight Basin. Sometime in the 1990s, the new road got built, making it a little easier to get through here. It's still an amazing drive and an equally amazing place and it would be the finest mountain road around if the even more amazing Beartooth Highway wasn't just around the corner to the north!
Sunlight Basin is on the Clarks Fork River (not to be confused with the Clark Fork in western Montana). Clark got around. So did the Nez Perce, who came through here, and this road is now aptly called the the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. The road cuts from near Heart Mountain north of Cody up toward the northeastern corner of Yellowstone Park. It's a great route into the Park, or you can take the right hand turn and head to Red Lodge, Montana, the way we did.
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