Continuing my drive along the Cloud Peak Skyway National Scenic Byway heading west towards Yellowstone and have reached the highest point on US-16 at Powder River Pass (sometimes shown on the maps as Powder River Interpretive Site or Powder River Pass Summit). There are some remnants of snow on the road apron which I assume are from the plow trucks – possibly the earliest I have seen snow in a calendar year in my life though I’m sure a few flurries have flown in Wisconsin before the start of October.
I think there were some informational signs but I didn’t get photos; instead I have just one mediocre attempt at showing how the other surrounding peaks along the road just drop off across the sky. At lower elevations it was rather warm and pleasant; up here, temperatures did drop quite sharply though it is still a sunny day and feels more like summer than fall.
This is one road I am definitely glad to drive in fair conditions, much less stress than in winter. One last image of the drive down the canyon as I head further along my journey.
Author’s note: I am revisiting old posts from my 2016 road trip because I posted all of them from my cell phone and some of them are a bit of a mess. Main reason is to properly edit photos rather than just having what came out of my phone camera, and to include higher res photos from my mirrorless camera that never got published. Additionally some of the locations on the Geomap are wrong or often have multiple locations in a single post. OG text should be captured in a summary field when available.
Text from the original post in 2016
No original text - this is a new post of old content that was jumbled together and now I'm splitting apart for specific unique locations.
Lat = 44.1500092 , Long = -107.0803299 -- Show at Google Maps