When the Beartooth Pass Closes, Red Lodge Brings Out the Plows: The Road From Halloween to the Blade Parade

At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 9, the gates on U.S. 212 above town are scheduled to close for the rest of 2026. That is three days earlier than the October 12 date Yellowstone National Park had projected. Unofficial Networks reported on October 7 that the early closure was a response to incoming severe weather. The National Weather Service in Billings forecast rain and snow starting Saturday night, more snow showers Sunday, and a chance of snow into Monday, with temperatures falling sharply after an unusually warm start to October.

For eight weeks after that, Red Lodge runs on the same thing that shut the pass. Snow decides when Beartooth Pass closes at 10,947 feet. Snow decides whether the lifts on Grizzly Peak start turning the day after Thanksgiving. And the holiday season officially opens on Broadway with a parade of machines built to push snow. The stretch between the highway gate and the Blade Parade follows one storm system after another, and this year the first storm came early.

The pass closed ahead of its own projection

The Montana Department of Transportation describes the Beartooth Highway's usual season as Memorial Day weekend through mid-October, weather permitting. The National Park Service road page listed the 2026 season as May 22 through October 12, with the closing date subject to weather. The reported October 9 closure falls inside that "weather permitting" margin. The road to Cooke City and Yellowstone's Northeast Entrance is closing on the weather's schedule, not the calendar's.

Construction won't be a factor in town anytime soon. Carbon County News reports that the U.S. 212 Robinson-to-Two-Mile project, 1.5 miles from south of Robinson Lane to north of Two Mile Bridge Road, is tentatively scheduled for 2028. The separate Red Lodge-to-Roberts project is on hold for lack of funding and has no construction start date. So the drive north toward Billings this winter should look the same as last winter's.

Halloween comes first, spread across three venues

The first event after the pass closes is Halloween, and the town spreads it over several days and several organizers. Here is what's on the calendar so far:

The town's own Halloween listing still showed the broader October 31 schedule as pending, with an end time literally printed as question marks. The Rotary hours are confirmed. Check back for anything else.

The Dead Lodge Boo Bash already looks like what comes in December. It's trick-or-treating from decorated vehicles, with candy handed out from tailgates and truck beds instead of front porches. Five weeks later, the same idea moves to Broadway with snow blades attached.

November belongs to the museum and the mountain

The Carbon County Historical Society & Museum events page lists one fixed date in the middle of the month. Jeff McNeish will speak on the Smith Mine Disaster on Thursday, November 12, at 5 p.m. as part of the museum's Speaker Series. It's the quietest entry on the fall calendar, and it falls in the weeks when the highway is closed and the lifts aren't running yet.

The next big date is set by snow. Red Lodge Mountain's mountain info page, updated October 5, lists opening day as Friday, November 27. That's the day after Thanksgiving. The planned operating schedule still reads "TBA." Last season, the resort's Opening Day listing marked December 5, 2025, as the first day of its 66th ski-and-ride season. The 2026 target is eight days earlier on the calendar. It also lands a week before the Christmas Stroll instead of on the same weekend.

Snowmaking won't close much of that gap. The resort says its snowmaking covers 28 percent of trails. The rest of the 1,635 acres and 70 runs, served by six chairlifts and two surface lifts, depends on natural snowfall. The newest chair is still the Stache Express, installed in summer 2023. The trail map hasn't changed much, so whether the November 27 date holds will depend on storms like the one that closed the pass.

For locals still deciding on a pass, the 2026-27 season pass page lists these prices:

• Adult, 25 to 69: $929
• Young Adult, 19 to 24: $509
• Teen, 13 to 18: $509
• Child, 6 to 12: $339
• Senior, 70 and over: $449
• Age 5 and under: $20

Pricing age is set as of November 15, 2026, so a birthday between that date and opening day on November 27 doesn't change which tier applies. This year's passes also come with new partner days, two free days at Kelly Canyon and three at Monarch Mountain. The early-season $39 lift-ticket vouchers for friends and family only applied to passes bought by April 30, 2026. Holders can use them through January 31, 2027. The resort says it will keep normal operating hours on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's.

Then the plows come down Broadway

The Red Lodge Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors the Christmas Stroll every year on the first weekend of December. This year it runs December 4 and 5. The parade that kicks it off grew out of winter itself. In a Billings Gazette feature written around a 2016 Stroll, longtime organizer Kathy Robson described how it started:

"This parade started as an event featuring anything that can push snow. Still, plow trucks are decorated. One (may have) an inflatable Grinch, another with St. Bernards. But, really, anything that can push snow."

The Gazette said then that Red Lodge had been hosting Christmas festivities for more than 25 years. The parade had already grown to include wagons, musicians, farm machinery and animals. The 2026 rules still center on the blade. Prizes go to decorated vehicles and people "equipped with snow removing blades," and anyone who wants to enter should meet at the library at 5:15 p.m. The parade heads south from the library, "rolling, plowing and shoveling" as it goes. Carbon County News once covered a Stroll that included a wedding officiated by the city judge.

Here is the Chamber's tentative Friday, December 4 schedule, in order:

1. 3 p.m.: Children's Christmas Story Time at Beartooth Books
2. 4 p.m.: All cars off Broadway from 8th to 14th Street
3. 5:30 p.m.: Community Lantern Walk down Broadway, starting in front of the library
4. 6 p.m.: The Blade Parade heads south from the library
5. 6 to 8 p.m.: The Alte Kameraden Band at the Carbon County Steakhouse
6. 6 to 7:30 p.m.: Red Lodge dancers posing in the windows of Red Lodge Drug
7. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.: Horse-drawn wagon rides, and Santa at the Beartooth Elks, 114 N. Broadway
8. 6:30 p.m.: Absaroka Mountain Thunder cloggers on the corner of 11th and Broadway

Saturday, December 5 repeats the 3 p.m. story time and the 4 p.m. street clearing. The Stroll begins at 5 p.m., the Blade Parade rolls again at 6, and Santa arrives downtown on the horse-drawn wagon at 6. The Red Lodge Dancers perform at the Red Lodge School of Dance at 6:15, and wagon rides and Santa's hours at the Elks run from 6:30 to 8:30.

The Stroll listing gives two different sets of start times. Its description says the parade starts at 5 p.m. and lantern walkers should gather at 5:15. The timed schedule, which is marked tentative, puts the walk at 5:30 and the parade at 6. Either way, Broadway closes to cars at 4. Downtown shops stay open until about 9 p.m. both nights.

If Red Lodge Mountain opens on November 27, the Stroll will be its second weekend of the season. The Chamber's own tagline for the weekend is "Ski, Stroll, & Stay the night."

I've spent years watching how a Carbon County winter shapes life on a property, from when the high country closes to which roads and drives need a blade before anything else happens. If you own acreage around Red Lodge and want to understand how that seasonal rhythm figures into its value, Stacie Wells is glad to walk through it with you. Request a Confidential Valuation whenever the timing suits you.