From Seattle to Yellowstone

[aisic]

Hi all,
We (parents + 10 year old boy) will be visiting in Seattle this July. We're booked for a cruise to Alaska and when it ends back in Seattle, we want stay and spend a day or two in Seattle and then drive our minivan all the way to Yellowstone N.P. via scenic routes. We have allocated 4 full days to the trip from Seattle to Yellowstone and would like to get the most out of these days. We've checked the maps and read a bit but can't decide which routes will be best. Please suggest a sensible scenic route and best places to stop in between.

[glc]

Welcome!

Here's one suggestion - take US-2 to Glacier NP and spend a day there. If you leave via the east entrance on the Going to the Sun Highway, you could take US-89 and US-287 to I-90 to US-191 to go to Yellowstone.

[Foy]

.........you could stay on I-15 to Butte and see one of the largest holes in the earth (Berkley Pit mine) and the Butte Mining Museum, then pick up I-90 to the east.

If you go past Bozeman, Livingston, Big Timber, and Columbus on I-90, you can visit Red Lodge at the base of the Beartooth Highway and take it into Yellowstone's more remote and less crowded Northeast Entrance. The Beartooth Highway rivals Going-to-the-Sun road for breathtaking alpine scenery.

On the return trip you can exit at West Yellowstone, MT, and from there see Quake Lake (where a 1959 earthquake brought down a mountainside and formed a lake), pass through Ennis to Virginia City (gold mining town, nicely restored), thence through Dillon to the Big Hole Valley, an absolutely spectacular place. Exiting the Big Hole at Wisdom provides an opportunity to see the Big Hole National Battlefield before dropping down from Lost Trail Pass into the Bitterroot Valley, where US 93 takes you back to Missoula and I-90. This entire "southern route" back to I-90 definitely qualifies as "the road less traveled" but is scenic in every way.

Have fun planning and taking your RoadTrip!

Foy

[aisic]

Thanks guys! We would definitely shoot for Glacier. At first we were thinking of driving to Yellowstone through some scenic routes in the southern part of WA and through Idaho.
Visiting the Butte Mining Museum seems like an excellent choice for our son.
Thanks again,

Ilan