- Distance: 79.0 Miles (127.14 km)
- Rating: 3-A, Recently repaved for a pristine road condition, the road varies from gentle sweeping corners with a few gloriously technical turns with precipitous drop-offs Ratings Explained »
- Travel: West to East for best results
- Start: Junction with Grand Loop Road
- End: Cody, Wyoming
- Fuel: The East Entrance visitor center near Fishing Bridge and Cody, Wy
- Along the Way: Skirting the northern edge of Yellowstone Lake is great, and the views past Buffalo Bill Reservoir as you head into Cody are great! Two bonus points to anyone who can tell us what the crazy building on the hill in Wapiti is.
- Highlights: For whatever reason, this area of Yellowstone is a lot less popular, meaning there is a lot less traffic. Combine that with new asphalt, phenomenal turning opportunities and just about everything about this road becomes a highlight.
- Advisories: Part of this road is inside Yellowstone National Park, be on the lookout for wildlife, free-ranging children and Park Rangers with itchy radar-gun fingers. Mountainous terrain can mean unexpected changes in weather at any time, unexpectedly.
View Larger Map of Sylvan Pass
Summary
Leaving the Fishing Bridge/Visitor Center, you ride down a narrow path between dense vegetation before coming right up to the northern edge of Yellowstone Lake. The road will dip and swoon along the meanderings of the shoreline before beginning its ascent towards Sylvan Pass.
The road will turn directly east and then begin its climb in earnest and you'll find yourself back into the trees. Near the top you'll find yourself in a narrow canyon with nothing but gray shale rock and a corner/bridge they call the "corkscrew" (are you interested yet?). The decent gets even better as the road hangs to a steep side-hill and carries you downhill via an endless supply of fast-kicking corners. Once outside the boundaries of the part, the road mellows into type-2 sweeping corners with only a smattering of tight corners to keep you on your toes.
A few straight sections will mellow things out before you arrive at Buffalo Bill State Park and Reservoir where you'll be entertained by a massive mountain peak coming up impossibly at the east end of the lake. One final descent through a long tunnel will deposit you back in civilization, Wyoming style. Cody, Wyoming offers lots of lodging and the best western museum in the nation.
Do you have a better photograph of this Road?
If you do, email us your photograph and if we use it, you could win the Ultimate Collectors Edition of Faster, Faster and Faster and The Doctor, the Tornado and The Kentucky Kid a $40 value that has the Directors Cut of all three movies, remastered in 5.1 digital surround sound! More than seven hours of content!
Email photos to contest at canyonchasers.net with the name of the road in the subject line. (Or just click on that link and we'll fill in the subject line for you.)
Rate This Road
Have you ridden this road? How would you rate it? With one star meaning you thought this was a super-lame road with very little value, to five stars meaning that you felt like this was the mother of all roads - a road by which other roads should be judged.
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Ratings Explained
The CanyonChasers road rating is two parts. The first part, numbers 1 through 5, describe how technical the road is, with number 1 being a gently sweeping road and number five being very technical with challenging corners. The second part of the rating is a letter, A, B, C, D and F. The letter describes the quality of the road surface with A being perfect, pristine smooth and F being degraded, bumpy and crumbly. Rolling joints, tar-stips or "gummy worms" will drop the road one letter grade.
This road information is for planning and recreational purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, or other events may cause road conditions to differ from the CanyonChasers ratings. Ratings may not be applicable to all riders, all bikes and all skill levels.