Almost immediately after leaving Red Lodge, the Rock Creek canyons narrows and the hoodoos begin to show up. Too, I notice that from this year′s heavy winter snow fall, that despite it being mid-July, the creek is still at spring flood stage making it look more like a raging river than a small creek.

Here, the foothills to the Beartooth range begin to rise.

I continue alone the highway and notice too that the evergreens are becoming just as plentiful as are the hardwoods making me think that this will be an ever so short Woodlands path.

The primary reason for the quick change from hardwoods to evergreen trees is the elevation was already quite high and now is increasing evermore rapidly.

In no time, the woodland trees which many call the hardwoods are only at the edges of the forest, and the evergreen trees are now reaching upwards to the rising peaks on both sides of the creek