Highway 212

IMG_0586.JPG, originally uploaded by IlliniJester.

The temps were now below freezing...the sun was going down fast...there were more and more twists appearing on our road...our elevation was climbing fast into the 8000 ft+ range and to top it all off, it started snowing. it got so bad that our high beams did not help because of the snow flowing towards us which reflected the light back at us. There were also a lot of small bridges in the turns along the mountains that were starting to ice up. But we wanted to get out of Yellowstone and at least reach I90 before the end of the day. But Nature had a different plan and stopped us way short of I90.

It turned out that the final very large portion of the road ended up being closed altogether and we had to backtrack to find a small town we had passed up about 20 minutes back. But the road conditions worsened even more and by this time we were in the lowest gear to help engine brake as Pawan tried maneuvering the curves of the road downhill alongside the mountain back to the town...