Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

MONTANA STATE PARK OF THE WEEK Yellowstone River State Park

This week's featured state park is Yellowstone River State Park in Southeast Montana.

Yellowstone River State Park is just over 200 acres of what used to be the Circle R Ranch, which FWP purchased in 2008. Sandstone bluffs, pasturelands, and groves of cottonwood trees surround this unique park.

Unlike many state parks across Montana, you won't find many amenities or visitor information kiosks. This undeveloped park is adjacent to Wildlife Management Areas and BLM property, allowing users to experience solitude and quiet only miles from Montana's largest city, Billings.

The Yellowstone is the last free-flowing river in the lower 48 states. From its headwaters in Lake Yellowstone downstream 670 miles to the Missouri River in North Dakota, the Yellowstone River flows as it has for centuries, in its natural state, undammed and untamed.

Clear, cool, swift, and challenging, it offers anglers and river runners some of the best water Montana offers.

Its blue-ribbon waters are known world round to anglers for an abundance of big trout as it flows through Montana, the big river changes - from steep-walled canyons where boulders churn its green waters to the eastern part of the state where the river broadens to take a lazy path through fertile farm country.

Gravel along the river from Custer to Sidney often yields Montana agates (inquire locally or through the Custer Country tourism region for guide services or rockhounding tips).

Fishing and floating are two other favorite activities on the Yellowstone. Badlands scenery is abundant in Terry or Makoshika State Park (in Glendive, MT), where you can drive to view impressive rock formations.

To follow the Yellowstone River, drive on I-90 until the junction with I-94 just east of Billings, then follow I-94 east. There are many communities and points of access to the river along this route. Continue on I-90 east if you want to make a side trip to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument just southeast of Hardin off I-90.

The site contains 3,976 deeded acres and 5 miles of wooded Yellowstone River shoreline. The acquisition also secured for public use of 5,450 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and state land that had been difficult to access. Currently undeveloped, the park provides an ideal spot for hiking the day away. Sandstone bluffs overlook the Yellowstone River while deep canyons and ponderosa pine-lined coulees dot the landscape.

 

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